Tony Cummings reports on CROSS RHYTHMS FESTIVAL - 8th-10th July - Risdon Farm, Okehampton, Devon

Greenbelt 1994: A broad church festival
Tony Cummings reports on the GREENBELT festival - 26th-29th August - Deene Park, Corby, Northants

Research has now shown that over 60 per cent of those attending the grandaddy of all Christian arts festivals - this was its 21st year - are connected with Anglican churches. This fragment of information is crucial in understanding the theological swirls and eddies of a festival which is to many staunch evangelicals a bewildering morass of contradictory aims. On a creative level it is THE pioneer for Christian music in Britain. Almost single handedly it courageously created a framework for Christians to feel comfortable playing and listening to rock and pop music as it reclaimed long lost ground for Christians in the arts. On a theological level it has been a clarion call to the Church often obsessed with matters of personal piety, theological exactitude or supernatural experience, demanding that Christians return to a] biblical commitment to the poor and to social justice. But Greenbelt has for years also bewildered and infuriated evangelicals for allowing all manner of liberal and neo-orthodox ideas and practices to take root in its structure. This then is Greenbelt, intoxicating and infuriating, marvellous and maladjusted, All Souls, Langham Place and St James' Piccadilly.

Approximate Attendance: 15,000 Weather: Sun (Friday) Sun and rain (Saturday, Sunday, Monday)

Still suffering from fest-lag after Holland I arrived at Greenbelt wanting sleep more than creative and theological stimuli. But on making my programme selections for Friday, I purposely went 'looking for trouble'. Having in years past missed all the particular examples of Greenbelt evangelical notoriety (the showing of the feminist porno film; the interview with the witch; the new age NOS presentation) this year I decided to go looking for seminars or stage performances where the controversy promised to be thickest. It was a gruelling experience. I listened to fragments of an interview with an astrologer who offered "a framework about astrology's place in modern religion and scientific thought" and a talk from a Canadian professor who explored "the dangers and excitement of post modernity for Christians today"; I heard the lona community's John Bell ruin a perfectly good seminar (from mainstage) with an absurd exegesis that the miracle of the coin within the fish was actually a joke by Jesus telling Peter to catch a fish and sell it to pay the tax; and most worrying of all listened to a seminar which became a spectacular exercise in exegetical gymnastics to propose that not all homosexual activity is necessarily unbiblical. In music too my search for controversy bore bitter fruit. I stood front of stage listening to Jah Wobble And The Invaders Of The Heart. The music was extraordinary, an intense, turbulent, surging brew of cultures ancient and modern. The sound of Islamic minarets and Rastafarian ganja blues parties collided in a rock/world music fusion. Large passages were instrumental and their polyrhythmic complexity drove swathes of people away. But more were expelled by the belly dancer who made an unexpected and unexplained entrance, the black clad lady singer who shrieked like a banshee, and the bizarre lyrics of ex-Public Enemy Jah Wobble. "Pure psychobabble" was what Q called his lyrics and they were. That Friday night I went to my sleeping bag but the sound of an inane pop ditty "uh, oh, I'm in trouble, something's going on and it's burst my bubble" played endlessly. It was hours before I got to sleep.

After the previous day things could only improve. They did. The alternative worship from Oxford's Joy team got me off to a good start with the team unpacking the imagery of the 'Roots, Rhythm, Redemption' theme of this year's festival. Joy's rock band were a bit ragged with a weak female singer, but the ambient-style music was effecting and pinning paper roots on the tent posts got us all thinking about exploring the roots of our faith. Later I heard John Smith deliver an impassioned plea for commitment to justice. I then went to the big top and caught the last half of a brilliant bluesy band from Canada, Mr Bennett, and the first half of the always reliable Scottish rock/soul man D B McGlynn. Then I ambled to mainstage for a Saturday afternoon worship session with Graham Kendrick. I felt for Graham. The crowd who came to see him was small for a mainstage audience, maybe 2,000. The majority of them continued to sit as Graham Kendrick and his 'big band' played. I had heard that one national Christian magazine had instructed a photographer to be at Graham's set in case there was any Toronto manifestations. But it was the hot sunshine not the Holy Spirit that made many in the crowd lie prostrate. Graham chuckled his way amiably through his set and his band, with such luminaries as Raul D'Oliveira, played superbly. Aware that most of the crowd were watching not worshipping, I went down to the front with the two or three hundred arm raisers (presumably the charismatics present) to worship with them. Graham prayed for those in the audience with musical gifts (a surprising number identify themselves) before he and his band trouped off.

Later mainstage filled up for something more contemporary. Sixpence None The Richer were as haunting as at Flevo; Eden Burning went down the expected storm; while Mike Peters And The Poets were able to deliver the same kind of impassioned anthem rock we haven't heard since Alarm's passing. Mike's air-punching music seemed made for Greenbelt and his reception was rapturous. Equally rapturous was the response shown to Martyn Joseph and Tom Robinson and both demonstrated that they were eloquent wordsmiths, able to grip and hold this vast throng with the sheer excellence of their musical gifts. The Proclaimers were all Scottish bonhomie and without stamina to continue I lurched tired but contented to bed. The Sunday programme was good in patches. Pity The Small Thumbs, having at last made it to Greenbelt, were marvellous though the big top crowd was small; Dan Donovan didn't move me though a small crowd of moose-calling fans showed he has his fan base; and Dub War from darkest Wales were, with a monumental vortex of noise, the most exciting alternative act of the weekend. I'd preferred to have my ears assaulted by Dub War than catch PFR (still referred to as Pray For Rain in the programme) at mainstage and when I got there the World Wide Message Tribe were going down a storm. Probably not as all conquering as at Flevo, due to it still being light - GB mainstage only really gets atmospheric in the darkness - it was still a thrilling sound to hear thousands of Greenbelters yelling "revival!" in answer to The Heavyfoot's bawled question of "Whatdowewant?" Bryn Haworth worked hard to bring a gust of revival in his following set. With his fine R&B band effortlessly recreating the sound and arrangements of their live album, Bryn managed to good humouredly embarrass the rewdies who were singing a single-note wordless chant by suggesting they could "sing in the Spirit". Gifts of tongues did not descend on the Greenbelt throng but undaunted and clearly amused Bryn suggested they try back at their tents later.

The scene was now set for Steve Taylor. I'd missed his Flevo set and it was well worth catching here. Just' about all the songs from 'Squint' were rolled out in a torrid extravaganza of rib crunching rock. The satire was biting, Steve and his band (Jerry McPherson on guitar) were enjoying themselves while Steve's lurching, running, leaping, ducking on-stage persona made him impossible to stop watching. A giant screen video added to the spectacle with some shots literally peering up Steve's nostrils. By the time of the second of two encores the ecstatic crowd were in danger of voice loss. On Monday I caught a fragment of an excellent Eric Delve seminar. But festival-lag had now returned. Despite wanting to catch K, Sam Fox and Midnight Oil the chance of a ride back to Devon and family was much more appealing. On the journey home we discussed another Greenbelt. Had it succeeded in clawing back mainstream evangelical support it once had? The feeling in the van was probably not. But at least the 15,000 attending was a 1,000 up on last year and rumours were that it had broken even. Another year, another Greenbelt, and for all the problems we evangelicals may perceive in it, Greenbelt is still the festival against which all others are measured.