Once More From Cambridge

Another warm day here in England.  I think it might actually get up to 80 F. or so.  There's not much to report, but a few observations come to mind. 

One is about the church where most of our meetings take place.  Greater St. Mary's is about a mile from the college where we're staying.  It's right in the middle of Cambridge, just across the road from King's College (the academic heart of the university).  The church has its own long history.  There's a hanging on one wall listing all the vicars (senior pastors) who have served the congregation.  I counted; there have been 84.  The first began his tenure in 1206.  The building where we're worshiping dates back to the late 1400s. 

However, the best-known theologian who is associated with the building was not its vicar.  His name was Martin Bucer.  Bucer played a major role in the Reformation in Europe, in the 1500s.  He is especially remembered for trying to forge unity between the Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli and the German Reformer Martin Luther.  He chaired an important meeting at which Luther and Zwingli were personally present.  After discussion, the two men reached agreement on 13 of the 14 items on the agenda.  Their sole remaining difference had to do with the Lord's Supper.  Zwingli argued that Communion is simply a remembrance of Christ's death.  Luther, whose position was much closer to that of the Roman Catholic Church, believed that Christ is actually present in the Supper.  They could not bridge this divide; thus the chance for unity among two major branches of the Reformation was scuttled. 

Like many other Reformers, Bucer was eventually forced into exile.  He chose to go to England, where he became a theology professor here in Cambridge (by this time, Henry VIII had established the Church of England).  Bucer attended Greater St. Mary's and was buried there when he died.  But his struggles continued even in death.  Queen Mary, who briefly brought England back into the Roman Catholic Church, arranged for Bucer's body to be removed from its grave and burned.  As far as she was concerned, no Reformer was going to be buried in Cambridge's main church!  After she died, and after England had securely established the Anglican Church, Bucer's ashes were reinterred in Greater St. Mary's, where they remain to this day.

So Cambridge has some great history.  But it's also a very up-to-date place.  I wandering down a street near the church this morning and ran across a theater (where they show plays, not movies).  A play is scheduled for later in the month whose lead performer will be Ian McKellen (Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, you may recall).  There aren't many small college towns where you could see that caliber of actor.  But after awhile those sorts of things start to seem ordinary.  It's just a different world and you get used to inhabiting it.

But not for much longer!  Tomorrow morning we leave Oxford.  We'll spend the night at a missionary center/hotel in London.  Then Friday we go to Heathrow Airport to begin our odyssey across the Atlantic and then across the U.S.