The president of the Methodist Church, the Rev Ken Todd, has rejected sections of the Planning Act 2000 covering church interiors, and has urged the Government not to implement them. The proposed architectural guidelines for planning authorities were "an intrusive trespass into the property of worshipping communities who are not public bodies, and we reject them", he said.
They "greatly threaten the existence of churches striving to communicate the Gospel and be relevant," he said.
Sections of part IV of the Act, was going to have "a dramatic long-term effect" on the future of places of worship, he said. "We, as Methodists, with other churches have noted with dismay the contents of the architectural guidelines for planning authorities as they relate to church buildings," he said.
The dispute was not about the outside of church buildings, he said. "By and large churches are the most heritage-minded of all communities in the country. We support planning laws for the outside of church buildings and always have done," he said. What they rejected was "interference with the inside of church premises," he said.
"Who would demand Arnotts Stores to have little cash tubes delivering and returning receipts at the pull of a string as they had 50 years ago?" Ministers and clergy and all Christians are called to be carers "not curators" because churches were mission stations, not museums, he said.
The new guidelines say that the inside of churches may only be changed for liturgical reasons, "but it seems that the planning authorities will determine for the church communities whether these liturgical purposes are justified. Is this reasonable?" he asked. "The architectural guidelines put strangers in the driving seat of our churches and they are driving the church backwards," he said.
"Are they better able than the resident believers to determine the best arrangement for the church furniture, or the proper colour of the paint on the walls, or the placing of a plaque?"
Churches were struggling to be faithful to the Gospel imperative and needed to modify their buildings constantly to contemporary spiritual aspirations and social standards, he said. The alternative was to close them.
"We value the past but do not ossify the present. Since most churches are cross-Border institutions, why is there not cross-Border co-operation in this matter? The Northern Ireland planners and the churches have workable planning guidelines for the mutual benefit of heritage concerns, and the spiritual development of pilgrim church communities," he said.
