There's only one thing worse than a dull sermon and that's a bossy vicar

It was the fictional Reverend Henry Kane, in Poltergeist II, who, until this point, took the prize for scariest vicar. Kane terrorises kids, his skeletal face, terrible teeth and phoney friendliness chilling all to the bone. But then I came across real-life Rev Janine Arnott, rector of St Oswald's Church in Malpas, Cheshire. She wears a large black t-shirt emblazoned in multi-coloured letters with the word, in capitals, 'BELIEVE'. I think it's an order.
And judging from reports seeping out of her parish, if you're one of her congregation, you'd best buckle up and believe. In quite what, who knows? One might assume it's in the Almighty, in the Eucharist, or in the power of prayer. Or indeed in, perhaps, her fervent wish that the church loos need fixing.
But what is clear is that belief is also firmly demanded in her. Her way of doing things, of running services and to such an extent that parishioners have accused her of 'dictatorial' leadership and which has led to a mass exodus from the village church. Dig deeper, and there are poison pen letters, anonymous flyers left on the windscreens of cars and mutterings of witchcraft.
The goings-on have rather rattled the 1,500 inhabitants of Malpas in Cheshire. Although perhaps it was inevitable that one day something terrible might occur in a village whose name translates from Old French rather awkwardly as 'bad passage'.
Now, the village chat is focused on the shenanigans of Rev Janine, particularly her run-ins with the now-disbanded choir. A choir which, during a service of Eucharist in February, took it upon themselves to sing the Sanctus in Latin.
This, churchgoers will know, is the bit when the congregation usually chimes in with 'Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth are filled with etc etc.' When there's a proper choir, those folks lead the way.
And thus it was at St Oswald's when the choir blasted out the Sanctus in Latin trilling: 'Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua, etc, etc.' And jolly wonderful that must have sounded too in that most beautifully pointless of languages.
Although not to the vicar who, allegedly, 'went ballistic' after the service and 'tore strips' off the choir. She didn't appreciate the Latin because, it was reported, she felt it was against canon law and took her revenge by banning the choir from singing anything other than her own approved hymns during the subsequent Lent period. The final straw came during the May VE Day celebrations when Rev Janine allegedly refused to let the choir sing I Vow to Thee My Country in the churchyard.
The choir resigned en masse, and the regular congregation of 60 suddenly became about 10. Diana Webber, a 74-year-old member of the church, joined others who criticised the Rev's 'authoritarian' rule and said: 'She had this awful, autocratic hostility towards people'. Others claim they regularly saw the rector 'storming up and down the church', could get so angry that you could 'see her skirt trembling', and many of the congregation were frequently reduced to tears.
This conflagration of tempers and weeping is not quite what one expects from what was named this year as one of the best places to live in the UK.
The parochial church council (PCC) voted overwhelmingly at a recent meeting in a vote of no confidence against Rev Janine. Alas, the Bishop of Chester, Mark Tanner, has failed to quell the trouble, although the C of E's legal team did dispatch a missive criticising the PCC, singling out 'the inference that your lawfully appointed incumbent is akin to a witch'.
This came after the chief bellringer was allegedly removed from his post and the church bell tower was barricaded with 'broomsticks'.
Rev Janine took over as rector in 2022 and, as I write, is still in her post. But then, she does seem to be performing the Church of England's unwritten instruction to vicars, which is to empty churches.
If there's a tuneless hymn that no one knows, you'll have to sing it. If there's a non-theological subject for a sermon that can be aimed not at the adults but at the children who aren't listening, they'll preach it. If they can, they'll abandon a short traditional Matins service from the 1662 version of the Book of Common Prayer and replace it with a scattering of badly photocopied paper covered with adverts for some aberration called Messy Church. And, better still, in the name of accessibility, they'll rip out all of the ancient pew seats and replace them with stackable chairs and a cheap carpet.
Not that our new vicar is doing anything but an exemplary job, I should add, and he has, I hope, now realised that his modern version of 'Our Father' was outgunned by our trad version as our increasingly loud saying of 'thy' resolutely drowned out his 'your'.
In this era of non-belief and non-attendance, vicars need PR skills, not the attitude of an oppressive head teacher. It's their job, rather, to keep the eggs warm than to rule the roost. But with dwindling congregations, very little money by way of stipends and (having sold off all the nice rectories), the prospect of rather miserable accommodation, is it any wonder that most applicants for the job of C of E Rev are mad, bad or indifferent?
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