Charismatic conservative evangelical Tony Cummings reviews the 39th GREENBELT arts festival
FRIDAY, 24th August
12.14am
Opening time
is still hours away but thankfully my Greenbelt experience begins not
with the gruelling tent erecting of Joe Punter nor the B&B/hotel
comforts of many of my colleagues in the Greenbelt Press Office.
Instead, I'm enjoying one of the key Greenbelt pleasures - talking
with old friends. Ruth Saint is the administrator of Greenbelt's
worship team. Her husband Paul, also a GB volunteer, has erected a
tent for me. In the cool night air Ruth and I sit and talk about many
things, one of them being how Switchfoot (one of Ruth's favourites)
aren't making a Greenbelt appearance this year. I point out neither,
for that matter, are Third Day, Toby Mac, Newsboys and Casting Crowns,
four of the biggest selling Christian acts in the world. To this
charismatic conservative evangelical observer it seems Greenbelt has
abandoned such ministry/CCM acts and if such acts are going to make it
to the UK it appears it will be a Soul Survivor or The Big Church Day
Out who will fly them in. Anyway, I'm looking forward to another
Greenbelt. Despite its mistakes and its increasingly unorthodox
theological slant it is THE means by which Cross Rhythms can get to
see and hear Christian music acts working in the mainstream. But there
may not be so many this year. By my calculation there are to be 85
bands and soloists performing at Greenbelt's three main music venues,
Mainstage, the Performance Café and the new outdoor venue, The
Canopy. Of these 85, 23 are known to be Christian. Way too few in my
opinion, particularly when I can easily name 30 excellent UK Christian
bands and soloists who've never been offered a Greenbelt slot.
9.25am
"Didn't you use to be Tony Cummings?" quips Martin Wroe,
a renowned journalist and Greenbelt vice chairman, as he stops me on
my way to the GB reception. Clearly the ZZ Top/Archbishop of
Canterbury-style beard hasn't allowed me to travel completely
incognito.
12.41pm
I tell the young lady at the burger stall that hers was
the best burger I've ever eaten at a fest - and that's a good few!
4.45pm
I sit talking to a gentle Catholic man and his special
needs teenage daughter. She's being allowed to participate in the
children's programme which, like everything else, opens at 5.00pm.
6.45pm
I sit reading my programme and munching an apple. With
this report to write and interviews to do attending anything but music
performances is a no-no. But I can at least see what Greenbelt
attractions I'm missing this year. Lots of talks about Palestine;
Muslim urban artist Mohammed Ali; the Nanny McPhee movie; the nearest
thing Greenbelt have to a theologian - Mr Post Evangelical himself,
Dave Tomlinson; an Egyptian Belly Dancing workshop, A Frank (Skinner)
Conversation; Peter Tatchell talking on Time For Gay Civil Marriage
And Strait Civil Partnerships; and Kate Coleman talking on Leading
Transformatively: The Woman At The Well. Kate is the former president
of the Baptist Union and currently the chair of the Evangelical
Alliance. I remember when Kate was a newly-converted member of the
small Baptist church I attended in the '80s. It was there she preached
her first message. I even prophesied over her afterwards. But no time
for reminiscences or talks, or even belly dancing workshops. I'm off
to catch a bit of The Leisure Society on Mainstage.
7.00pm
Leisure Society are sounding good. One part folk rock,
one part Snow Patrol and with an exceptional female flute player their
sound blows around the grass arena. Only when a shower breaks out does
the crowd thin a bit.
7.40pm
I enjoyed Donald Miller's book but nothing quite prepared
me for this movie, directed by one time Greenbelt Mainstage favourite
Steve Taylor. For me a good film has to draw the watcher in so that he
or she gets emotionally involved in the story line and at the end
leaves thinking on the message every good movie leaves you with. As it
turns out, Blue Like Jazz makes me laugh out loud. And its ending
makes me cry. It utterly avoids the trite clichés of so many
Christian films but neither does it lurch into post evangelical
propaganda. Instead it portrays one man's journey from religious
enculturalism to Christian spirituality with wit and considerable
skill. There is some pointed saterization of evangelical subculture as
the story line traces the misadventures of the main character, Don
(nicely played by Marshall Alman) as he struggles for survival in a
hyper-liberal college in Portland. Blue Like Jazz the movie shows how
an American brand of evangelicalism has sometimes mutated into
something vaguely preposterous and then goes on to show where the
anti-faith rants of professors and rampant hedonism of the students
offer no solutions either. Blue Like Jazz is not without its flaws.
Its Kickstarter low budget origins occasionally show through and in
one scene I could have done without a couple of the swear words. But
Blue Like Jazz never ceases to involve the audience. The Greenbelt
audience who pack into the Film venue clearly love it too. I have to
dash off at the end to catch Bruce Cockburn on Mainstage.
9.23pm
Bruce Cockburn is his usual magnificent self. Having
interviewed the dear man only five hours previously I know that his
and my theology are miles apart. But as a consummate musician able to
mesmerise Mainstage all by himself, a guitar and an FX unit he still
demonstrates his jaw-dropping ability to sound like three guitarists
all by himself while his songs, pinpointing the cruelties and
injustices of our world, hit home with the power of the prophet. Long
may he "sound off" (to use his own phrase).
11.25pm
I stand at the door of the Big Top gazing at an
extraordinary sight. In front of me a throng of dancers are showing
off their best dancefloor moves. But I can hear no music. This is
Silent Disco with two DJs going head-to-head and the dancers selecting
their headset channel from either a lady deejay playing pop dance (I
am later reliably informed) or a world music/funk set from an old
mate, journalist and occasional Cross Rhythms contributor George Luke.
SATURDAY, 25th August
3.04am
I sit in my
tent, with my wind-up penguin-shaped torch (bought for a fiver from
Greenbelt's General Store), reading my NIV and thinking about Bruce
Cockburn and his blithe assertion that he had no problem with his song
"Call It Democracy" and its line about not giving a flying f**k. For
Bruce the instruction to avoid coarse and unclean language you'll find
in the Bible is one of those passages relevant in the culture of Paul
of Tarsus but not applicable in our modern world. I know he's wrong
but in the final minutes of his press conference I never had the
chance to tell him that. And because this genius singer/songwriter
doesn't go to church, he's unlikely to hear a denouncement of his
error from anyone except for one of those hate-filled right wing
Biblebelters who, to this music journalist at least, seem to be as
wrong as Bruce with his theological liberalism. The Bible. Once years
ago I wrote a song about the Bible. It was called "The Book That's
Reading Me". The Scriptures have been a light unto my feet wherever
I've clumsily put them. Put simply, the Bible, all the Bible, is
God-breathed. Over the years I've had informal chats, often at
Greenbelt, with people who've called my attitude to the Bible
"legalistic" or in more recent times "literalist". They've been hard
conversations to conduct in an atmosphere of love. It's not easy to be
gentle and loving when someone's calling you names and it's harder
still when you've come to prayerfully believe that pejorative words
like literalist or fundamentalist truly don't bear any resemblance to
what I believe or how I live my life. It seems to me all this
theological name-calling, whether it emanates from Bruce Cockburn, Pat
Robertson, Martyn Joseph, Dave Tomlinson or thousands more who call
Christians deluded charismaniacs, liberal backsliders or post
evangelical heretics, are continuing to slander the Church. The love
the Bible tells us the Church should have one for another is still
elusively far off. I'm tired now so I'm turning off my penguin torch
to catch some sleep. I want to be up early enough at the Greenbelt
washing troughs before the queues get too long.
8.04am
I'm in search of breakfast but I stop at the structure
confronting me. It is a metal arch covered in netting on which are
attached numerous brightly coloured objects. Clearly one of the
ubiquitous Greenbelt artworks which dot the site. I don't go too
close, my appreciation of modern art is notoriously low and a sign on
the front of the arch reads Welcome To Paradise, which seems
particularly inappropriate considering it is constructed yards from
two large chemical toilet blocks from which the tell tale smell is
already escaping.
10.30am
In the Press Office in an unexpected press conference I
find myself talking to the Rev Richard Coles who in the mid '80s was
once a member of The Communards. The Philadelphia soul music buff in
me wants to tell Richard that The Communards ruined a classic with
their mangling of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes' "Don't Leave Me
This Way". But with time running out I let the charismatic
conservative evangelical in me do the talking. I tell practicing gay
Richard that I believe the Bible when it declares that homosexual
activity is a sin. I hope I have communicated my position with
respect. Certainly, this extremely likeable man certainly communicates
no antagonism back to me.
11.05am
After the Richard Coles press conference a journalist
friends comments, "Well, he's very different from Peter Tatchell. That
guy always seems so ANGRY."
12.33pm
Steve Taylor is an old friend. He's dropped back to the
Press Office and we chat about the wonderful film he's directed, Blue
Like Jazz. We also talk about our wives and kids (and in my case,
grandchildren), Marmite, Philadelphia Soul, Buzz magazine's An
Atheist's Greenbelt article, David Bowie, the changes in African
international adoption legislation, Howlin' Wolf and the Cross Rhythms
website.
I'm sitting here reflecting after reading Tony's article. Were we at the same festival? I know we were because I was at the same Bruce Cockburn Press Conference as he was and heard be question Cockburn in a rather rude manner.
Greenbelt is a Christian festival, but it is no longer exclusively - or perhaps even in any way a Conservative Evangelical Christian Festival. It seems to me that Conservative Evangelicals think they have a monopoly on Christian Faith (I am not slinging mud here. Conservative Evangelical is part of Tony's own description of himself) They are the only ones allowed to interpret scripture and tell everyone else what it means. They are the only ones whose theology is reflected in the Bible. They are the only ones whose theology OF the Biblke is valid. They are the only ones who get to dictate what is and isn't Christian.
Greenbelt left this kind of attitude long ago. It recognises that there are other expressions of Christian faith which are just as valid expressions as Conservative Evangelicalism. There are other forms of music as beautiful and as uplifting as CCM - even music made by people without Christian faith. Conservative Evangelicals are of course still welcome at Greenbelt, but they no longer run things - thank goodness. Greenbelt represents a much broader and more humane agenda than that. If Tony can't cope with that, then perhaps he ought, as one commenter has suggested, stop going for the sake of his own blood pressure. As for me, I can quite happily declare that I am a Christian who is most definitely not a conservative evangelical and someone who has always found greenbelt a vital source of spiritual refreshment, uplift and support.