Derren Brown

Last night I saw Derren Brown’s show “Infamous” at the Lowry, Salford Quays. This isn’t going to be a review of the show as such, though some aspects of this will touch on that, and I am not going to go into detail as to what the show contained, largely for the benefit of future audiences who have not seen the show yet. So what I say about the show is either in very general terms, or has already been reported in newspaper reviews.

What has been said in the papers is that the show starts with Brown describing the process of coming out as a gay man. Basically, in this day and age, it was unremarkable. That, however, is not the purpose of this blog. I’m thinking more about one part of the show, where I hope I’m not giving too much away by saying that at one stage he put some members of the audience into a trance.  I have to say that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with this, and there is still more for me to reflect on in this area, but there was no pressure, people were simply invited to take part if they wished and no-one thought any the less of those who did not. I didn’t wish to take part and that was fine. More on that later.

If I understand correctly, those who were in a trance were conscious throughout. The vast majority remained standing, but 2, with whom Brown had some physical contact fell to the floor. One of those guys was seated across the aisle from me, and when he was on the floor, he was in the aisle, right next to me.

That led me to think back to some large Evangelical Christian gatherings I have attended in the past, and where I have seen a not dis-similar sight. It got me thinking again about something I have been considering for some time, at these large events, are the worship leaders trying to get the congregation into a trance-like state?

I have mentioned above that Derren invited people to take part if they wished – I didn’t, and not everyone did by any means, that was fine. There was no problem at the theatre last night, yet at big evangelical gatherings, if you don’t get into that sort of state, there seems to be an assumption that there’s something wrong with you / you don’t have enough faith / you need prayer.

I have blogged previously about this, after a preacher at Spring Harvest tried to push me over when I asked for prayer, (I have not been back to Spring Harvest since), and also mentioning a TV show which Brown did, based on faith healings. He set out to debunk the fake faith healers of today, as Houdini set out to debunk the fake mediums of his day, and whilst there will be many throwing their hands up in horror and saying that Brown, the gay atheist is on a one-way ticket to Hell, I for one think that he did the church a great favour there.

I’m not against healing, I firmly believe that God can and does heal, but not all healing is physical, and it is for God, not evangelical preachers, to say when healing will take place.

Last night’s show was entertainment, and we all knew that it was entertainment. That is fine. It is when entertainment masquerades as worship, and even worse, as healing, that the red warning lights should be visible.