wfn.org | English Chapel Has New Home

[George Conklin <gconklin@igc.apc.org>]

"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3255 notes).

Note 3255 by UMNS on Oct. 24, 1996 at 16:14 Eastern (5620 characters).

SEARCH: Thatcher, chapel, Methodist, university, Kansas,
convocation, dedication
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

CONTACT: Linda Green                            541(10-71BP){3255}
         Nashville, Tenn. (615) 742-5470             Oct. 24, 1996

EDITORS NOTE: Photos available.

Prime Minister rededicates English Methodist chapel 
at United Methodist-related university in Kansas 

     BALDWIN CITY, Kan. (UMNS) -- Former British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher visited United Methodist-related Baker
University, here, Oct. 23 to rededicate a 19th century English
Methodist Chapel in which her lay minister father preached.
     Thatcher was also the speaker for the university's annual
Loreine C. Dietrich Distinguished Lectureship series.
     The 132-year old chapel had been abandoned since 1988 in the
English village of Sproxton (pronounced SPROSE-ton), located 100
miles north of London. It was relocated to the Baker campus here
this summer, through the generosity of Olathe, Kan., banker and
philanthropist R.R. Osborne. 
     Renamed the Clarice L. Osborne Memorial Chapel, in honor of
Osborne's late wife, it links the early Methodist movement that
began in England with 138-year-old Baker University that was
founded by Methodist ministers in 1858 before Kansas gained
statehood.
     "Institutions that have the greatest impact on society are
those that take care to express their principal values in
powerfully symbolic ways," Baker President Daniel M. Lambert said.
"This is a remarkable instance of a vision shared across many
years and a great distance; a coming together of a common
religious bond that connects the people of the Kansas prairie with
those of Oxford University where Methodism, one of the oldest
Protestant traditions, had its beginning."   
     When Lambert became president of Baker eight years ago, he
was dismayed that there was no place of worship on campus. He
asked Dean Bevan, a faculty member who was in England, to look for
a building that might be used as a worship facility at Baker. The
chapel was found near Grantham, home of Harlaxton College where
Baker students participate in an international study program.
     Grantham is also Thatcher's hometown. Her father, Alfred
Roberts, a lay minister, had preached at the chapel on several
occasions.
     Before inactivity closed it in 1988, the chapel had an
importance in England's Methodist history. The Sproxton
congregation was formed in 1804 as part of the Grantham circuit,
one of the oldest in the Methodist tradition. The congregation had
worship services in members' homes for 60 years until they raised
enough money to build their church. Once it was built, the
congregation grew to 34 members. Families moving from the
community and decreasing participation in the church, led
eventually to its being closed.
     Bevan noted that the chapel's architectural design
complemented three historic buildings on Baker's campus.
     With support of Sproxton villagers and British Methodists,
Baker University began the process of moving the building 5,000
miles to the campus last year.  The stones were numbered as they
were dismantled so that they could be fit back together during
reassembly.
     Focusing on the convocation theme, "Tradition Shared,"
Thatcher praised the university to an audience of more than 2,800
people, including students, faculty, trustees, 30 English visitors
from Sproxton and Grantham, and other visitors. One guest, Annie
Stockwell, a longtime member of the Sproxton Methodist
congregation was married in the chapel.
     Thatcher, who was elevated to the House of Lords following
her resignation as Prime Minister in 1990, is now known as the
Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven. 
     In her keynote address, she said, the former English Chapel
has been given new life and now will influence future generations
to worship God, practice truth and good report. 
     Standing outside on a cold but sunny day, Thatcher said, she
was grateful that a piece of England is becoming a piece of Baker
University in America. Although the building's relocation "is
another outward and visible sign of the great bond that unites our
two nations," she found it more personal.
      "My father preached in this church," she said. "Today, I
hope that all who are here will remember the beauty of the day and
the loveliness of this church, the foresight and generosity of
those who built it, the supreme generosity of the person who made
it possible to move the church here, and, by far, the message it
represents."
     In the midst of Thatcher's message, a group of hecklers who
were Irish descendants, called for her to "go home." She referred
to their shouts as musical accompaniment, explaining that "music
means a great deal to the Methodist faith" and "brings many people
to our faith and keeps them with it."
     Earlier in the day, Thatcher, listed problems the religious
community and society needs to address: 
     * loss of the biblical teachings and faith on which America
was founded; 
     * loss of certain freedoms;
     * increase in crime and violence;
     * increase in terrorism; 
     * corruption in government;
     * distortion of truth and the refusal to teach truth in
history;
     * breakdown of the family; 
     * breakdown in the sanctity of marriage; 
     * increase in political correctness; and
     * Affirmative Action, which "is the negation of merit."  
                              #  #  #

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