The annual Greenbelt arts festival is re-establishing itself as a premier Bank Holiday event – with music, culture and debate at its heart. This year over 16,000 have attended the predominantly Christian event that builds bridges with people of other or no faith.
Greebelt’s venue is the popular Cheltenham Racecourse. Ands among its ‘stars’ this year is singer Billy Bragg, who performed on the main stage and also ran a packed seminar of ‘progressive patriotism’ – the them of his lastest book.
Bragg is calling for a Bill of Rights and a sense of ‘Britishness’ based on inclusion and a global solidarity – rather than jingiosm and narrow nationalism.
The theme of Greenbelt 2007 has been ‘Heaven in Ordinary’, and its charcter has been the usual “eclectic mix of music, film, visual arts, comedy, worship and speakers”.
Among the top speakers this year have been UK international development secretary Douglas Alexander, radical catholic theologian James Alison, and Mona Siddiqui – Professor of Islamic Studies and Public Understanding and the Director of Centre for the Study of Islam at Glasgow University.
Jazz start Soweto Kinch and ‘holy minimalist’ compser John Tavener also attracted the crowds.
“Thousands of people are already soaking up heaven in a weekend”, commented the festival’s development manager, Paul Northup.
Northup explained that the themse was encouraging people to look at spirituality as a dimesnion of everyday life, rather than a “special corner” or minority concern.
Billy Bragg headlined the opening evening (Friday 24 August) with a set that included the song ‘A New England’, made famous by Kirsty Macoll, who tragically died a few years ago in a boating accident.
In one of his own new songs, ‘I Keep Faith’, Bragg expressed his belief that music can inspires both audience and performer to work for a better world.
“There’s more of them than there is of me”, he said referring to his audience. “They can change the world, not just me”.
Bragg declared that “faith is the only antidote” to the disabling cynicism of consumer capitalism, and encouraged Christians to work alongside others for social change.