Democrats Have Learned Nothing, Maybe They’re Too Stupid Too

by Alex Newman, Liberty Sentinel: Non-government cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are increasingly in the Deep State’s crosshairs for hijacking or eliminating as the effort to impose a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) on humanity picks up speed, warned The New American magazine’s Alex Newman in this episode of Behind The Deep State. Some major governments are […]

  One of the greatest rivalries in history, the contest between England and France lasted for many centuries. The animosity between the two nations led them to become bitter enemies who fought against each other not just in Europe but throughout the entire world.   From these conflicts, a hatred grew that solidified the two country’s national identities. It spurred its government and people to perpetuate a conflict that would culminate in a war between two globe-spanning empires for ultimate control.   However, all of this had its beginnings in the interconnected families ruling England and France. Monarchic designs brought these nations into conflict.   Making sense of all the wars fought between England (and subsequently the United Kingdom) and France can be a tricky subject.   This is a timeline of its beginnings in the medieval era.   1076-1077: The Breton War William the Conqueror. Source: Wellcome Collection   Relations between Anglo-Saxon England and France were generally positive. Once the Normans conquered England, however, the entire dynamic shifted. Norman kings frequently saw themselves as the rightful heirs to various parts of France and even the French throne.   The first conflict was the Breton War. While England did not play a major role in the war, it was the first between an English and a French monarch. At the time, the Normans considered England to be a territory of Normandy, not the other way around.   The war was fought between the semi-independent fief of Normandy under the control of William the Conqueror and Philip I of France. William attempted to seize Brittany but was checked by the forces of Philip I, thus ending the period of Norman expansion in the region.   1087: The Vexin War   The Vexin was a small county in the middle of the Seine that acted as a buffer between French and Norman lands. When the Vexin count retired, this buffer no longer existed, and the French and Normans raided each other for control of this country. During an attack on the French town of Mantes, William the Conqueror suffered an injury from which he died.   The Rebellion of 1088 The dominions of William the Conqueror in 1087. Source: Emerson Kent, public domain   Upon William the Conqueror’s death, Normandy was given to his eldest son, Robert Curthose, while his middle son, William Rufus, inherited England. The youngest son, Henry, inherited several English estates and a considerable sum of silver. The older brothers came to blows, mainly over the fact that William was sleeping with Robert’s wife.   Nobles who owned lands in both territories grappled with the question of loyalty, and many banded together to overthrow William II. A brief civil war ensued, but William’s position as King of England proved unassailable, and a huge division was created between the Kingdom of England and the Dukedom of Normandy.   1097-1098: Vexin and Maine  The extent of the Angevin Empire. Source: Diverse-Travel.com   In 1096, Robert Curthose left to go on a crusade. Robert mortgaged Normandy to his brother, William II of England, to raise funds for the expedition, and as such, Normandy was left under his brother’s control. The brothers made a pact that if either of them were to die, the other would inherit both Normandy and England.   William wasted little time and attempted to expand Normandy by attacking the counties of Vexin and Maine. He successfully conquered Maine but had to make do with an inconclusive truce over Vexin.   While Robert was in the Holy Land, William II died during a hunt under suspicious circumstances. An arrow from Walter Tyrell pierced the king in the back, and Tyrell fled the kingdom. Within days, the youngest brother, Henry, with the support of the nobles, declared himself king. Robert, away on a crusade, could do very little about the situation.   1109-1113: Anglo-French War    Henry I was in a difficult position with the king of France. As king of England, Henry was Louis’ equal, but as Duke of Normandy, he was his vassal. This produced an awkward arrangement that would result in a series of conflicts.   The first war known as the Anglo-French War was fought over the castle of Gisors on the border between Normandy and the French crownlands. Henry seized the castle, which was supposed to be under the rule of a neutral lord. This move angered Louis VI, and hostilities opened. After a series of skirmishes that lasted four years, there was no clear victor, and a truce was called.   1116-1119: Anglo-French War The Battle of Bremule. Source: Wikimedia Commons   After many years on the throne of England, Henry I found himself having to defend his possessions in Normandy. At the Battle of Brémule in 1119, English forces successfully repulsed a French invasion. The English took many knights prisoner and made a fortune by ransoming them off.   1123-1135: Anglo-French War   The war between 1123 and 1135 was brought about by an unfortunate incident in which a ship carrying Henry’s heir struck a rock and sank, killing all but one of the crew. With his line in jeopardy, Henry found himself in a delicate position. Louis tried to capitalize on this by fomenting rebellion in Maine. Henry’s daughter, Matilde, married the heir to the County of Anjou in 1128, Geoffroi Plantagenet. Thus, an heir was secured as well as an expansion of lands under the influence of Henry I.   With order restored in Maine, by 1135, the Anglo-Normans could claim victory over the Kingdom of France.   1158-1189: Anglo-French War  Richard I the Lionheart, King of England by Merry-Joseph Blondel, 1841. Source: Wikimedia Commons   The first Plantagenet king, Henry II, was immensely powerful, holding England, parts of Wales, Ireland, and the entire western half of France. The Angevin Empire, as it was known, gave Henry much more power than that of the French king, Louis VII. As Duke of Normandy, Henry II was still technically a vassal to the French king, and Louis was not happy about the amount of power his vassal had.   The Anglo-French War of 1158 to 1189 was a period of intermittent fighting. During this time, Louis managed to convince Henry II’s wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, to persuade two of their sons, John and Richard (later known as “Lionheart”), to conspire against their father.   In 1180, Louis VII died, and Philippe II became king. Richard and John joined in the war on Philippe’s side. During the campaigning in 1889, Henry II died of dysentery and was succeeded by his eldest son, Richard.   1193-1199: Anglo-French War   The alliance between Philippe II of France and Richard was one of convenience at the time. Richard felt no compunction in turning on his former ally, so the two kings went to war in 1193 after Richard returned from the Third Crusade. The Anglo-Normans and the French jostled for power, trying to expand their territory on the border between the two kingdoms.   Richard won a significant victory at Gisors in 1198, but the following year, Richard was struck by a crossbow bolt while in battle. The wound, which was considered minor, was not treated properly, and on April 6, 1199, Richard the Lionheart died from a gangrenous infection.   His death brought an end to the conflict. Despite losing their monarch, the Anglo-Normans exited the conflict in a better position than they had entered.   1202-1204: Anglo-French War King John of England, unknown artist, 1668. Source: Wikimedia Commons   After Richard’s death, there was a power struggle as Richard had left no legitimate heirs. Richard’s half-brother John, supported by the Anglo-Normans, fought for control of the Angevin Empire against Arthur of Brittany, the legitimate grandson of Henry II, who was supported by the French crown. In 1202, Philippe II took the opportunity to invade Normandy and expand the French empire into Angevin territory on the continent. By 1204, the poor leadership from King John (who earned the nickname “Lackland”) saw the French regain territory in Normandy, Anjou, and Maine.   1213-1214: Anglo-French War Bataille of Bouvines won by Philippe Auguste by Horace Vernet, 1827. Source: Wikimedia Commons   King John of England wished to regain the lost territories of the Angevin Empire and struck a deal with the Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV, who had major concerns about the rising power of the Kingdom of France. John also acquired the help of the Counties of Flanders and Boulogne.   The war began well, and the English managed to destroy the French fleet, but the tide turned when Otto reneged on his promise and pulled out of the conflict. The French, still stretched thin, maneuvered back and forth, winning victories against their enemies in the process.   In the end, the French won a decisive victory at Bouvines and conquered the territory of Flanders, ending the war and John I’s ambitions.   1215-1217: Anglo-French War & First Barons’ War Effigy of Henry III on his tomb in Saint Edward’s Chapel. Source: Westminster Abbey   After the collapse of the Angevin Empire, many of the noblemen under John I’s rule rebelled against their king. Thus began a period of civil war in England in which Philippe II’s son, Louis, attempted to gain the throne by supporting the rebels.   Louis had neither the support of his father nor the support of the pope, who later excommunicated him for the venture. He managed to take Winchester and was in control of about half of England when he was proclaimed “King of England” by the rebellious barons, but Louis was never crowned.   When King John died of dysentery in 1216, many of the barons who had supported Louis switched allegiance and gave their support to Henry III, John’s nine-year-old son. The decisive moment came at the Second Battle of Lincoln on May 20, 1217, when Louis’ forces were defeated.   Later that year, an attempt to reinforce the French in England failed, and the French fleet was beaten off the coast of Sandwich.   Louis was forced to sign the Treaty of Lambeth, in which he gave up all possessions in England and agreed never to make claims on the English throne.   1242-1243: Saintonge War Louis IX, known as Saint Louis, King of France by Émile Signol, 1844. Source: Wikimedia Commons   The Saintonge War was fought between 1242 and 1243 in the region around Saintes in the center-west of France. Rebel sentiment in Poitou against Louis IX of France prompted Henry III to invade in an attempt to regain some of the lost territories of the Angevin Empire.   English and rebel forces were soundly defeated at the Battle of Taillebourg. After the Siege of Saintes, the English and rebel forces could no longer muster any strength to oppose the French and were forced to sign a treaty. Henry III was forced to renounce his claim to French lands.   1294-1303: The Guyenne War   Clashes between French and English seamen off the southwest coast of France prompted a settlement between the French king and the nobles of Gascony, which was still under the control of the English crown.   When French forces did not vacate occupied Gascon castles upon the agreed due date, Edward I used this as a pretext for war and invaded France.   The English allied themselves with Flanders, while the French managed to strike an alliance with Scotland.   With mounting pressure on the north of his kingdom and a failed campaign in France, Edward managed to secure a status quo ante bellum, which sowed the seeds for further conflict between France and England.   The troubles with Scots, however, would continue for some time.   1324: The War of Saint-Sardos King Edward II of England. Source: Public domain, Getarchive   A short war between England and France from July 1 to September 22, 1324 was fought over the dwindling power of the English king’s power over lands in France. As Duke of Aquitaine, Edward II was still technically a vassal of the French king, and the French wanted the English monarch gone and a return of all English lands on the continent to France.   Wary of the constant whittling away of English territories, the situation between France and the English king was extremely tense. A minor incident involving the town of Saint-Sardos escalated beyond control. The town had been under English control, but the abbey and church were under French control.   When French troops arrived and erected defenses around their territory, retaliation was prompted, and violence broke out, eventually leading to a French invasion. Edward II lost Aquitaine due to poor military performance.   1337-1453: The Hundred Years’ War Battle of Crécy between the English and French in the Hundred Years’ War from Chapter CXXIX of Jean Froissart’s Chronicles, 15th century. Source: Wikimedia Commons   One of the more famous conflicts between France and England, the Hundred Years’ War, was a period of sporadic fighting between the two kingdoms that lasted for 116 years.   The fighting started as a result of the death of the king of France, Charles IV, in 1328 at the age of 33. He left no direct heirs, and his closest relative was Edward III, the king of England. French nobles, however, refused to acknowledge any rights Edward had on the French throne, and crowned Philippe, Count of Valois, as the new king of France. Thus ended the Capetian dynasty, and began the reign of the Valois monarchs.   After the French demanded the return of Gascony, Edward III responded with military force. The English saw major successes in the first phases of the war, winning significant victories at Crécy in 1346 and Poitiers ten years later. English victories and the capture of the French king, Jean II, led to the Treaties of Brétigny and Calais, where vast portions of French land were ceded to England.   Jean, however, died in captivity, and his son, Charles, refused to abide by the treaties. He reignited the conflict and put France on the offensive. French pressure on the English petered out after the death of Charles V in 1380. Civil unrest in both kingdoms led to a pause in the conflict, but the unrest in England was quelled earlier than in France, and Henry V of England decided to take advantage of the situation by launching an invasion.   Joan of Arc at the Siege of Orléans by Jules Eugène Lenepveu, 1886-1890. Source: Wikimedia Commons   Henry V’s invasion went poorly and was a near-complete disaster. However, it ended with a completely unforeseen English victory at Agincourt, which decimated the French nobility and turned the tide of the war in English favor.   By the 1420s, the English and their Burgundian allies were in control of vast portions of France, including Paris. The English were on track to finally conclude the war and completely defeat their long-time rival.   It was at this time that a young peasant girl from the town of Domrémy began acting upon visions that she had received, telling her to lead France’s armies to victory. Joan of Arc became a powerful rallying point for the French, who had almost given up all hope of victory.   She inspired the French to victory, raising the siege of Orléans and proceeding to win significant victories over the English and the Burgundians.   Joan of Arc was betrayed, captured, and burned at the stake, but the motivation she inspired within the French led to their complete victory over England. By 1453, French king Charles VII captured the last of the English possessions on the continent, leaving only the port of Calais in English hands.   The Hundred Years’ War created a strong sense of nationalism in both countries, which would continue to define the many future conflicts between them.   The flag of France used from 1376 to 1589. Source: besthqwallpapers.com; English flag. Source: besthqwallpapers.com   The end of the Hundred Years’ War was by no means the end of conflicts between England and France. The two countries would continue to be at each other’s throats for centuries to come. The bitter rivalry extended beyond that of war, entering politics and sports as they would seek to best each other in every realm possible.

  The French Revolution was one of the most significant events of the 18th century. Borne out of the need to replace the oppressive feudal system put in place by French leaders, it inspired societies across the globe to become more proactive in overturning the status quo of tyrannical regimes. It also forced governments around the world to rethink their governance strategies and adopt more inclusive models that were unlikely to cause upheaval. Ultimately, the French Revolution inspired many of the democratic systems that are prevalent in modern societies today.    When and How Did the French Revolution Start? Une Exécution capitale, place de la Révolution by Pierre-Antoine Demachy, 1793. Source: Musée Carnavalet, Paris   The French Revolution took place between the years 1789 and 1799. That said, the revolution was not a single event but rather a sequence of events that took place between those years.   Many of the problems that led to the uprising began in the late 18th century, when France was reeling from economic turbulence. The economic problems were caused partly by the country’s involvement in the American Revolution, which resulted in a heavy financial cost. The economic problems were further compounded by King Louis XVI’s extravagant spending. The worsening economic conditions increased hardships among the working class and forced the Third Estate (made up of commoners) to revolt against the ruling class in order to form its own National Assembly and push for constitutional reforms. And thus, the French Revolution was born.   Eventually, the uprising led to the storming of the Bastille, which was a symbol of royal authority. Soon afterwards, Paris fell from the King’s control. The revolution led to the execution of King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie-Antoinette. Both were executed for treason in 1793.   How Did the French Revolution Affect Governance in Other Countries? Illustration depicting combat between French and Haitian troops during the Haitian Revolution. From Histoire de Napoléon, by M. De Norvins, 1839. Source: Encyclopedia Britannica.   The French Revolution had a significant global impact. This is because it was able to galvanize and, in some instances, divide societies around the world in continents such as Europe and the Americas. For example, it set off the slave revolution in Haiti which resulted in the abolition of slavery in the country in1804. This is after French revolutionaries declared that all men were free and equal. The turn of events caused African slaves in Haiti to rise up. The conflicts it triggered also disrupted existing power structures in countries such as Egypt, India, and parts of Africa.   Napoleon in Cairo by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 19th century. Source: Haaretz   Egypt, for example, was conquered by Napoleon Bonaparte after he became a military leader following the French Revolution. With a formidable fleet of more than 300 naval ships, he and his army of over 30,000 soldiers left for Egypt on May 19, 1798 under the orders of the Directory that controlled France. The primary objective was to free Egypt from the oppression of the Ottoman Empire ruling class, while the secondary objective was to block Britain’s route to India.    Despite initial victories, the French military was eventually defeated by the British army. The invasion by the French marked the beginning of increased interference in the region by major Western powers due to the strategic importance of the Suez Canal.   What Were the Effects of the French Revolution in Europe? Portrait of King Leopold I of Belgium, unknown artist, 1850. Source: Wikimedia Commons.   The French Revolution had a domino effect that led to similar uprisings in Europe. Countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands experienced similar uprisings that were partly inspired by French Revolution ideals. At some point, the situation culminated in the secession of Belgium from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands following The Belgian Revolution of 1830. In Ireland, there was the emergence of the 1798 United Irishmen Rebellion which sought to establish a republic based on the French revolutionary principles. However, it was short-lived and ultimately failed. That said, the storming of the Bastille in the French Revolution gave rise to the realization that collective action among the masses could force constitutional reforms.   For centuries, France, like many other countries, had been governed by monarchies and autocracies before 1789. The French Revolution changed all this and thus it is commemorated today as a key turning point in history.

  Over the years many films have been written, produced, and shot about (and in) Northern Ireland. This article will explore four films about the Troubles directed by four different directors, starting with ’71, Yann Demange’s feature directorial debut. It will also discuss how these filmmakers, from different countries, have dealt with the history of Northern Ireland. Through their works and unique perspectives, we will try and understand why Northern Ireland continues to inspire filmmakers from across Europe and what it is in the history of this country that continues to resonate deeply with audiences worldwide.   1. ’71: A British Soldier on the Streets of Belfast ’71, written and directed by Yann Demange. Source: IMDB   “Posh c*nts telling thick c*nts to kill poor c*nts. That’s the Army for you.” This is perhaps the most iconic and befitting line of ’71 (2014), directed by French filmmaker Yann Demange in his feature directorial debut and written by Scottish screenwriter Gregory Burke. The film centers around Gary Hook (Jack O’Connell), a new recruit in the British Army.   It is 1971, one of the worst years of the Troubles, and Hook’s unit is deployed on the streets of Belfast to provide support to the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary), the (overwhelmingly Protestant) Northern Ireland police force. During a house-to-house search in the city’s Catholic neighborhood, the RUC men start beating and verbally abusing people outside (and inside) their homes. A crowd gathers. Young men and women begin hurling stones at the British soldiers present in the area, who are ill-equipped for the riot.   Jack O’Connell fighting for his life on the streets of Belfast in ’71. Source: New York Times   The soldiers had been instructed not to wear their riot gear to avoid provoking anyone. Eventually, as violence escalates, Hook is left behind by his retreating unit. While running for his life, he hides in a toilet, and behind its walls, Hook realizes he can trust no one. Why? Because he is a symbol — not for the viewers, but for all the other characters in the film.   He is a symbol for Billy (Corey McKinley), the loyalist child whose father was killed by the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and who is adamant he is going to join the Ulster Rifles to kill as many “Fenian bastards” as possible. He is a symbol for Paul Haggerty (Martin McCann), the Provisional IRA gunman who shoots Hook’s fellow soldier Thompson (Jack Lowden) at point-blank range, backed by his blank-faced friend Sean (Barry Keoghan).   Jack O’Connell plays British Army soldier Gary Hook. Source: IMDB   He is a symbol for Sergeant Lewis (Paul Anderson), a member of the Military Reaction Force (MRF), the British Army’s counter-insurgency cover unit, which Hook glimpses while building a bomb with a Loyalist group. He is also a symbol for Brigid (Charlie Murphy), the daughter of Eamon (Richard Dormer), the former army medic who rescues Hook and utters the iconic line from the beginning of the article as he tends to his wounds. For the British Army, Hook is just “a piece of meat.”   Through his ordeal, we catch a glimpse of a profoundly sectarian society. In Northern Ireland in the 1970s, those who decided not to actively take sides and fight for a cause often found themselves spending their lives dodging bullets, trying to survive, trying not to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, which is exactly where Hook ends up.   This is perhaps what ’71 captured best in its accurate depiction of the Troubles. In a sectarian society, everything is a symbol. Anyone can become a symbol. As soon as Gary Hook steps out of the army truck, he stops being a human being. He stops being a “Derbyshire lad” and is transformed into a symbol — to be valued and cherished or demonized and destroyed. Shortly after meeting him, Billy the Loyalist kid remarks, “You’re not a Catholic, not with a name like that,” and proceeds to ask him the dreaded question, “Are you a Protestant?”   Hook shrugs, he doesn’t know. Billy stops in his tracks, stunned, “You don’t know?” In war, there is no place for subtlety.   2. Belfast: Through the Eyes of a Protestant Kid Belfast, written and directed by Kenneth Branagh. Source: Home Theater Forum   A major 1960s poll found that most Northern Irish people were willing to justify armed struggle. Catholics and Protestants alike saw themselves as members of a community under attack.   If ’71 captures 1970s Belfast through the eyes of a man on the run, Belfast (2021) is above all a film about a child’s happy childhood in a city at war and about a family that wants to live in peace. Everything, from the Troubles to human relationships, comes through the scrutiny of nine-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill).   Written and directed by Kenneth Branagh and shot in black-and-white, Belfast captures the outbreak of the Troubles and the first August riots that kick-started the conflict, pitting one neighbor against another, and one family against another. The Troubles officially began with an uprising in August 1969, when the Bogside, Derry’s overwhelmingly Catholic neighborhood, witnessed the full-scale uprising of its inhabitants.   Jamie Dorman as Pa in a scene from the film. Source: The Times   To prevent the RUC from entering their district, people began erecting barriers and throwing bricks at armored police vehicles. The RUC men responded with tear gas and stones. When they finally entered the Bogside, Protestant mobs charged in after them. This event went down in history as the Battle of the Bogside.   Branagh’s admittedly autobiographical film focuses on the August 1969 riots in Belfast as seen through the eyes of Buddy and his family, his Ma (Caitríona Balfe), his Pa (Jamie Dorman), his Granny (Judi Dench) and his beloved Pop (Ciarán Hinds). They are common people stuck in an uncommon situation. As their world falls apart, they remain true to their values, refusing to give in to violence, even, and perhaps especially, when violence takes the form of a nine-year-old stealing a box of laundry detergent from a riot-hit supermarket.   Ma, Pa, Granny, and Buddy in a scene from Belfast. Source: Today   But how do you remain true to your morals when everyone around you urges you to take sides and to fight for the “cause”? How do you set an example for your children when the world around you seems to equate the desire for peace with cowardice and treachery?   Spoiler Alert. Belfast ends with Buddy’s family packing up and leaving for England, as Branagh’s own family did in early 1970. At that time, Branagh was nine, just like Buddy. In the end, violence won out. A peaceful family is forced to leave their home and everything else, with the children’s grandmother waving them goodbye from afar.   But is this the case? Or is it the other way around? After all, sectarian violence fails to infiltrate Buddy’s family. It fails to divide it, to turn one family member against the other (as often happened). Buddy’s family resists, albeit while moving away. Belfast never succumbs to the somber tones of other films centered around the Troubles. All in all, this is a sweet coming-of-age gem, is gorgeous to watch (and for that, we have Haris Zambarloukos, the cinematographer, to thank), and is filled with a kind of proactive nostalgia rarely seen nowadays.   3. The Wind That Shakes the Barley: Across the Irish Island The O’Donovan brothers, Damien (Cillian Murphy) and Teddy (Pádraic Delaney) in The Wind that Shakes the Barley. Source: MyMovies   Let’s step back in time with British filmmaker Ken Loach. Loach depicts the birth of Northern Ireland in his award-winning film The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006). Loach’s film tells the story of two brothers from County Cork, Ireland, Damien (Cillian Murphy), and Teddy O’Donovan (Pádraic Delaney) over several years, from the War of Independence (1919-1921) to the Irish Civil War (1922-1923).   In Belfast, Ma and Pa choose to leave Northern Ireland and settle in Great Britain, away from the threat of violence. In so doing, they save their family, securing a future for their children away from war and sectarianism. In The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Damien, a promising young doctor about to leave Ireland to practice medicine in London, decides to stay. He decides to side with his brother and fight for a free Ireland.   Damien and Teddy O’Donovan after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Source: Irish Film Institute   This decision will change his life forever. It will trigger a series of events that will permanently alter his relationship with his brother Teddy. In discussing the upheavals caused by the Civil War, the film investigates the impact of history on family and friends, how history and the fight for a common cause—an independent Ireland—brings two brothers together only to later separate them in the most brutal way. Just like Belfast, this is a film about human beings and about making difficult decisions in times of war.   The 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, commonly known as The Treaty, ended the Irish War of Independence and led to the creation of the Irish Free State, no longer a part of the UK but still a dominion within the British Empire.   Cillian Murphy and Pádraic Delaney in a scene from The Wind that Shakes the Barley. Source: Fernsehserien   Through the lives of Damien and Teddy O’Donovan, and their friends and fellow fighters, we also get a glimpse of what was happening in Ulster after Partition, in those Six Counties that many anti-Treaty Irishmen and women felt the Treaty had betrayed and left behind. During a heated debate, Sinéad (Orla Fitzgerald), Damian’s love interest, who is staunchly anti-Treaty, reminds the group that “my cousins are on the streets of Belfast, burned from their homes by loyalist mobs,” and that there are “refugees all over Dublin.” In two years, in fact, between July 1920 and July 1922, 557 people were killed, according to figures provided by Thomas Hennessey. Most of them were Catholics, 172 were Protestants, and 82 were officers of the police and the British army.   As Belfast Catholics were being driven out of their houses en masse, and Catholic socialist workers kept losing their jobs, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) acted on behalf of the Northern Irish Catholics by raiding police barracks and ambushing police officers on patrol. Finally, in 1949, Ireland left the Commonwealth, and the independent Republic of Ireland was born.   Northern Ireland, with its Protestant majority “a Protestant state for Protestant people,” remained part of the UK. The Partition, perfectly captured by Ken Loach in The Wind that Shakes the Barley, helped set the stage for the conflict that would ravage Northern Ireland between 1969 and the late 1990s.   4. In the Name of the Father  Gerry (Daniel Day-Lewis) and Giuseppe Conlon (Pete Postlethwaite) in a scene from In the Name of the Father. Source: FilmAffinity   From the story of two brothers fighting for Ireland’s independence to the (true) story of a father and son falsely accused of terrorism during the Troubles. In Jim Sheridan’s In the Name of the Father (1993), the father, Patrick “Giuseppe” Conlon, is majestically played by the late Pete Postlethwaite. Daniel Day-Lewis stars in the role of the son, Gerry Conlon, one of the Guildford Four.   Along with Paul Hill, Patrick Armstrong, and Carole Richardson, Gerry was accused of being one of the IRA members responsible for the bombs that destroyed two pubs in Guildford Surrey on October 5, 1974. In 1975 they were all convicted and sentenced to life. Seven more people, known as the Maguire Seven, were charged with possessing the nitro-glycerine that the IRA allegedly used to make the bombs. They had all been framed.   Gerry Conlon being questioned by the British police in relation to the Guildford bombs in a scene from the film. Source: FilmAffinity   The Gerry Conlon portrayed in Sheridan’s film couldn’t be more different from his father: he is feckless, irresponsible, a naïve drifter, and a petty thief. Giuseppe, on the other hand, is a hard-working man, loyal to his principles and ethics. It doesn’t matter. He will end up in jail alongside his son. It took more than 20 years and the hard and scrupulous work of British solicitor Gareth Peirce (played by Emma Thompson) to overturn the convictions of Gerry and the other Guildford Four.   In 1989, they finally walked out of the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, in London. Unfortunately, Giuseppe Conlon had passed away by then. The world had changed, but the Troubles were still ongoing in Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Even when Sheridan’s film came out, four years later, the Troubles were far from over.   Gerry Conlon shortly before being released from jail in 1989. Source: Film Affinity   In the Name of the Father was nominated for seven Oscars at the 66th Academy Awards. Ten years after the release of the film, Sheridan responded to the critics accusing his film of historical inaccuracies explaining that when the film came out “I was accused of lying in In the Name of the Father, but the real lie was saying it was a film about the Guildford Four when really it was about a non-violent parent.” It is through the example set by Giuseppe, by his life, his words, and his actions, that Gerry Conlon is able to change and evolve, to become a better man determined to prove to the world his and his father’s innocence. In the Name of the Father is essentially a film about human relations, about how they can be disrupted and altered, for better or for worse, by war.   Just like Belfast and The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Sheridan’s film shows us the long-term effects of violence, how it affects future generations, and how it inherently possesses the potential to generate further grief and death. This is something Professor Marianne Hirsch has discussed at length in her seminal book The Generation of Postmemory, albeit in the context of the Holocaust. Postmemory, Hirsch writes, “describes the relationship that the ‘generation after’ bears to the personal, collective, and cultural trauma of those who came before – to experiences they ‘remember’ only by means of the stories, images, and behaviors among which they grew up” (Hirsch, 2012). “These events,” Hirsch adds, “happened in the past, but their effects continue into the present.”   To put it with Jim Sheridan, “the more these situations are talked about, the less the rage is likely to convert to violence. Telling those stories matters.”

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Let me tell you what church was like when I was a kid in the olden days—about three or four decades ago. I grew up attending a small Christian Reformed Church in the cornfields of Iowa. Our worship was formal: I wore a dress and sat with my family on a hard wooden pew. When it was time to sing, we opened our hymnals to songs like “How Great Thou Art,” “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” and “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” Nearly every song had a “thee” or “thou” in it and the hymns in our repertoire were, on average, about 150 years old. Today, my church doesn’t have a piano, much less an organ. The worship team uses a keyboard, guitars, and drums to accompany our singing. We don’t have songbooks either—the lyrics pop up onto the wall. We still sing hymns, but the average age of our worship songs is about seven years old. I know I’m not the only one to experience this shift. Surveys tell us that in the 20 years from 1998 to 2018, more congregations have set up projectors, hauled in drum sets, and begun to raise their hands in worship. The study authors speculate one reason might be our culture’s growing informality. We don’t address our neighbors or even our bosses as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” anymore. We don’t often wear suits or dresses to work, or even to church. Moving from hymnals to screens, then, might say less about our theology and more about our larger culture. That’s interesting. But here’s what’s even more fascinating: the songwriting process has changed. It’s a lot faster—both the pace at which songs are written and the pace at which they are released and grab attention. The language is more casual. And sometimes the theology isn’t as careful as it could or should be. At least one church noticed these problems and tried a different songwriting process. It was slow and clunky and never should have worked—and yet it did. I can’t wait to share their story, and what they learned, with you. Not a Real Band CityAlight is relatively new to the Christian music scene—they first hit Spotify with the song “Jerusalem” in 2015 and grabbed attention with “Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me” in 2018. With a boost from internet searches and at-home worship during the pandemic, CityAlight has grown to more than 1.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify. In September 2023, more than 6,000 people worshiped with CityAlight at The Gospel Coalition’s national conference. I was one of them, and I was thrilled because some of my favorite worship songs are CityAlight’s—“Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me,” “This Is the Day,” and “Saved My Soul.” I was also excited because I knew CityAlight was popular, and I loved that they made time for TGC in their busy touring and songwriting schedule. On the conference’s second day, I said as much to Ann Westrate, our events director. She confirmed CityAlight was hard to schedule, but not because they had to fit us in around other performances. CityAlight leading worship at TGC’s national conference in 2023 / Courtesy of TGC “They had to ask for time off of work because they have day jobs,” she said. “They’re teachers and graphic designers and stuff like that. They just all go to the same church and play in the worship team.” It took me a minute to catch on. The people who wrote and sang “Only a Holy God” weren’t professional musicians? The group with more than a million monthly listeners on Spotify isn’t a real band? “We only have one person on staff who looks after CityAlight,” said singer Tiarne Tranter. “Everyone else still has a day job. Everyone else is a volunteer. So we struggle to find time to rehearse because everyone’s life is so busy, and we’re actually not paid to do this. And so other than the intensity of it, the mission hasn’t changed. The day-to-day hasn’t changed. We still meet in the church building. We’re still serving in our Bible studies. We’re still serving on teams on Sunday. I think people would be surprised by the amateur nature of what we’re doing over here—if you could see the day-to-day stuff, I think that people would be shocked.” Most of the time, Tiarne is a high school PE teacher and a mom. She plans lessons, does laundry, and goes to Bible study. She just happens to be part of a church that takes worship songs really seriously and is doing things really differently. Church Plant in Criminal Barracks CityAlight’s story begins nearly 200 years ago, when a church was planted in Castle Hill, Australia. The church’s first building was more ominous than a theater or a school gym—it was originally built as barracks for convicted criminals shipped over from England, then spent 15 years as a institution for the mentally ill before becoming the home for St. Simon’s Anglican Church. About 30 years later, St. Simon’s was closed and its members directed two miles down the road to the brand-new St. Paul’s Anglican Church. From the beginning, the congregation loved music. St. Paul’s Castle Hill celebrating 40 years in their current building in May / Courtesy of St. Paul’s Castle Hill Facebook page “They began with a choir, and that choir has been singing together since the beginning,” Tiarne said. “Maybe three or four years ago we had an event celebrating the history of St. Paul’s and they showed a video of the original building. And even in those pictures, you could see the choir singing and people were leading music and it was just really cool.” The people of St. Paul’s passed that love down to their children and their children’s children. “Over time, it just becomes part of our culture, which is naturally growing young people who see others serving and want to do the same,” Tiarne said. “We’re reaping the fruits of that now—of years and years and years of investment from leadership and from the older people in our church.” Australian CCM St. Paul’s was also influenced by the church down the street. Less than five miles away, Brian and Bobbie Houston planted Hillsong Church in 1983. Brian encouraged his worship team to write their own music, and 10 years later, Hillsong’s worship director wrote “Shout to the Lord.” The song was an instant success, sung over and over at churches, youth groups, and Christian camps around the globe. Hillsong played an outsize role in the Christian music industry’s rapid growth. Between 1993 and 1997, the market share for sales of Christian albums in the United States more than doubled, making it the market’s fastest-growing segment. A few other Australian musicians helped boost Christian music in that era—anybody remember the first album from the Newsboys? Or Rebecca St. James? “That created this music culture and it was like, ‘Hey, let’s rethink the way we sing congregationally and worship,’” said CityAlight songwriter Rich Thompson. “And I think that’s in the water a little bit here.” Thompson loved music so much he joined yet another Australian band—this one called Revive—and spent four years opening for Third Day. But I’m getting ahead of myself—we’ll come back to Rich later. Back at St. Paul’s in the ’90s, the worship team was also starting to write and sing its own music. Keith Baker remembers coming on board as a pastoral intern in 1998. “They had just released an album—the first album—way back when,” Keith said. “It had a big horn section on it. It was a real mixture of all sorts of songs.” “That went fairly well in Sydney,” said Rich Vassallo, an audio engineer who began attending St. Paul’s around that time. “A lot of churches picked up the songs. And then in the mid-2000s, they did a studio recording, which didn’t do very well for a number of reasons. But in 2011, I was asked to oversee another recording project, but this one was going to take a different shape.” This time, St. Paul’s didn’t rent a studio. Instead, they recorded live, and they asked their congregation to join them. “It was very ad hoc,” Rich said. “The church didn’t have the budget to do it, so we had to work out how to fund it. We pulled equipment from everybody’s houses and tried to make it work.” It did work. “The end outcome was fine,” he said. “It’s nothing like what we do today, but it was a really important project for us, because we learned a lot from it. It informed a lot of the work we’ve done with team culture, preparing for a project, and helping us really be very clear on what our end goal is.” What was the end goal? The church leaders were clear—it wasn’t to sell albums, to go on tour, or even to create musical masterpieces. The whole point was to provide “new songs to sing at church which are biblically sound, contemporary, and singable.” Because St. Paul’s wanted to be a “city on a hill,” drawing others to “the light of the world,” they called the album City Alight. Starting to Write Songs St. Paul’s music director felt so strongly about songwriting that he asked the church to pay somebody to lead it part-time. He suggested Rich Thompson, who was back in Australia after 10 years in America with Revive. St. Paul’s asked if he’d write songs for them two days a week. Rich, who was working full-time and raising a family, said he could give them one. Meanwhile, St. Paul’s had begun offering music lessons for children in the community. They asked member Jonny Robinson to run the program. Jonny was bright—so bright he was studying for his PhD in philosophy. But he wasn’t gifted at administration. Gamely, he bumbled his way through the logistics of the lessons. “One night, as I was waiting for some of the other lessons to finish, I was playing around on the piano,” Jonny said. “And I wrote a Christian song—it was a church song. Someone heard it and said to me, ‘Hey, can you play that song that you wrote—‘Praise the Savior’—on Sunday?’” He did. “The accountant at church said to me while I was in the office one day, ‘Hey, you wrote that song the other day. I didn’t really know you wrote that kind of music,’” Jonny said. “I think because I was so bad at running the music school—it was all administration and I had no idea what I was doing—I think he was he was shocked that I did something that wasn’t terrible.” The church accountant was so impressed he offered Jonny the other songwriting day—the one Rich couldn’t do. Rich and Jonny met for the first time when sitting down with the music director. “The music minister said, ‘Listen, I gotta go to another meeting. Do you guys want to keep hanging out? You can. That’s fine,’” Jonny said. “So Rich said, ‘Do you want to keep hanging out?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, there’s a piano in one of the other rooms if you want to go chill and hang out and talk.’ And so we sat down, and I talked to him about this idea for a song. I had written a melody for it, kind of a folk melody. And we wrote ‘Jerusalem’ together.” The song was beautiful. But not everyone at St. Paul’s was convinced. What Are We Paying For? “There were people in church that weren’t convinced it was a good use of money,” Jonny said. “They thought maybe we shouldn’t be paid for it, and maybe we shouldn’t be doing it.” It’s easy to sympathize with them. After all, aren’t there hungry people who need to be fed? Homeless who need to be cared for? Widows and orphans to be looked after? Is this really the best use of the resources God has given? In 2014, CityAlight’s Adrian Lee plays guitar while Jonny Robinson watches / Courtesy of CityAlight Here’s what the church leadership argued: We have a unique gift—a congregation full of people who love and excel at music. Using these gifts to produce original songs is a ministry, a way to serve our congregation and something we can give to other congregations around us. What St. Paul’s didn’t realize is they were also paying for something else. Rich and Jonny knew the industry standards and loved to ask why things were the way they were. Together, they’d develop a musical philosophy that would spark a countercultural approach to songwriting. But to understand what they did, you first have to understand how things are. How Things Are When contemporary Christian music took over the radio and CD market in the 1990s, it also affected church worship. Between 1998 and 2012, studies show that congregations began dropping choirs, bulletins, and organs. Instead, they installed projection equipment and set up guitar amplifiers. The song lyrics changed too, reported the authors of the rigorous, multiyear National Congregations Study. Worship moved “away from an emphasis on belief and doctrine and toward an emphasis on experience, emotion, and the search for a least-common-denominator kind of worship.” Not everybody liked the change, and feelings ran so high for so long in so many churches that the arguments began to be labeled the “worship wars.” In the end, many churches handled the conflict by offering two services—one traditional and one contemporary. Over the years, that battle’s ferocity has faded. Lots of churches now sing both hymns and worship songs on Sunday mornings. Many services are now likely to play songs you might hear on Christian radio or a Spotify playlist. “So you’ve got Christian music that goes on radio, and then you’ve got Christian music that goes into churches, and in my mind, they’re two different categories,” Rich Thompson said. “Back in the 2000s, they were quite distinct. In fact, if you were looking at the charts of both of those, they were really distinct in terms of the most played or most sung songs. Today, you’ve got a lot of worship songs being played on radio and a lot of radio songs being sung in churches.” Rich Thompson in 2022 / Courtesy of CityAlight’s Facebook page Why the change? “It’s hard to know exactly why this is happening,” he said. “One of the reasons, if you talk to some of the people in the industry, is because there’s something that happens on a Sunday when people sing a song in church and they become familiar with a song.” Radio station staff have realized that “to be able to play those songs during the week is something that their listeners are going to enjoy because of what they’ve experienced at church,” Rich said. “And so now you have a shift, where the worship songs are being produced in a way that are radio friendly. It didn’t used to be like that.” That makes sense. If we sing a song we like at church, it’s nice to hear it on the radio or a music streaming platform. And if we hear a song we like on the radio, it’s nice to get to sing it in church. In theory, then, all is well. But of course, real life is rarely as neat and clean as theory. Here’s one problem: when we only play worship music on the radio, we’re cutting out a lot of other songs that don’t fit into that box. In the ’90s, most churches didn’t sing Michael W. Smith’s “Go West Young Man,” DC Talk’s “Jesus Freak,” or Steven Curtis Chapman’s “Great Adventure.” But those songs were formative for a lot of Christians. Those songs—maybe we’ll call them noncorporate songs, or private worship songs—can be more artistic. They can take some risks, with both the music and the lyrics. They can be a little more emotionally raw, more personal. They serve a different purpose. When we only play worship music on the radio, we miss out on these songs. On the flip side, when we only sing radio music in church, we cut out a lot of options for congregational singing. Church history is full of beautiful songs, from “Blessed Assurance” to “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” Most of them don’t get played on the radio. Tiarne Tranter at the Sing! conference in 2023 / Courtesy of CityAlight’s Facebook page Further constricting our choices is, ironically, our global connectivity. Church music directors used to look through a hymnal or songbook and choose songs that best fit their context, one study author said. Now, it seems worship leaders draw from the relatively small number of hits made popular online, at megachurches, or at conferences. If you want your worship song to join that list of hits, it helps to write lyrics that aren’t too theologically limiting or demanding. Here’s an example: A few years ago, the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA) wanted to change a line in Keith Getty and Stuart Townend’s “In Christ Alone.” They objected to the line “And on that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied” and wanted to change it to a gentler “the love of God was magnified.” Getty and Townend refused to allow the change, arguing the atonement is critical to the gospel story. In response, the mainline Presbyterians voted to drop “In Christ Alone” from their hymnal. Another way to help your song become a hit is to work for a really large church. A recent study found that 36 of the 38 of the most popular worship songs between 2010 and 2020 were introduced by just four sources—Hillsong in Sydney, Bethel in Redding, Elevation in Charlotte, and Passion City Church in Atlanta. Those are all megachurches. But that’s not all they have in common. All four are theologically charismatic, predominately white, and Western. And for better or worse, they’re shaping worship for nearly everyone else, even though most churches across the globe don’t share their theology, size, location, or demographics. But none of those things is Rich’s biggest objection to modern songwriting. Too Fast “The time it takes to write a song is something that we think about and talk about quite a lot,” Rich Thompson said. “We talk a lot about why we’re writing—what is our motive here, what are we trying to do? And obviously our primary motive is to give glory to God, and we want to do that by equipping the church with songs that are biblically rich and that are easy to sing and play.” It’s critical to remember that in a music industry that has grown large and profitable. “Often you see when art becomes commercialized, there’s a danger of the process or the administration actually trumping the art itself,” Rich said. “As you start selling more, there’s demand, and then you need to start meeting the demand. We’ve seen that happen time and again, and we’ve tried to guard against that. We want to make sure the songs are written for the express purpose of equipping the church, not for meeting a quota or for meeting a deadline or for meeting a bottom line. So if our songs aren’t finished in time, we simply don’t record in that season, and that’s happened many times before. It can be a little concerning that the writers in bigger organizations don’t share that same luxury.” It’s not that those songwriters aren’t Christians or don’t have good things to say. It’s that the pressure to go fast makes worship songs look more like hotel paintings than like da Vincis. “It’s really common that songwriters have annual quotas that they have to meet,” Rich Thompson said. “This is just part of the industry. They’re given an advance, which is like an investment from the organization that they’re writing for. And the organization needs to make their money back on them. This is really common across all genres.” The trouble is, writing quickly under pressure lends itself to the temptation of writing without enough thought or care. “If equipping the church is our primary motivation, if [the songs are] going to be sung in church, then crafting the theology into these songs needs to be done with the utmost care,” Rich said. “And, in our opinion, that has to take time. You’re talking about the Bride of Christ. It’s both an incredible opportunity for building up and beautifying the Bride, but it’s also very dangerous. There is a lot of danger in potentially misleading or teaching potentially slightly wrong things through your songs. And the ramification of that over a long period of time is very significant.” That’s because songs lend themselves to memorization. You almost can’t help but memorize the music and lyrics you hear over and over again. “The impact of those old hymns in our generation has been incredibly profound,” Rich Thompson said. “Take a song like ‘In Christ Alone’—it’s this robust creedal song you carry with you. ‘No guilt in life, no fear in death.’ How many times do we recall those words? That means those songs have to be so deeply, deeply rooted in Scripture, if you’re going to be recalling them like that. And if they’re even a little bit off, when you recall them, and continue to recall them, it has the potential to lead people astray or confuse people. The stakes are very high.” Jonny compares it to sermons. Words written for the church to hear are important, and pastors take time and care to get them right. But not many people are going to listen to a sermon over and over until they have it memorized. Therefore, if it takes a pastor a few weeks to write a sermon, Rich and Jonny figured it should take them at least a few months—sometimes closer to a year—to write a song. But a song isn’t nearly as many words as a sermon. So what do they do with all that time? How to Write Lyrics Differently The first step is to decide on a topic. Rich keeps a list of them on his phone—ideas that occur to him as he goes about his week. Jonny keeps his ideas in notebooks. Many times, their songs have grown out of sermon series at their church—“Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me” came from a series on Philippians, “Ancient of Days” from one on Daniel. The next step is not to write. “If you’re going to write a song about the resurrection, it’s not good enough just to rattle off the first three thoughts that you have about the resurrection or the latest thing that you’ve heard about the resurrection,” Jonny said. “You don’t know enough about it. I don’t know enough about it. Nobody knows enough about it, just to give the top three thoughts off their head and write a song about it. So Rich and I actually spend probably the first sometimes three, four, six months, trying to fill up the well.” Rich and Jonny listen to sermons, read books, and text each other articles about the topic. A good songwriting session is sometimes the two of them talking for a few hours about different things they’ve read or are thinking about. Their goal is to understand a difficult theological truth so well that they could simply and easily explain it to anyone. “We need to understand: What is God trying to say to us through his Word?” Rich said. “How does it apply to our church? How do we practically live it out throughout the week? We generally fill a whole whiteboard full of things before we start putting pen to paper.” This “filling up the well” is why no CityAlight songwriter—Rich, Jonny, or the other writers at St. Paul’s—is on staff. “Every songwriter in CityAlight needs to have some sort of day job, so that you’ve got something else going on in your life,” Rich said. “It means you’re able to be in the world, be at work, feel what other people in the congregation are feeling on a day-to-day basis. So we’re able to take the theological truths that we’re working on and apply them into moments that we’ve felt throughout the week.” Rich Thompson meeting with CityAlight songwriters in 2018 / Courtesy of CityAlight’s Facebook page It also takes the economic pressure off. If your employer is expecting you to produce a steady stream of popular songs, you might be tempted to rush something out. After a while, Rich and Jonny didn’t even like being paid for one day a week of songwriting. They both quit taking money from St. Paul’s and kept writing on a volunteer basis. Even after CityAlight songwriters fill up their wells, it still takes months to get a song onto paper. The topics they’re tackling are complex. And then there’s Jonny. After a while, Jonny finished his PhD and started teaching philosophy at a university. While he was doing that, he noticed that even a single word, if defined poorly, can knock a whole train of thought off the rails. “We had rules at the beginning,” Jonny said. “We said things like, ‘If you’re going to have more than one abstract noun per verse, you have to explain why you think you can sneak another concept in without people getting confused.’” Jonny’s grammar rules were stricter than most doctoral dissertation guidelines. Writers had to show him how the conjunctions were working—words like “and,” “but,” “or,” “since,” or “because.” They had to be clear on the subject and object of each line. If they changed pronouns—words like “he,” “she,” “it,” and “us”—between lines, they had to be clear about which subject the pronoun was referring to. And he didn’t stop there. How to Write Melodies Differently “The lyrics have got to be clear on the one hand, but the melody has to be clear on the other,” Jonny said. Hang on a second. I can understand why lyrics have to be clear. But why the melody? The notes aren’t trying to explain God’s Word. Why does it matter what they sound like? Here’s what Jonny told me: In theater performances, the term “fourth wall” refers to the imaginary wall between the actors and the audience. When broken—perhaps by the sound system going out or a performer laughing at something that has accidentally gone wrong—that disruption pushes the audience out of the imaginative space they were in. They’re no longer in the story; they’re back in the theater, wondering how much longer before intermission. The same thing can happen during worship, Jonny said. It’s not that congregations suspend disbelief the way you do in a theater. But singing helps us to focus on God, to enter a different headspace as we stop worrying about what’s going on around us. Worship at St. Paul’s Castle Hill / Courtesy of CityAlight’s Facebook page All kinds of issues—an unexpected bridge, confusing lyrics, an unreachable note—can break that “fourth wall,” pushing us out of emotional worship and back into the pew, where we might start wondering about the outfit of the person in front of us or how much longer ’til lunch. “You’ve got everybody kind of locked in spiritually—they’re thinking about the lyrics; they’re singing to God,” Jonny said. “And then suddenly the melody takes a turn that nobody’s expecting, and everybody is shaken out of their concentration, out of their reverie. And they lose the mood there.” Jonny figured he could make the melody clear by writing music that sounded familiar. “So I said, ‘Let’s try and write basically folk songs,’” he said. “So when people are singing, they can guess where the melody’s going to go and they’re not tripped up by it.” The other advantage to musical simplicity is that the song can be played just as easily in a small church with a guy and his guitar as in a large church with a full band. This is important because half of Australian churches have fewer than 50 weekly attendees. Half of American churches see fewer than 65 a week. “I was pretty passionate about making sure that whatever we wrote would work in that room too,” Jonny said. “It couldn’t have octave leaps. It couldn’t be dependent on a certain synth sound. It couldn’t be dependent on a certain drum groove. It couldn’t be so demanding emotionally that it was impossible to sing it if you weren’t feeling anything remotely like what the song was talking about.” Initially, that disappointed some St. Paul’s members. CityAlight’s tunes seemed too tame, almost boring. “There was some skepticism about the style of songs coming out,” Jonny said. “And people said, ‘This is really simple. Could you make that a little bit more interesting?’” Hillsong’s Nigel Hendroff (standing) working with CityAlight in 2019 / Courtesy of CityAlight’s Facebook page They could. “On the Only a Holy God album, we were in the studio writing the instrumentation for the guitarist—we had hired Nigel [Hendroff] to come and play guitar for us in the studio,” Rich Vassallo said. “And he played this incredible guitar solo as part of it, and it sounded unreal, like the kind of thing you’d hear on your favorite album. And we’re at one point going, ‘This is so great. But can you play it simpler?’ “It really is that tension of wanting and enjoying the creativity of it, and how good it sounds, and then going, ‘No, but that could mean that someone listens to the song and decides, ‘I’ll never achieve this’ or ‘I won’t attempt the song.’ And so even in our early days, we got a fair bit of criticism for melodies that were too boring or musicianship that was too simplified or not very creative. But we keep telling ourselves that’s a badge of honor. . . . Because regardless of that creative opinion, people are singing the songs—and we want people to sing the songs.” Perfecting the Songs A few times a year, a six-person panel—which includes the lead minister at St. Paul’s—sits down to hear song submissions. They listen for singability, check for theological accuracy, and ask about pronoun usage. They divide the song candidates into three categories: those that are rejected, those that are greenlit with just a little editing, and those that need to go back to the drawing board for more serious work. That panel is why “Only a Holy God” has four verses. Originally, it had just three, expressing how holy and separate God is from us. “The senior minister was saying, ‘You’re just missing—you’re missing part of the beauty. Yes, he’s holy, but he’s also intimate,’” Rich Thompson said. “We were a bit annoyed by that. We were thinking, Look, we’ve just finished this song. But then once you get over that, you start thinking, Actually, you know what, he’s right, and we need to rethink this.’” So Rich, Jonny, Michael Farren, and Dustin Smith added another verse. “Now I think that’s the peak moment in the song, when you’ve come to this point of saying, ‘Oh, this is my father,’” Rich said. “So as frustrating as it can be, I do think it’s a very good thing.” Sound of the Church When CityAlight gathers enough songs for a project, they’re ready to record. But they don’t book a studio. And they don’t usually hire musicians. Instead, they call their church. “All of our recordings have our congregation singing on them,” Rich Vassallo said. “The crowd that you hear in our songs is the people that attend our services. It’s the sound of the church. It’s the most beautiful sound.” By the time a song is ready to record, the congregation has been singing it on Sundays and is familiar with it. The people come in the evening to a church decorated with the album’s theme. The band is set on a low stage that extends out into the room so the congregation wraps around it. The evening includes prayer, Bible reading, and preaching. Except for the recording equipment, it’s like a normal church service with a few extra songs. “We just love to get everyone there,” Keith said. “And people love to come to those recordings, because people think, Hey, that’s my voice on those albums, I’m a recording artist too.” CityAlight recording with their congregation / Courtesy of CityAlight’s Facebook page Including a congregation’s voice is so unusual that when Rich Vassallo gets the songs from the mixing engineers, he always has to send them back, often multiple times. “When it gets into the mix-down stage, the mix engineer will send it back to us, and you get this great-sounding track,” Rich said. “And we’re like, ‘Turn the crowd up. Turn the crowd up. Turn the crowd up.’ We go back and forth four, five, six times. . . . It is such an important part our recording. The voice of the church is key to CityAlight’s sound.” Cooling Down and Heating Up Since 2015, Hillsong has released more than 100 songs. Bethel has done nearly 200. CityAlight has 37. They started with the 10-song album Yours Alone in 2015. A few people listened, especially to “Jerusalem” and “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.” Eighteen months later, CityAlight dropped another 10 songs on the Only a Holy God album. A few more people listened, especially to “Only a Holy God” and “Christ Is Mine Forevermore.” Instead of speeding up, CityAlight slowed down. They began releasing a single or two—or maybe a six-song EP—each year. In November 2018, it was “Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me.” In 2019, it was “Jesus, Strong and Kind.” In 2020, it was “Your Will Be Done.” Steadily, the number of listeners began to rise. Rich Vassallo started to hear from churches overseas who were translating CityAlight songs. Tiarne’s coffee barista thanked her one day because her music was putting his kids to sleep at night. And refugees from Ukraine who landed in Stockholm could recognize and sing “Jesus, Strong and Kind” with the church in their new country. “Every time I hear that somebody knows a song, or you step off a plane somewhere and you walk into a random place that you’ve never been before—you don’t know anyone—and then you play the first chord, and everyone knows all the words,” Tiarne said. “We played at a conference recently, and the screen stopped working for ‘Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me,’ which is always nerve-racking. And the congregation sang louder than any other song we’d ever sung, without the words on the screen. And so that does surprise me. I always get surprised by that.” Keith Baker / Courtesy of CityAlight’s Facebook page By 2019, Keith was starting to meet a few people after church services who had come specifically to worship at St. Paul’s because of CityAlight. “We had a lady visit us from Shanghai just a few weeks ago,” he said. “She was saying, ‘You know, we sing your songs in our underground church so I just had to come and see the church that made these songs.’ Oh, my goodness, right? So I took her straight up the back to our store. I gave her all the CDs that I could find. I said, ‘Take these, use them however you want.’ It was crazy. It’s crazy to think how God’s using these songs. But it was so great to have her at church.” Another man, on vacation from work, flew from Singapore to Sydney to worship at St. Paul’s. Keith told him to make sure to see the Harbour Bridge while he was in town. He’s not fazed by the visitors—in fact, he’s done the same thing, stopping by Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City a few years ago to worship with Tim Keller’s congregation. Influence A lot of people tell CityAlight they hang on to their songs in times of grief or illness. “Christ Is Mine Forevermore” has been played at dozens of funerals. “Day After Day, Jesus Reigns” has called those struggling through marriage troubles or illness back to worship. “My God Is All I Need” helped one listener move past addiction and another worship in the middle of hurt and loss. But perhaps the most dramatic example of this comes from Jamie Trussell, a former teaching pastor at Harvest Church in Germantown, Tennessee. Here he is, talking to the congregation in early 2023: I woke up on Tuesday morning singing the refrain of a group named CityAlight. They did a rendition of “This Is the Day the Lord Has Made.” The first verse of that song says, “This is the day that the Lord has made / We will rejoice as we lift his name.” Now I couldn’t tell you at that point why that song was stuck in my head. My wife would probably tell you, if she were being honest, I don’t wake up every morning singing worship songs. So we wake up, and I’m singing this song and don’t know why. But soon the reality of those lyrics would certainly come home. Jamie Trussell the Sunday after the plane crash / Courtesy of Harvest Church’s live stream A few hours later, Jamie got the worst phone call of his life: his lead pastor, his executive pastor, an elder, and two church members had been in a plane crash. Four of the five men were killed on impact. Only his lead pastor had survived and was in critical condition. At Harvest’s church service five days later, the wife of the deceased elder helped lead the church in singing CityAlight’s “Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me.” “We just keep shaking our heads,” Keith said. “We’re like, ‘This has to be a God thing.’ We’re just so, so encouraged by how God is using our humble little efforts in this little church in the northwest of Sydney.” What’s Next Rich Vassallo is CityAlight’s only employee, but he’s going to need more help soon. From translations to performance invitations to recording, CityAlight’s growth is a lot to handle. Especially since the band members are regular people, writing songs and practicing guitar chords on their lunch breaks or after the kids are in bed at night. “It has been quite overwhelming—all the requests,” Rich Vassallo said. “Because we have a heart for small churches and ministries, and we get those requests frequently: ‘Please come to our church, encourage our team.’ And we’d love to be able to be doing that, being in their own space, encouraging them—that’s where you get the most traction. It’s just impossible to be able to do it for everyone.” One obvious option is to press in—to hire their musicians full-time, fill up a touring schedule, and lead worship all over the globe. I asked Rich about it. Rich Vassallo / Courtesy of CityAlight’s Facebook page “This year, we’re planning to reduce our international travel to hopefully zero,” he told me. Hmm. That sounds like leaning out, doesn’t it? It depends on whom you ask. “We see ourselves primarily as a songwriting and resourcing ministry,” Jonny said. “What I’d like to concentrate on this year, is to make sure that we have our mission and our vision really clear. . . . We want to make sure that people know why they’re doing the things they’re doing, to make sure their hearts are in the right place, to keep doing the devotions and the teaching and the reading and the praying.” Nearly everybody I talked to said the same thing: “We know CityAlight is at a tipping point, where we need to make decisions about the future. But we don’t see yet exactly where God is leading us.” And then every one of them mentioned Asia. “We’ve all felt God sort of pointing us to Asia—you know, it’s our area of the world,” said Rich Vassallo. “We are really excited by the prospect of working with Asia,” Jonny said. “What does it look like for us to be serving Asian churches more?” Rich Thompson said. “You know, breaking the mold a little bit on what’s been done in the past?” The weekend after The Gospel Coalition’s conference, CityAlight flew to Singapore and did a concert for another 5,000 people. That night, they recorded “Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me” in Mandarin. CityAlight in Singapore / Courtesy of CityAlight’s Facebook page “It was amazing,” Jonny said. “People in the room were crying. People were on their knees, hearing these songs in their mother tongue, in Mandarin. So it was a really special night.” It wasn’t CityAlight’s first project in Asia—earlier last year, they recorded a music video of “Jesus, Strong and Kind” in the Philippines with young people who’d been rescued from sex trafficking. “We’d like to go back to both those countries and see if we can start working with songwriters there, to encourage them,” Jonny said. “We would like to see raised up more congregational writers from Asia, from Southeast Asia particularly,” Rich Thompson said. “Because I think we are missing a voice in our global church. A lot of it is West pushing over to East, and the Eastern churches are singing the songs that are curated and written over there in the West. But wouldn’t it be wonderful to see both happen—that songs written in the East would be sung in the West? I think the church would be a much richer place as a result of that.” CityAlight doesn’t know exactly what their next steps look like. But that doesn’t worry them. Ten years ago, they had no idea what was ahead. “We knew we needed to walk the path, but we didn’t quite know why or where it was going—just that this was a good thing to do,” Rich Thompson said. “Since day one, the prayer has been that God would bless and establish the ministry, insofar as it gives him glory and equips his church. And if it should become anything other than this, anything unhelpful, then our prayer is that he would shut it down quickly—mercifully and quickly.”