Houston goes Prophetic
It has been hard to avoid Brian Houston in recent weeks. If you've been listening to the radio, watching TV, reading the music sections of the local press or attending UB40 and Beautiful South concerts in Botanic Gardens, there he has been - everywhere! Of course that is nothing new. Jesus Again was a local radio phenomenon some five years ago and was followed with two more radio hits with Treat a Woman and Too Busy from his Good News Junkie album. For those of you whose radios are more spiritually tuned Miracle In My Heart from his worship album In The Words Of Dr. Luke was play listed on UCB.
The difference of his recent success has been the nature of the song that media folk have taken to their hearts It's a prophetic feather ruffler of a song that has found DJs and journalists get very near proclaiming the gospel as they play it and write about it. Of course, such a thing does not always make the Churches happy. Houston's pioneering and courageous approach seems to always bring more than a tinge of controversy with it. Brian's pub gigs on Saturday night and then leading the worship on Sunday morning has always left him open to misunderstanding. The first Christian to play the local pub and club scene, there are always those who write you off for what they call compromising. When Jesus said "Go into all the world" and we don't - whose compromising!!!!!
Though some would like to divide Brian's work into two categories "Christian" and "secular" Brian never sees it like that. He's not denying the focus of Dr Luke but he told me "I see all my albums as Christian. I am a Christian and I write songs about my life which seems to me to make them Christian. Indeed I see myself first and foremost as a song writer and the worship is a hobby. I go to work in a Botanic Gardens main stage or in Auntie Annie's acoustic room but I go to Church to worship". Songs like Too Busy and Treat a Woman may not be low to zero in their Jesus per minute ratio but for me they are both profound pieces of spiritual advice to the businessman, musician and also for the Church leader. How do we treat our wives and families? What are our priorities?
Anyway, back to the current hit, that has seen his new album 35 Summers, flying off the shelves faster than any of his other releases. Brian shares a story about singing it when he supported Delirious in Dublin. "There were 600 people packed into the club in Temple Bar in Dublin. They were Delirious fans and thus it was pretty Christian. When I sang "We don't need religion" at the end of the first verse of this song, there was such an intake of breath and I felt my jacket getting sucked off me by the crowd! When I eventually sang "but we could use the love of God" there was a huge cheer. I tried to capture that on the recording, though the crowd on the CD version is my voice 12 times over on a Monday afternoon in my wee attic studio".
"We don't need religion but we could use the love of God." It is the most prophetic song that has emerged into our Northern Irish context - maybe ever. It is so simple yet so powerful. For years in 25 minute sermons I have tried to preach what my nation needs to hear. I have told stories, structured sermons, expounded scripture and been as passionately articulate as possible. How many words have I used? And yet in 13, (12 and a half), words Brian Houston says all that I would want to say. All that needs to be said. And he is all over the airwaves!
What has surprised me is how the song is how people have not stopped at the "we don't need no religion" thing. For many that could be a full stop. God has no place left. Not so. People seem to be getting it. Yes, "we could use the love of God". Again this is quite profound. Houston exposes the hypocrisy and all that is negative about religion. In doing so he gains the ear of the cynic who would never hear a preacher. Then having won that confidence he so gently yet decisively brings it back to Christian truth. Maybe that is what every Christian artist, of any kind, should be doing.
One thing is for sure. As we travel down the calendar towards another Drumcree, we need to hear the people speak. We've heard the politicians, the prime ministers and taoiseachs, the Orders and residents groups. We'll be sick, sore and tired listening to them over the next few weeks. If it is time to hear what the rest of us think, then we could do worse than turn on our radios. You might hear your thoughts echoing back at you, in a perfect pop tune. "We don't need religion...but we could use the love of God".
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