CHURCHES have been urged to adopt the “sacraments” of nightclubbing as a way of bringing renewed spirituality to services.

The Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres, said that the clubbing experience offers aspects of church life at its best that real churches often failed to match.

Bishop Chartres, a leading traditionalist, said: “Clubs offer regular celebrations, where you can get out of yourself and join others in dance and song, liberated from any merely utilitarian purpose.

“There are preparation rituals, like donning the right dress and saving up for the night out. Then there is a sense of belonging and openness to one another and sometimes even what people describe as a mystical experience, an oceanic experience induced by the music, dancing or, alas, by drugs.”

Even drugs are part of the spiritual experience, he said. “Ecstasy, the drug, comes with a mystic sign embossed upon the tablets.”

However, the Bishop, who has four children, of whom three are teenagers, refused to disclose when he last visited a nightclub. “There is hardly anything more ridiculous than the sight of an ageing, follicly challenged ecclesiastic wearing a pink wig and gyrating to some primeval stomp.”

Bishop Chartres was preaching at the rededication of the chapel at St Katharine’s Foundation, the Church of England’s only retreat house in Central London.

In a service that followed a traditional pattern, with prayers, readings, anthems and traditional hymns with a choir and an organ, Bishop Chartres said that he was not advocating the transformation of churches into Christian nightclubs, but added: “There is much to learn from contemporary culture and its judgments and there is room for experiment and taking risks.

“This is the age of the seeker, but in a way which is sometimes bewildering for faithful members of the church. The seekers are often reluctant to see the church and its audience as relevant to their quest.

“In a needy world of fear and fragmenting relationships, threatened by loss of meaning and haunted by the fear of death, popular culture has given birth to parallel churches and even parallel sacraments in a quest to satisfy its spiritual hunger and thirst.”

Bishop Chartres started to reflect on some of the spiritual aspects of the clubbing scene after visiting Brussels to open a new extension to Holy Trinity church. The church is in the city’s red-light district and is next to a nightclub called Crazy Love. It competes for custom by having a neon cross that constantly flashes on and off.

“As I enquired about what went on next door, it began to dawn on me that the club scene was a clear example of displaced spiritual hunger in which huge numbers of people are involved,” the bishop said.

“Many clubs in the UK are actually housed in former church buildings. They have names which vaguely resonate with a half-buried Christian world — Joy, God’s Kitchen.”

He said that Crazy Love was itself not a bad name for a church and quoted from the song, God is a DJ, by the pop singer Pink.

Some churches already run “alternative” youth services featuring Christian dance and house music.

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  EXPERT ADVICE ON PACKING THEM IN

  ‘Have the doors open and make churches places where people can come in and sit quietly for an hour or so . . . nightclubs are where people go for enjoyment and church could be enjoyable, too, if it was made more open’
  — Peter Stringfellow, owner of Stringfellows, London
  
  ‘Nightclubs give people what they want . . . it is a very social thing. Churches are too oppressive — there isn’t enough of a social aspect. Maybe they should also have a bar, or at least be more generous with the communion wine. That might be the answer’
  — Coral Heyworth, Barracuda, in Manchester
  
  ‘Once young people get to know where they can have a good time, it filters through to everyone. The way to get people in is to make it celebratory — celebrate what people believe in and the way they want to live their lives . . . make services a great, all-round experience. That’s how we get people through our doors’
  — Claire deSilva, Libertys, in Birmingham
  
  ‘Sunday mornings I can’t imagine are very good for the youth market. Churches also need to be less formal and more music-led. There is a lot of religious music being produced that is very up-to-date and it would be good to hear more of it. Come on churches — make some noise’
  — Kelly Hughes, Ministry of Sound, in London

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