Coldplay: We Pray

This was written by Pete Grieg Co-founder at 24-7 Prayer and is taken from Facebook

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As you probably know by now, the new tune from Coldplay (aka the #BiggestBandintheWorld) is called “We Pray”. Premiered at Glastonbury, it’s had a zillion streams on Spotify in the past week and taken up residence in radio stations everywhere.

And when a 3 minute song quotes lines from the Bible, mentions prayer no fewer than 37 times, and duets with Elyanna, a Palestinian-Chilean musician actually born in Nazareth, then people of faith inevitably find themselves sitting up and wondering what to make of it all? Has Chris Martin, um, like ‘converted’?

Well the answer seems to be a pretty straightforward ‘no’. In an interview with Howard Stern, the lead singer (who grew up attending Belmont Evangelical Church in Exeter, England) distanced himself from Christianity, describing himself instead as “an all-theist” – a believer in “God everywhere in everyone.”

So what’s going on?

‘We Pray’ is, it seems to me, both a sign and a psalm.

A SIGN

Here in this song we have another encouraging sign (one of an increasing number) pointing towards the growing interest within our wider western culture in faith and spirituality. Significantly it was originally rumoured to be called ‘Supernova’ but instead Coldplay chose to be as explicit and unapologetic about their subject matter as anyone since, erm, MC Hammer dancing around in his voluminous pants way back in August 1990. Why hide prayer? Whisper it darkly but prayer might just be ‘in’.

And I say that this is one of many signs because ‘We Pray’ hit the airwaves in the wake of an extraordinary Olympic Games. TV cameras hardly knew where to look as athlete after athlete confidently confessed faith in Christ, including Adam Peaty, the British swimmer, Gabriel Medina, the Brazilian surfer, and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, the American hurdler.

That same week The New Statesman (which describes itself as ‘the leading progressive political and cultural magazine in the United Kingdom and around the world’) ran a cover story entitled ‘The Christian Comeback’. Meanwhile Nick Cave released an acclaimed new album entitled ‘Wild God’.

And I haven’t even mentioned the unexplained spike in church attendance amongst young men in Finland, or the 12,000 young people baptised in France over Easter, or the suprising spiritual journey of Ayaan Hirsi Ali from new atheism to faith, or the miraculous healing of Jordan Peterson’s wife, Tammy…

A PSALM

But “We pray” doesn’t just point towards a shift in the culture by talking unashamedly about prayer, it actually is in itself a prayer, an articulation to God of yearning for justice, mercy and hope.

At one point Chris Martin, who has ‘God is Love’ tattooed on his arm, actually quotes Psalm 23 word for word (‘the valley of the shadow of death’). And then his chorus leaves us in little doubt:

And so we pray
I know somewhere that Heaven is waitin’
I know somewhere there’s something amazin’
I know somewhere we’ll feel no pain
Until we make it to the end of the day

This isn’t just a wish. A sentiment. Lennon singing ‘Imagine’. It’s a surprisingly prayerful declaration of actual personal faith: ‘I know… heaven is waiting… I know… something amazing’.

And in common with many psalms, Martin’s prayer is not just for himself but for justice. He prays that ‘Virgilio wins’ – a reference to the case of Aguilar Mendez, a Guatemalan teenager unlawfully accused of causing the death of a Florida police officer. He prays “Baraye”, a reference to the great Iranian protest song which arose after the arrest of 22 year-old Mahsa Amini for wearing her hijab improperly, and her subsequent death in police custody. It’s a Farsi word meaning ‘Because’, and this is a song that lists all the reasons, the ‘becauses’, for standing up to oppression.

Here in this song we have something perhaps more significant than simply a clean cut Christian testimonial, or a musical extension of the #pray4 slogan.