The Celeb-ification of Church

I listened to a panel of women talk about self-care at a recent event at a Seattle co-working space. Many of their answers mentioned the importance of ritual, and the audience was taking notes. One woman smudges her home, burning sage. Taking baths with intentionality, taking digital sabbaths.

In a cultural moment when we’re all talking about burnout and the need for rest, few urbanites will answer that going to church is a way to cope with our frantic schedules. There may still be pockets of the south and rural America where baseline culture includes church attendance. But in most cases in the city, when you go to a Sunday service instead of brunch it’s not by accident.

I’ve been largely disinterested in pop culture coverage of the recent wave of celebrities that go to church. Maybe if I’d been paying better attention I would have been less surprised reading on Vox about Kanye West's “Sunday Service at the Mountain” at Coachella on Easter. The event came with designer merch for sale in the “church clothes” tent, including sweatshirts a minimum wage-earning employee in CA would have to work about 18 hours to buy, and $50 socks printed with the message "Jesus Walks". Here’s the part of the article that especially stuck with me:

But church is incredibly cool right now, particularly in California and among young celebrities — it’s been used in recent years as a clean and easy rebranding strategy for famous people who get into hot water.

The celeb-ification of church makes me wonder: could it actually be easier to practice elements of Christianity — or affiliate with its rituals and contemplative practices — in our cultural zeitgeist. If celebrities are somehow giving fans permission to explore the idea church, where is the meat on the bone, and what does it all signify?

Another Southern California resident, Fuller Studio’s Michael Wright, talks about a NYC-based artist he met at a conference in his latest Still Life newsletter. The artist, a Christian, talked about feeling estranged in both the secular and Christian art communities. In this woman’s experience, urban artists are open to spiritual practice, but not Christianity:

She told me that back home in New York City, her artist friends are all against Christianity and organized religion, and yet there's a growing interest in ritual and spirituality. “Oh I know many artists who will tell you they're witches. There's power in that.” And at the same, she feels she can't say anything about her own faith because a single word triggers grief, anger, and dismissal.

I wonder, in contrast to the East Coast, could the American West be becoming more open to church? Is it just Hollywood, or pure nostalgia, or something else? Or maybe the curiosity is less attached to place and more about the much discussed Millennial inclination towards experiences. I can buy tarot cards at Madewell. In Joshua Tree and Santa Fe I’ve been in countless shops selling crystals. And at Coachella, I can go to Kanye’s Easter Sunday service.

Really, if there are access points to spiritual practice that avoid the mess of church culture, skip the dry sermons, and omit sex scandals and white supremacy, why not take the spiritual but not religious path? It's personalized and feels more like me: I can choose smudging or chakra. It’s also commodified. The culture of spirituality is a business (church in its brokenness can be too, for sure, but hang on with me here) and by buying in, I’m participating in the narrative that I have the power to customize my spiritual path.

When I go to church with Kanye at Coachella, I participate in a spectacle as a spectator. It is a show, and I am seeing and seen. When I buy tarot cards at a Millennial clothing store, I am being marketed to, typecast. In each of these cases there is customization, a false sense of control, and either self-participation or withholding. I can choose the color of my iPhone (rose gold!) my favorite Glossier “cloud paint” blush color, and the depth I dip my toe into spiritual waters.

Following Jesus is a different sort of pursuit. We’re wired as a culture to sense the disingenuousness of pseudo religiosity, and if I wasn’t a Christian I could imagine how easy it would be throw that baby out with the bathwater. But the countercultural and radical life of Jesus is visceral.

Any true move to follow Jesus requires giving up trying to control or possess that relationship. We can’t have it how we want it. It’s not rose gold or cloud paint. It can’t be branded or hemmed in.

Jesus changes and challenges us. The Christian life is a wild ride, one that cultivates refreshing peace — sometimes at the same time. And that relationship is certainly worth preserving, once you peel back the onion layers of celebrity church, God and country church, spiritual but not religious church, brunch church. Then there's just Christ, the church.