HANOVER - Robbie Worship II - The Freaky Church Remix

NOTE: Robbie Worship is such a significant blogging event that I feel the need to split it into two categories. This one is Robbie Worship: The Freaky Church Remix. If you're one of those people who likes your blogs on the intellectually shaky, churchy side then this is the place for you. If you, however, are scared by such things (and I can't say that I blame you) and want to hear about Robbie Worship from a travel blog "what a crazy day" kind of viewpoint then simply scroll up to Robbie Worship: The Serendipity Mix where normal service shall be resumed. I apologise for the multiple blogs on the same topic. But, then, there is nothing in the world quite like Robbie Worship.

Picture the scene... It's Thursday evening, it's Germany and you're going to church. You're a little late but that's okay; it's a large building with a smiling sides person (note: I find this such a random job description seeing as most of the work these poor souls have to do is based around the back of the building. Anyho.) You manage to slip into the back rows of the place roughly un-noticed, and just as the preamble is coming to a close.

The guy up front isn't dressed like a priest. He's not even dressed like your usual charasmatic evangelical. He's got a black and white suit on which screams cruise ship entertainment host... Something in the back of your head is buzzing but you decide to ignore it. After all: this is contemporary church. It's cutting edge. Things are meant to look a little different and less imposing. To drive home the point, the place is darkened and a projector is lighting up a section to the right of the altar. A swanky Powerpoint presentation cannot be far away. Indeed, cruise ship man is reaching the point in his spiel which calls for illustration. He goes for his little button. The screen lights up. And staring back at you is the face of your spiritual leader, whose hair is legendary and whose chosen words you can quote like any well learnt lesson... It's the warm, smiling face... Of Robbie Williams.

Welcome to Robbie Williams worship. The strangest church service of your life.

Okay, so I'm really into cultural relevancy in the Church. i.e. the idea that modern music/film/TV/books etc. are useful products of discussion by people of faith because artists often create media which functions as expressions (unconcious or not) of spiritual themes. And which allow us, the readers, to have our own encounters as a result.

It's a bit of a pre-occupation with me: My only current contribution to world literature, for example, is an examination of TV's Angel and I spend too many hours of my working week skulking around the forums of Damaris and the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. So the prospect of a Robbie Williams themed Kirchentag event didn't strike me as particularly revolutionary. Just a bit of a chat about how the Robster's lyrics, although pop glossed to the point of nausea, are often quite touching and/or even moving. And, of course, it'd all be in German. Therefore: a trifle dull... Oh contrare.

You see, what I'd never realised from this particular area of Christian studies is that it is possible to get it really, really wrong. You set out to do something cutting edge and insightful but really you end up with a big ol' mess. Rather than engage with Robbie, Robbie Worship basically aimed to offer us Robbie as worship in and of itself. Robbie's lyrics were read to us like the Gospel. Robbie's songs were sung by a congregation led by a band as devoted and practiced as any worship band (this blogger even noticed moments of "eyes closed reverance" from the lead singer)

Here's the problem with Robbie Worship on a basic level: it assumes that spirituality is inherent in all art. And that artforms are there to be decoded for their one basic meaning. Crack the code, tell your audience about it and they will get the spiritual experience. They will get Robbie.

This, as any A-Level English Lit. student could tell you, is a critical viewpoint which was put to death over half a century ago. Texts, you see, don't contain spiritual meaning. They are just texts. They may have been written from a certain viewpoint and can be rather unsubtle in nature, but they do not have inherent meaning in and of themselves. Texts only achieve meaning when they are received That is, after all, the joy of reading a book or hearing music. Not finding out what the author was thinking, but having your own thoughts provoked. Forming your own ideas and, crucially, having a true meeting between the text and the Spirit. Good Christian examinations of contemporary culture (like good literary criticism) encourage us the consumers to do just that. In the same way that a truly great sermon doesn't tell you what a Biblical passage means, but prompts you with ideas that allow you to have your own experience with the passage.

This, of course, prompts a discussion about Biblical studies and whether or not it fits into this same 'no meaning without readership' theory. Which is an intense theological discussion all of it's own... And that's the reason I don't write freaky church blog very much. As a wise spiritual person once said: It speaks a language which I don't understand.

Here endeth the freaky church section of this blog. Normal service is now resumed.