Hillsong, Satan, and Dabhar. The Wonder and Variety of Creative Energy

Facebook often recommends some weird treat videos. The latest is a YouTube post by a Christian with some very definite views complaining Hillsong churches are run by the Illuminati and Satanists.

He says "If you ever want to see a picture of what Hell looks like, go to a Hillsong Easter special service." He says a lot more. It's all a bit nuts but a form of nuts given respectability and a label of sanity by being framed within a culturally acceptable religious system, albeit one of the more odd forms of it.

As I say, Facebook recommendations are a treat.

He shows part of last year's Easter special event in London. I admit that I, an atheist ex-Christian, was moved by it. Incredible staging and creativity in a dramatic presentation of the crucifixion. Yes, it was pretty horrible. But crucifixion isn't exactly fluffy bunnies and choccy eggs. Any preachers out there are welcome to quote me on that one in their sermons, because there are no fluffy bunnies at all in the Biblical account of Jesus' death. Nobody can say I'm heretical on that point!

Later he shows part of previous shows.  He claims he's known for years that Hillsong is Satanic.  He's not left Hillsong though meaning that this faithful Christian has spent years intentionally being part of something he believed to be wildly unchristian.  For me the funniest moment came in a dramatic recreation of the story of Jesus' trial before Pontius Pilate.  The crowd below were shouting "Crucify Him!" just as the story relates.  Even the most extreme biblical fundamentalist wouldn't have a problem with those words being used in that context.  Because they're in the book.  The maker of this video had another interpretation of this aspect of an impressive Easter special.  For him, when the crowd shouted "Crucify Him!" it implied that Hillsong hated Jesus and wanted Jesus dead.  I confess I burst out laughing.  For me, it was simple the trial story, exactly as written, interestingly and creatively retold.

It won't encourage me to head up Westgate Road to Hillsong on Sunday, even for the cool songs and dry ice machines.  As an ex-Christian who was damaged by the "gospel of Jesus Christ" and as a transgender lesbian, Hillsong wouldn't be an ideal environment to nurture my safety. But kudos to them for being a church that embraces creativity in big ways as part of their worship and service to their god. I know it's done as a tool of conversion and as a show to hold onto the "yoof" and that better stagecraft doesn't imply greater truth but without a fabulous outpouring of creativity, God is even more dead than the one Nietzsche said we'd killed.

Even John chapter 1 - in the beginning was the Word. That can be translated as "creative energy" ... creative energy was made flesh. Word is "Dabhar" which is dynamic, passionate, compassionate, moving, a verb as much as a noun. This is Christ as possibility, as adaptable as water poured, as the best of Rembrandt and Pollock, Michelangelo and Hepworth, Josquin and Gaga, as the moments when the artist is swept and washed completely by participation in creation.

Christ the Word, the Dabhar is Christ as rainbow, Christ as the anointing in which we all share by virtue of our rich humanity, Christ as the freedom to write, paint, sculpt, dance, to laugh and weep in stunned wonder at performance, waterfalls, mountains, or the moon under Jupiter. It's Christ as a biblical word painting expressing the way, truth, life, and bold rainbow paradoxes we all are beneath the veneer of events, traumas, damages, and tiredness, that we too are anointed with the most brilliant of fire. It's a Christ who says we are and that we can. It's the Christ beyond joy, the miniature big bang that's inside us with potential to say "Let there be light" wherever we walk or to be hidden away, with or without intention.

It's the metaphorical Christ I am when words flow and the metaphorical Christ I cannot yet express when I can hardly hold a pencil without panic. Dabhar is freedom to experiment, to get it wrong, to enjoy the path to expression even when we lack the words, the skill, the complex musicianship. It's the excitement of solos at the Albert Hall and of our first struggled notes. Christ the Word is the Christ of being fully human and nurturing the freedom of others to bear their fully humanity. Dabhar is the essence of creative radical acceptance, set in perpetual motion through a word.

We were that we were. We will be that we will be.

So faith that is of the "divine" must have its root in creative energy, the same root that so many of my friends have in their lives regardless of theism, atheism, pantheism, "whatevertheism" or nontheism and regardless of the metaphorical language they use to describe the sense of wonder and awe they have at the very possibility of life.

There is a view known as theopraxy which states that God is the good we do. I don't have a word for a view stating that God is also the creativity we express and encourage. I like both of these non-contradictory views though.

So Facebook granted me a double treat of showing me creative expression and one of the wackier Christians. I granted myself indulgence in this very autistic special interest I still have years after walking away from churches and from the close to death doctrines I believed - which wouldn't sit comfortably with those John chapter 1 paragraphs.