A soundtrack of spirituality

In Pilgrim, the tenth and final chapter of his musical and spiritual odyssey, the new Bishop of Bradford says one of his ambitions is to interview Eric Clapton and the Canadian Christian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn.

The Right Reverend Nick Baines says: “What I would like to know is how the worldview of these great artists has been shaped and changed by their experience of life and all it has thrown at them. And I would like to discover whether, now in their 60s, they have settled into some sort of resolution to the conflicts that provoked some of their finest songs.”

Pilgrim is the title of Clapton’s 1998 album, released after the death of the musician’s young son Conor.

Reviewing the album in Rolling Stone, David Wild wrote: “Pilgrim is the work of someone who has learned in the hardest way imaginable that although he cannot change the world, he might be able to change himself.”

That, in a sentence, is the thrust of the Bishop’s own pilgrimage as a Christian, which he signposts throughout this book with songs and songwriters that have accompanied him along the way.

“I think Clapton expresses better than anyone the inability of most people to avoid the search for love and the security of being wanted.

“His own pilgrimage, though not explicitly Christian, is worked out in his music and speaks at every turn of the reality of human loving and disappointment, the pain of rejection and the need to keep travelling and looking and wanting.”

The Bishop, a Scouser with a passion for music, literature and art that embodies and transforms the human struggle, is cute enough not to fall in love with his media image; well aware of the danger of sounding like one of Alan Bennett’s caricature trendy vicars.

“I have had to learn to pray and worship in different ways (and in different languages). I have had to learn that the journey never ends in this life and that the conclusions I draw are necessarily provisional.

“There are times of joy and contentment and times of frustration and spiritual aridity. Like everyone else, I struggle with myself and the weaknesses in my own character and personality, constantly wishing that God would make it all easier and just ‘sort me out’.”

Lest that confession sounds cosy or, to paraphrase Bob Dylan – another artist the Bishop admires – “see, I’m just like you, I hope you’re satisfied”, the Bishop doesn’t strike me as a philosophical soft touch, a man-for-all-reasons.

“What I have learned is that it is far easier to criticise the Church for not being what I want it to be than it is to love the Church for what it is… one of the most embarrassingly overlooked elements of the gospel narratives is that Jesus called his diverse friends to walk with him and didn’t give any of them a veto over who else could go. Their witness was to be worked out in how they lived together despite their differences, not in pretending to be all the same.”

“In short, you cannot be a self-selecting Christian on your own terms. That outlook, which mirrors my own self-excluding reflex, is a form of narcissism,” says the Bishop. Ouch!

What I find troubling about the Bishop’s book is that it makes me feel uncomfortable because he recognises that negativity, a form of self-defence, cannot in the end ‘pull you through’. You have to come out into the light and face the music.