Dickinson College Humanities Program in Norwich

From the various services/presentations/synopses of religion we attended, it appeared that Christianity in London is dead. The two major Christian establishments we attended as a class, St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey (and technically, the abbey out in Stratford-upon-Avon, but that was quite a quick visit), did not appear to have any sort of religious community. Well, that’s not exactly a surprise – these locations are such tourist destinations it would be almost impossible to have services, or a regular church membership. However, this does not mean that Christianity is dead in London.

Yes, its true that a large majority of those who consider themselves Christians, or more specifically Anglicans, subscribe to a small amount of Christian beliefs. In this way, the reported statistics of adamant Christians are quite inflated, as noted in the readings. Well, Andrew and I decided to attend a Christian service this past Sunday, and it was really something.

First off, the service was held by Hillsong, the church’s name, in the Dominion theatre (the We Will Rock You one) and it was PACKED. I do not know the exact number of attendees, but it must’ve been over 500. The worship songs were also played by an at least 10 person band. 5 singers/get-the-churchgoers-pumped-up-by-dancing-around-and-starting-claps, 3 guitarists, a bass, a drummer, 2 keyboards, it was crazy. There was a lightshow during the songs, and the whole place was full of an amazing energy. This was somewhat like other mega-churches I had attended back in the States, and because of this, I was a bit worried about the overall tone of the service – whether it would actually stay focused on Christian teachings/values, whether it would be extremist. But it was actually quite normal. The band didn’t get caught up in the light show and reiterated why they were playing the music they were

The normal preacher introduced an energetic Australian as the guest speaker, and his sermon was on the prosperity gospel. Andrew and I both agreed that he was very well spoken, very entertaining, and the message he was describing was great. However, he was much funnier than many preachers I’ve seen in the States, and overall much more animated. I was literally laughing quite hard for some of the service (a bit awkward to do in Church normally) and really enjoyed his sermon on the whole.

Overall, it was a great experience. It was a very involving and exciting, which made a lot of sense as we further discussed it. Churches in England are, like all Churches, trying to attract more people, especially young people. They emphasized this in their explanation of how important community is to them, and had a video on different groups you could get involved with. This Church’s communities are everywhere; it was really quite impressive and cool. Perhaps this extra flair is added to the service to try and rouse faith in a generally lacking Christian body in London.

I doubt this service is representative of all Christian services in London; however, I found it encouraging and informative to see that Christian services do exist here outside of St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey. All the people seemed really quite friendly, and they even shook our hands (take that Kate Fox!). Though I am not sure whether Hillsong has an information session like the Mandir or Mosque, it would certainly be interesting to investigate. It might be a bit hard for them to hold something similar, as they have no permanent building.

Last bit: I was fascinated by two other features of the service. One, the ethnic diversity of the people. We have learned that London is an incredible myriad of cultures, and this cultural mélange was really reflected in the audience. In my row alone, there was a Latino family, several Afro-Caribbeans, and an Asian woman, plus two white kids (me and Andrew). I thought it was really neat to see London’s diversity reflected in the church audience.  I found this to be a bit different than the Mosque and Mandir, and I can’t say for the synagogue (saw very few people in there). Lastly, the Englishness of the service in some ways. There were a ton of cultural references that neither Andrew nor I understood, but everyone else found quite funny. It was like being on the outside of an inside joke, but we still laughed to not be awkward. Anyway, I don’t think this would happen as much in America. I think Americans are much less aware of their culture than to do this, but the Brits certainly aren’t.