Socialism and pacifism in a bombed city.

My Mum and Dad didn't have many photos in the house.  There was only one small black and white framed photograph on the mantelpiece in the living room; of Revd Hugh Ingli James.

Ingli James had made a profound impression on them as minister of Queen's Road Baptist Church, Coventry 1931-43.  They were both young people and then members there.  Ingli James was, by all accounts, a powerful preacher, reflecting his Welsh roots - a passionate advocate for Jesus Christ.

He was an unashamed socialist and a pacifist.  He wasn't a Christian and a socialist and pacifist.  The two were an inexorable consequence of  faith in Jesus Christ.  The first might have raised eyebrows among some.  The second was a controversial in a city ripped apart by bombing.  He challenged people to see that their faith in Christ had to work out in social justice and that narrow patriotism with its consequence, war, should be renounced.  During the Depression, the church opened a centre for the unemployed and engaged in political campaigns.  Several members became conscientious objectors when conscription was introduced.  However, he faithfully wrote to those who, willingly or unwillingly, enlisted and found themselves in hard places.

Ingli James was not alone in his sentiments in Coventry.  Three days after Coventry cathedral was destroyed by bombing on 14 November 1940, two charred timbers were lashed together to form a cross, three medieval roof nails were joined to form a cross and on the wall was written "Father forgive".

We still need such as him.