Reply #59: yes, but that was kinda my point

[iverglas]

It is a church holding my history (the public's history) hostage.

I *chose* to go to evensong at Salisbury -- for my own reasons,the music, architecture and family connection, which were not incompatible with a church service; I had other opportunities to explore the cathedral without religion bothering me or vice versa. And Sunday service in Wellingborough for the same reasons (sadly, the incense smoked me right out halfway through, true but still a good excuse); and Sunday service in Bath for the heck of it. The fact is that religion *is* an integral part of a culture, just as the MP jokes the comic who did the walking tour of Bath told the night before are (always read the papers when you travel; you'll get the jokes that none of the other tourists do), and religion is particularly integrated in the case of English history/culture. I chose to go on his walking tour so I didn't talk when he was talking, and ditto for the church services.

But I went to Westminster for the history, not the religion. I wouldn't have wandered in to an actual service and got pissed about the interference: you're right, it is a functioning church, and that is a factual part of the church/history integration.

But the lord's prayer over a loudspeaker every hour on the hour, and stand still and shut up? Gimme a break, really. We were told it was to "remind" us that this was a church. And that, to me, really is just holding history hostage.

And the fact is that Westminster IS a museum, as well as being a church. Not an "art museum", an historical museum. It holds a warehouseful, a millennium's worth, of unique artefacts that are vital to any study / appreciation of English history and culture. And graves of poets and monarchs are graves, not relics.

And a church that is in possession of that much history of such importance simply doesn't, in my rather well-reasoned opinion, get to place its arbitrary conditions on the public having access to it. I won't interfere in their religious practices, they don't interfere in my cultural/historical experience. Seems fair to me.