As an Episcopalian, I spend numerous time fascinated by ritual and neighborhood. Which may be why, once I attended Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour (as soon as in 2023 and once more in 2024) I couldn’t assist noticing how stadiums filled with followers echoed the rhythms of Church life: the shared symbols, the call-and-response, the sense of belonging.
It’s been nearly a yr since I attended a present in New Orleans close to the tip of the tour. In keeping with The New York Instances, greater than 10 million tickets for the Eras Tour have been offered in its 149 reveals throughout 5 continents. The gross income surpassed $2 billion, the best ever for a live performance tour. On common, practically 70,000 individuals attended every evening; in Melbourne, one present drew greater than 96,000. Outdoors the ticketed seats, 1000’s extra gathered to commerce bracelets, sing alongside from parking heaps, and easily breathe the identical air as their pop-culture maven.
I discover myself considering that Taylor Swift has completed one thing that our Church has not. She has satisfied tens of millions of younger individuals to return collectively, sing with conviction, and stroll away feeling as in the event that they belong.
‘You Belong’: Why the Eras Tour Feels Like a Liturgy
She gave individuals symbols. Early Christians drew the ichthus within the grime as a clandestine signal of solidarity. Swifties commerce beaded bracelets. Each are compact and moveable, immediately binding strangers into neighborhood. Her favourite quantity, 13, capabilities like a sacred cipher, each bit as shorthand because the Chi-Rho on a priest’s stole.
She gave followers a liturgy. In church, the presider proclaims and the congregation responds. At Swift’s reveals, the system was practically an identical: The clapping chorus in “You Belong With Me,” the shouted beat in “Unhealthy Blood.” It was ritual call-and-response, practiced till it turned second nature.
She gave them vestments. The Church has liturgical colours: purple for Creation, inexperienced for Atypical Time, white for Easter. Swift has eras: robes for “Converse Now,” snaky bodysuits for “repute,” cozy cardigans for “evermore.” Followers mirrored these aesthetics of their outfits, dressing not merely for vogue however as an expression of id, allegiance, and reminiscence.
She gave them sacred house. Cathedrals have been constructed for awe: hovering ceilings, filtered mild, acoustics tuned for hymnody. Stadiums, too, are designed for transcendence. In each locations, scale issues. Stroll into the nave of the Nationwide Cathedral or the bowl of SoFi Stadium and your breath catches. For medieval pilgrims, the journey was Canterbury. For contemporary followers, it was live performance venues in Los Angeles, Melbourne, or London.
She gave them emotional care. Swift isn’t any priest, however she spoke like one. She named heartbreak, betrayal, and restoration. She admitted to doubt and despair, then sang of resilience. Her presence was performative (delivered to 70,000 at a time) but it surely carried real consolation. Many within the crowd left feeling seen, cared for, even blessed.
‘Castles Crumbling’: The place the Church Stands
In the meantime, the Episcopal Church endures. We’re not dropping cash; actually, congregations collected greater than $1.4 billion in giving final yr. Attendance has rebounded considerably because the pandemic. And in contrast to the pop tour, the Church shouldn’t be ephemeral; it claims continuity with eternity.
However the generational imbalance is simple. The modal age of 69 means the Church is, demographically talking, nearer to hospice than to delivery. And the hole between what younger persons are clearly hungry for—ritual, symbols, magnificence, belonging—and what the Church gives is sobering.
Our worship can really feel restrained when in comparison with Swift’s exuberant liturgy. Our vestments and liturgical colours typically appear extra obscure than participatory. They carry centuries of which means, tied to seasons and scripture, however to many exterior the custom they seem as coded indicators relatively than invites. As an alternative of drawing newcomers in, they will really feel like insider language stitched into material.
The Church additionally gives sacraments, which are supposed to be wells of life and pleasure: bread and wine that nourish, water that heals, oil that blesses. But we don’t all the time talk them as such. Too usually they’re introduced with solemnity however with out the sense of surprise which may assist youthful generations grasp their vitality.
Our foremost image, the cross, fails to unite younger individuals prefer it as soon as did. Maybe it has grow to be too acquainted, or maybe its associations with struggling and sacrifice don’t simply translate into the playful solidarity that bracelets evoke. Its ubiquity might also boring its pressure: when non-Christians put on it as vogue or celebrities show it as decoration, the cross now not capabilities as a particular signal of fellowship in the way in which it as soon as did.
Swift solely gives pop music, and but she makes it really feel transcendent.
‘Start Once more’: Classes the Church Would possibly Be taught
No, the Church shouldn’t rent a stage designer or flip the Eucharist right into a pop present. However we’d take some notes from the Eras phenomenon:
Participation issues. Worship shouldn’t be a efficiency however a communal act. When liturgy brings individuals into neighborhood, individuals take part as they did at Swift’s reveals.
Symbols have life. A bracelet shouldn’t be highly effective in itself; its which means comes from the way in which individuals change it and put on it publicly. The identical is true of the cross, vestments, and even sacraments. Symbols come alive once they transfer past the sanctuary and into each day life.
Magnificence issues. We underestimate how a lot persons are drawn to the aesthetics of sunshine, sound, and motion. God made us sensory beings; why ought to worship not replicate that?
Storytelling is important. Swift’s songs are diaries set to music. They’re confessions and testimonies. Our sermons and prayers ought to likewise be rooted in lived story, not summary platitude.
Presence must be each intimate and broad. Swift’s Instagram notes, shock songs, and private banter made stadiums really feel like small rooms. Clergy can do the identical with pastoral notes, social-media presence, and midweek touches of care.
‘Lengthy Stay’: The Subsequent Chapter
The Eras Tour could also be over, however Swift shouldn’t be completed evangelizing her fandom. Her twelfth studio album, The Lifetime of a Showgirl, drops October 3. It has already damaged information: greater than 5 million pre-saves on Spotify, probably the most ever. A movie, The Official Launch Social gathering of a Showgirl, premieres this weekend. If the tour was her cathedral, the album is her scripture in ready, able to be sung, debated, and cherished.
The Episcopal Church doesn’t have to compete with Taylor Swift. It can’t, and it shouldn’t. What we provide is older, deeper, and, if we dare say it, more true. However Swift’s world revival ought to remind us of what’s potential when ritual, image, and sweetness meet longing.
The crowds at her live shows testify to a easy reality: individuals nonetheless need to belong, to sing, to be moved. That starvation is as actual at present because it was within the early Church. The query is whether or not the church will meet it with a residing witness or cede the sphere to sequins, stadium lights, and a pop star who, deliberately or not, has been educating us all a lesson in what it means to assemble, to imagine, and to enter, for just a few hours at the least, right into a “State of Grace.”
Catherine Stapleton is a younger skilled and “Swiftie” residing in Washington, D.C., the place she works in larger training and is lively within the Episcopal Church.
