Celebrities using their fame to champion causes they care about is not new, says George Luke. Christians shouldn’t hurl hate at those whose views they don’t agree with - you can just choose not to listen
The fallout over Macklemore being dropped from Ed Sheeran’s current US tour has reignited the age-old debate over whether music concerts should ever be used as platforms for political messaging. But it’s a debate worth thinking about, especially coming from a faith tradition in which music concerts have always been used as a platform for getting a certain message across.
So, should pop concerts ever be used for this sort of messaging? My short answer is: yes. Musicians are allowed to have political opinions, and they have every right to express those on stage. The real question is what we define as ‘politics’.
We have been programmed to think of politics only as supporting a specific party or picking a side in a war. But politics isn’t just Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, small boats or Trump. As has been said several times over the centuries, and by people much wiser than me, politics is life.
It’s rapper, Giggs, campaigning for better facilities for neurodivergent children. It’s Dolly Parton ensuring that poor children have books to read. It’s Rizzle Kicks’ Jordan Stephens dismantling the manosphere. It’s Ezra Collective inviting their local youth club on stage at Glastonbury and urging their audience to support music education for young people.
Politics isn’t just the partisan stuff; it’s every issue that affects our lives, and the lives of those around us. The subtle way in which the word ‘political’ is used as a pejorative doesn’t help; it’s just enabled people to dismiss anyone championing a cause they don’t care for.
This is dishonest – and sadly, it’s something Christians do all too often. For example, the Christian artist who sings an anti-racism song gets accused of being political (or worse, woke) while the one who sings an anti-abortion song “cares about children”.
The long arm of history
“But George,” I hear you say, “Surely there should be some rules about who gets to talk politics on stage and who doesn’t? Maybe we should go by genre? Some genres are known for being political.”
The more you study musical history, the less this argument holds up. You’ll be hard pressed to find a music genre that hasn’t been used politically in some way, or that doesn’t have a history of protest or speaking truth to power. Even when there are no overtly political lyrics in the songs, there is often an element of politics or protest in a genre’s DNA (look at the significance of disco music in the gay rights movement, for example).
One could argue that some artists have made politics their brand, creating some sort of unwritten contract between artist and audience. If you go to a Billy Bragg concert, for example, you know you’re going to get politics, but fans might not expect that from an Ed Sheeran gig.
It’s OK to feel disappointed when your favourite artist expresses a political opinion you disagree with
That might have been true in the past but, these days, artists are judged by their social media presence as much as they are by their music. It’s hard to take Sheeran’s claims of being apolitical seriously when a quick Instagram search will show you him pledging solidarity with Ukraine.
We British Christians often make the mistake of assuming that this is an American issue; we don’t like our preachers using their pulpits for politics, so maybe the same should apply to our pop stars? Again, that argument falls down under scrutiny. Yes, we don’t like our preachers being partisan and wouldn’t want them endorsing a specific party from the pulpit. But being merely political? I’m old enough to remember when the Religious Hatred Bill was being raised in Parliament, how scores of Christians (including several pastors and quite a few Gospel artists) would gather in front of the Parliament buildings, singing and waving placards.
People like us
The real issue here, if we’re being honest, is that most of us only want to hear political opinions from the stage when they align with our own. Anything else, and an artist gets ordered, as the Dixie Chicks famously were, to “shut up and sing”.
For me, this is where the response from Christians should be different to that of the online trolls and keyboard warriors. The “shut up and sing” mentality is dehumanising at best. You’ve basically decided that someone who makes music (or acts, plays football or has some other kind of platform) is not allowed to have any other passions or opinions - and that is not right.
The word ‘political’ is used as a pejorative; it’s enabled people to dismiss anyone championing a cause they don’t care for
It’s OK to feel disappointed when your favourite artist expresses a political opinion you disagree with.
I was disappointed when the Christian reggae band Christafari joined the push to rebrand Charlie Kirk as a modern-day martyr, and I haven’t listened to them since. But I also haven’t sent them hate mail or called for them to be cancelled. Freedom of speech means that they have a right to sing songs praising Kirk if they so desire – and freedom of choice means that I don’t have to listen to them.
As Christians, the real issue is not whether or not a pop star should be allowed to talk politics on stage, but rather how we model Christ in the way we respond to said pop star, especially when we don’t share their views.
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