Worshipping at the Church of Taylor

 Do you know who Swifties are? Even if you don't have a clue about singer/songwriter/performer Taylor Swift's music you're probably aware that she is a global phenomenon and that her current Eras Tour (and documentary, and merch) have made her a billionaire at the tender of age of 33 (34 in a few days.) I recall my first awareness of Swift when she was a 16 or 17-year-old and the mother of three young sisters in my congregation informing me that the country/pop star was basically their idol. Taylor's fame and influence have grown exponentially since then. 

Is Swiftianism akin to a religion, or even a cult? Young people in Argentina camped out in shifts for months -- months!-- in the hope of getting tickets. Earnest teens gathered somewhere in the States to pray that they would win the ticket lottery for their city. I've seen interviews of happy concert-goers who flew across the continent for the show, admitting that they'd maxed out credit cards to do so. She actually helps to sell out NFL games because non-football fans (short for fanatics) hope to see her high above in a box when boyfriend Travis Kelce's Kansas City Chiefs team is in that city. 

The Christian Century recently offered the reflection of Amy Julia Becker titled Worshiping at the Church of Taylor. She is the mother of teenagers and they managed to score coveted tickets for the family to attend a Taylor Swift concert. Even though it was pouring rain it sounds as though it was a positive experience with 70,000 others. Her assessment was that their was a " sense of being in a house of worship. The rituals, the chants, the ecstatic moments, the shared experience, even the reciprocal relationships established through friendship bracelets—it all underscored a sense of awe and transcendence alongside intimacy."

Becker doesn't venture into discussions of cult-like behaviour or idolatry, and perhaps she just doesn't want death threats for even suggesting it. She does get real about what this adoration represents in a culture which has drifted well away from the moorings of conventional religion. 

Her insights are worthwhile so I'll share a portion of her article with you: 

In Everything Belongs, Richard Rohr writes about the dangers of living too much on the surface of our existence. “We are a circumference people, with little access to the center,” he writes. “We live on the boundaries of our own lives . . . confusing edges with essence, too quickly claiming the superficial as substance.” Rohr goes on to explain that the circumferences of our lives aren’t in and of themselves bad. We don’t need to moralize and stand in judgment of them. And yet if we stay at the circumferences, we get stuck there, and we never encounter the deeper realities of suffering and joy and pain and love.

The church of Taylor Swift is a church of the circumference. Rohr describes the circumference as “passing, accidental, sometimes illusory.” Necessitating a trip to Party City or an order of plastic rhinestone stickers from Amazon to participate. Creating a sense of connection that dissipates as soon as the fireworks end. There’s a part of me that wants to reject Rohr’s advice and moralize about the consumerism and ephemerality of it all. There’s another part of me that wants to critique our churches for not offering more of a sense of understanding and intimacy to teenagers and adults alike.

And there’s a part of me that wonders whether the church of Taylor Swift could be a waystation for my kids’ generation. Swift’s concerts offer a place where we can tap into deep human longings for both transcendence and intimacy, for celebration of our glorious selves and absolution of our worst parts, for belonging to one another across all sorts of divides.

The goodness of a Taylor Swift show points to our need for a deeper goodness. We are a lonely people in need of connection that goes deeper than friendship bracelets exchanged with strangers. We are a people in need of permission to mourn losses and celebrate beauty for longer than a few hours on a Saturday night. We are taught—by our culture, and also by Swift herself—to believe in karma, but we are in need of blessing. Our souls crave the assurance that we will not be measured by our rights and wrongs but instead will be received in love by a God of grace.

The church has not been able to compete with Taylor Swift. But maybe, once the tour is over and the music fades, some of those people will find their way to a smaller and quieter setting with the same invitation to friendship and belonging and intimate connection. Maybe Swift is just one more step on a road away from sanctuaries of grace. Or maybe she is a sign that points to our need for them.