It’s Easter Sunday, and Revd Al Gordon, the rector of St John-at-Hackney, is giving the Easter sermon. Al’s wearing a blue workman’s jacket, turned up jeans, and black Chelsea boots. His hair is coiffed, his tortoiseshell glasses have the air of Ace + Tate about them, and instead of standing in a pulpit, he’s leaping about the stage, mic in hand.
Were it not for the golden reredos behind the altar, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a Silicon Valley Ted Talk.
Church of St John-at-Hackney
“We have an Anglican tradition on Easter Day,” Al shouts into the mic, “and it goes like this: we say ‘Hallelujah’ three times. Now kids, you’re gonna need to help me here […] When I say ‘Hallelujah’ I want you to join with me. Are you ready? ‘HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH!” Pause. Silence. “That was really…that was like…that was lame, that’s the technical phrase for that. That was 2 out of 10. Let’s have another go.” If there are people in the congregation, the microphone isn’t picking them up.
Watching the service online, it looks and sounds mightily as though plain-clothes Al is playing out a rockstar fantasy on an empty stage.
Alpha City
Before coming to St John-at-Hackney, Al Gordon used to serve on the leadership team at Holy Trinity Brompton, the church that’s home to the Alpha Course. For anyone unfamiliar with Alpha, it sits under the charismatic evangelical wing of the Church of England, which has been growing steadily since its inception in 1977.
In London today over 70% of new ordinances are associated with HTB, which believes in the manifestation of God through shaking and speaking in tongues, as well as the promise of miraculous healing. It’s the only branch of the Church of England that isn’t in tatters right now. Oh, and it’s got an awful lot of money behind it.
Al Gordon stepped into the rector’s shoes at St John back in 2016, just in time for the church’s massive facelift – and I’m not talking botox and fillers, I’m talking the works. Bringing together five different parishes from across East London, Rev Gordon and the HTB team have created a sort of megachurch-franchise called ‘Saint’.
To “revitalise” the interiors at St John-at-Hackney, Gordon contracted starchitect John Pawson, for his minimalist designs, including Calvin Klein’s flagship store and a number of commissions for hotel entrepreneur Ian Schrager. And if that wasn’t enough, contemporary artist Es Devlin – famed for her stage sculptures for the likes of Kanye West, Beyonce, Adele, U2, and Lorde – was drafted in to design a permanent installation for the space.
The entire restoration project whistled to the tune of 6 million pounds.
The finished thing, only recently opened to the public, is impressive. Pawson’s minimal style shines in pristine white against polished dark wood detailing. Parts of the original church have been kept, including the re-gilded and newly glistening reredos, as well as a collection of war memorials; only, now, the space also includes a greenroom, a raised stage, and a set of retractable steps, all of which serve to ease the transition from faith space to music venue.
Honey, Hoodies, and Craft Beer
The repurposing of churches as venues for secular events is nothing new; it’s been happening for years now, in tandem with the decline of Christian worship in England. And it’s been an excellent way of keeping these sites of historical and architectural significance standing.
Indeed, St John has enjoyed its double identity as a music venue for years now, hosting the likes of Coldplay, Robbie Williams, Ed Sheeran, and Rufus Wainwright. Renovating the church with this in mind should surely be a good thing – and yet, it feels, well, a little cynical; a little strange, that is, to see church architecture supplicating itself to meet the needs of its secondary functions – especially when one of it’s other new appendages happens to be a microbrewery.
But this is East London, don’t let’s forget, where a micro-brewery is obligatory on every street corner. Or so the new church of Saint seems to think. Along with the micro brewery, Saint also offer home-grown organic honey and oversized black hoodies, branded with the tagline ‘For the People of East London’ in bold, orange type.
Saint’s marketing team have done a stellar job of hipsterising the church, as a quick glance at its stylish black and orange website, chock-a-block with hazy Polaroid snaps of twenty-somethings on Broadway Market, will attest. Whoever is running this machine have absolutely nailed their target audience.
ArrayChrist Driving the Money Changers from the Temple, El Greco, 1598
To an extent, of course, it’s commendable that the church is diversifying its outreach, speaking across ages and ethnic groups. Though, for of all its talk of egalitarianism, the press shots imply a strikingly narrow cross-section of class groups. And one can’t help but wonder about that micro-brewery and those hipster hoodies.
Have the Saint marketing team been reading their New Testament recently? Do they remember that memorable scene, when Jesus storms into the temple and overthrows the tables of the money lenders? I wonder what he’d make of all that organic honey and pale ale…
From Obligation to Consumption
I don’t mean to be irreverent or disrespectful. In fact, I’ve a lot of respect for the church – and that’s precisely why so much of this doesn’t quite sit right for me. Because all of the things that I find beautiful about Christian worship – the art, the theology, the sense of humility and higher purpose – seem to have been sucked out of Saint, along with all of the colour that used to coat the columns of St John before Pawson got his minimalist hands on it.
As the sociologist Grace Davie has observed, this recent shift in Christian worship can be defined as the move from obligation to consumption: where churchgoing used to signify duty and devotion, these new HTB churches appear to be engaging in a carefully branded and marketed transaction, a part of the experience economy, a place where you go to take selfies in front of an Instagrammable background.
And when Rev Gordon outlines Saint’s vision, in one of his ‘Vision Suandays’ talks, putting out the call to raise a further £500,000 for the church, one just can’t help but wonder how all six-million of those restoration pounds got gobbled up – especially when we learn that Thornsett, the site’s developer, scaled down on the community buildings that were in church’s remit for a scheme of 58 luxury apartments.
Back in 2010, BBC2 seem to have prophesied the fate of East London Churches, in the sitcom Rev. Creator and star, Tom Hollander, plays Revd Adam Smallbone, a struggling parochial vicar who’s been relocated to a crumbling East London parish (the series was actually filmed at St Leonard’s Shoreditch, now one of the five Saint sites).
In one episode, groovy priest Darren Betts gets drafted in to help drum up donations, setting up a Jesus Smoothie bar, and strutting around on stage with a gingham shirt and a headpiece. “How cool is it to be here in this awesome church,” quips Darren, elbowing Adam off stage, “and it is also great, Jesus, to have you here with us today. We’re gonna need some monster donations from you guys today if we’re going reach our expansion targets, so don’t forget to fill out one of our standing order forms.” The resemblance to Rev Gordon is uncanny.
A Question of Faith
But it’s not just the money and the marketing and the microbrewery. At the heart of the matter, of course, there’s a question of faith. Because for all of the PR about inclusivity, diversity, and progressivism, Saint and the other HTB parishes aren’t quite practicing what they preach.
Of course the church needs to change if it wants to remain relevant, but where Liberal wings of contemporary Christianity are beginning to treat the gospel as interpretive and contextual, are welcoming women and gay members of the clergy, and are politically and socially active, the evangelical wing associated with Alpha remains theologically conservative. They treat the authority of the Bible as paramount and, for many, not open to interpretation; they’re overtly apolitical; and they refuse to state their position on homosexuality.
You won’t find any of that on the homepage for Saint, because it’s hidden behind the smoke and mirrors of a young and hip facade. Check out the new church, by all means. Attend a service if it sounds enticing. But before you get enchanted by the honey and the beer, just remember to read the small print. God is in the details.
