Balham vicar preaches on Radiohead as prophets for today

The Rev Stephen Hance, vicar of the Church of the Ascension in Balham, south London, has preached on Radiohead as prophets for today. The sermon came at a café-style service where the music is all Radiohead, played by the church's worship band under the guitarist Sam Hargreaves. Ruth Gledhill, religion correspondent of The Times, was in the congregation. Gledhill admits she had never knowingly heard Radiohead before, and could see little Christianity in the songs themselves.

Hance, who came to the church in 1999, gave his first Radiohead single away to a charity shop. He began the service after asking himself why songs more likely to send listeners for the Prozac than to the dance floor speak so well to the times.

The church is a candlelit Victorian building of 1883, with a strobe flickering over the carved crucifix. Teenagers and young adults sit at tables with mineral water and jellied sweets, there is no liturgy to speak of, and sculptures by the church's new creative arts team stand around the walls to match the alienation in the music.

The sermon asked why we love misery and pain, and the congregation heard lines from “Airbag”. Hance meant prophets in the Old Testament sense, seers who see what is coming, often darkly, and social critics who speak out against how society is run. The band plainly do not think of themselves as messengers from God, he allowed, but their criticism of the rich and powerful, their lament over injustice and their call for change echo the prophets.

Great bands are artists, not politicians. They write songs, not manifestos.

Stephen Hance¹