Review
Books
Culture
Romance
5 min read

The surprising last chapter of a guide to modern romance in crisis

Emotive love matters because it points to something truer, deeper, bigger.
A neon sign depicts a message balloon with a heart symbol and a zero next to it.
Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

I ravenously devoured the last book I read, gobbling the majority of it up in one train journey. So swept up in it was I that I accidentally let my (extortionately expensive) tea go cold. The person sitting next to me must have changed three of four times throughout that journey and I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t look up once. What do you call a person whose extroversion drains out of their body when a book is in their hand?

It was no surprise that this book found its way to me – I’m nothing if not a bandwagon-hopper. And Shon Faye’s latest book – Love in Exile - was a bandwagon I was itching to catch a ride on.

It piqued my interest for two reasons: the subject matter and the authorial perspective.

Firstly, the subject matter – it’s a nonfiction book about the nature of love and the state of romance. And that places it right up my street. If I’m being honest with you, I think about these subjects far too often. You could say that it’s my Roman(ce) Empire, an ‘at least once-a-day’ kind of topic.

The emotions tied up in romance - the language it evokes, the art it fuels, the power it wields - I find it all utterly fascinating. So, any book that’s analysing the romantic goings-on of a societal moment will catch my eye. Now, how about one written by a ludicrously talented transgender woman who ‘grew up quietly obsessed with the feeling that love is not for her’?

Oh, gosh. My interest levels are through the roof.

As I worked through the book, I realised that Shon’s experience of, and attitude toward, romance are completely different to mine; it’s like we’re looking at the same object but seeing different shapes, different colours. And that’s precisely why I wanted to read her book. I wanted to read about a topic I know so well from a perspective I don’t know at all. And it was fascinating, a true collision of the familiar and the unfamiliar.

It was like deciding to be a tourist in my own city, you know? Reading Shon’s words was like hiring someone to show me around my own postcode – letting them tell me about all the things I don’t see, the spots I don’t pay attention to, the streets I have no need to walk down. And Shon’s a good writer, a captivating tour guide – hence the cold tea and antisocial behaviour.

And then I get to the last chapter, entitled Agape

I know that word, I thought. And I’m certain she’s not about to use it in the way I tend to use it – is she? Oh. She is. Shon Faye is about to round up her book on romance with a chapter about the love of God.

My jaw must have hit the train floor as I witnessed her tell her (very many) readers that there’s a spiritual function to romance. That part of the dating crisis we appear to be wading into is due to the spiritual dimension being pulled out of our understanding of love, making dating an inherently selfish endeavour. There’s a missing piece, she proposes, and it’s God. 

Now, I don’t wish to misrepresent Shon, she has great trouble boxing herself into one particular religious tradition and/or understanding of God – I’m not planting a Christian flag in the ground of her book, here. But I must say, her reflections on the spiritual dimensions of romance can sit neatly alongside other Christian thinkers’ work on the same topic.

Romantic love is one of the most powerful forms of love, yet it alone, is never enough. It burns brightly, but too quickly. It needs help.

We can dismiss romantic love, roll our eyes at it, pretend we’ve grown out of it. We can boil it down to endorphins and pheromones – or we can take its power seriously, as Shon has done, and as C.S. Lewis did before her.

Lewis argued that the romantic form of love, when at its best and most noble, has a sort of divine-esque quality. It has a particular power because of its ‘strength, sweetness, terror and high port’- indeed, its tangible nature can teach us much about the passionate and intimate love that God has for us and that we’re supposed to have for each other. There’s a reason, I suppose, that a book of erotic literature is housed within the Bible (Song of Songs). Lewis writes that 

‘This love is really and truly like Love Himself… it is as if Christ said to us through Eros (romantic love), “Thus – just like this – with this level of prodigality – not counting the cost – you are to love me and the least of your brethren”’.

His point being – this emotively-fuelled form of love matters. Why? Because it points beyond itself to something truer, deeper, bigger.

I always marvel at Taylor Swift’s (yes, she’s being brought up – you’re reading an essay on romance, I shan’t apologise) habit to reach for religious language and motif when she’s trying to confine her biggest and deepest feelings to language. For example, when singing to a man that she has come to regard as ‘the smallest man who ever lived’, she announces that ‘I would’ve died for your sins, instead I just died inside…’ This isn’t trivial. What’s the deepest, most self-sacrificing act of love she has in her locker of references? Jesus dying for peoples’ sins. An act which, apparently, her romantic feelings for this undeserving man point her toward. Jesus’ death is the only love-fuelled act that feels true enough to sit within this anthem of heartbreak.

Interesting, isn’t it?

Romantic love is one of the most powerful forms of love, yet it alone, is never enough. It burns brightly, but too quickly. It needs help. It needs something to fill its (many) gaps. It needs parameters. It needs, Lewis argues, to be ruled. And this is where he and Shon Faye are in surprising alignment.

So strong is romantic love, that we can over-trust it, over-honour it, we can strip it of any kind of self-giving-ness and make it some kind of agent of our own salvation. It can make us selfish, tempt us to use it as a tool of redemption. Instead of pointing toward God, it tricks us into treating it as if it is God. This is precisely what Shon Faye warns her readers of: if you don’t have something to rule over this super-charged form of love, it will rule over you.

We must, both Shon Faye and C.S. Lewis argue, re-imbue romance with spiritual meaning. 

We must not fool ourselves into thinking that it is everything, nor should we kid ourselves into regarding it as nothing. We must consider it a glimpse of the love that is God and treat it accordingly.

Celebrate our 2nd birthday!

Since March 2023, our readers have enjoyed over 1,000 articles. All for free. This is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.
If you enjoy Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?
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Article
Belief
Culture
Music
5 min read

How Mumford and friends explore life's instability

Communing on fallibility, fear, grace, and love.

Jonathan is Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell. He is co-author of The Secret Chord, and writes on the arts.

A bassist hauls a double bass of its base as he plays it.
Daniel Boud/x.com/mumfordandsons.

“Serve God, love me, and mend” must rank as one of the more unexpected openings to a hugely popular album in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. A quote from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, it introduces us to the potent mix of Shakespearean and Biblical allusion and imagery to be found on Mumford and Sons debut album Sign No More.  

Sigh No More, both as song and album, begins with confident assertions of faith then moves into acknowledgement of human fallibility and prevarication summed up in the Shakespearean phrase that “Man is a giddy thing” before asserting that love does not enslave but is freeing, enabling those who know it to become the people they were meant to be. The song ends with a prayer to see the beauty which will come when the protagonist’s heart is truly aligned with love. Throughout the album, the overriding concern is that personal fallibilities and fears – the darkness within – will prevent grace from having its full effect and the beauty of alignment with love from being fully realised. 

In many Mumford and Sons songs such personal instability is the problem to be resolved; “Man is a giddy thing”, “Why do I keep falling?”. Their search is often for the relationship or place that will provide stability:  

I can't say, "I'm sorry," if I'm always on the run 

From the anchor (‘Anchor’) 

‘Roll Away Your Stone’ describes the darkness within as a God-shaped hole filled with false gods: 

See you told me that I would find a hole 

Within the fragile substance of my soul 

And I have filled this void with things unreal 

And all the while my character it steals 

but this is not how life has to be: 

It seems that all my bridges have been burned 

But, you say that's exactly how this grace thing works 

It's not the long walk home 

That will change this heart 

But the welcome I receive with the restart 

Lead singer and songwriter Marcus Mumford knows how this grace thing works because, on the one hand, his parents founded the Vineyard Church UK and Ireland meaning he grew up in the context of grace and, on the other, he seems to have experienced grace personally in relation to the sexual abuse he suffered as a child (which was not experienced in his family or his church). In ‘Grace’ from his self-titled solo album he contrasts grace, flowing like a river, with the experience of acknowledging the abuse he endured and the healing for which he prays. 

Such biblical allusions and references abound in the songs of Mumford and Sons, as is also the case with some of those with whom they performed, supported or inspired. The Nu-folk movement of which the Mumford’s were part, began at a club called Bosun’s Locker in Fulham. There, with the likes of Laura Marling, Noah and the Whale, and others, their musical journey commenced. Noah and the Whale’s first album Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down featured philosophical rumination on a par with that of Sigh No More including lines such as: 

Oh, there is no endless devotion 

That is free from the force of erosion 

Oh, if you don't believe in God 

How can you believe in love?          

Following the closure of Bosun’s Locker, Ben Lovett from Mumford and Sons, with others, set up Communion Records, a network of musicians, songwriters, industry and music fans who all share a common philosophy and set of ideals. Among the artists supported by Communion have been Bear’s Den and Michael Kiwanuka. 

Bear’s Den is one of several bands, which also included Dry the River, that have used religious and spiritual symbols in their songs. Andrew Davie from Bear’s Den has said: “I wouldn't say I'm particularly religious, but I was brought up going to church every Sunday, I studied a bit of religion in school and just from going to Sunday school, it's almost that I know the stories so well, that I find it a cool way of telling more modern and more nuanced stories about my own life. As a backdrop to that I find it just constantly helpful and it's quite a powerful way to talk about things. It adds weight to me.” Similarly, Matthew Taylor of Dry the River said of the theological imagery in lead singer Peter Liddle’s songs: “It’s always been a tool for Peter I think, to use the imagery you’re talking about, to add weight to what he’s writing about. It’s rich imagery, and the ideas are ones that people can relate to easily, if there’s that familiarity there.” Both recognise, as do Mumford and Sons, the continuing power of Christian ideas and imagery and their resonance for young people. 

Michael Kiwanuka was surprised that his early song about faith ‘I’m Getting Ready’ was enthusiastically released first as the title song of an EP from Communion Records and then by Polydor as a single from his debut album Home Again. Kiwanuka, who is married to Christian singer Charlotte, has consistently expressed aspects of his faith through songs like ‘Love and Hate’, ‘One More Night’, ‘Solid Ground’, and ‘Floating Parade’. Alexis Petridis has noted that Kiwanuka sees more people searching for a belief system: “Having a faith in things now is, I think, a lot more acceptable, whatever faith it is. There’s no dogma, necessarily. We’re connected by the struggles we have and I think that’s what I’m singing about – being a human being and trying to overcome, which is what we’re all doing in a way.” 

Whether opening up space for bands to utilise the power of Christian imagery in their songs or enabling singers with a Christian faith to be heard on mainstream labels, Mumford and Sons, by example and support, have created opportunities for faith to be explored and appreciated. The response to their music, its themes, and those of artists with whom they connect, seems to reflect a growing openness to spirituality and faith. As they sang, together with Pharrell Williams, on ‘Good People’, “Welcome to the revelation”. 

Celebrate our 2nd birthday!

Since Spring 2023, our readers have enjoyed over 1,000 articles. All for free. 
This is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.

If you enjoy Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?

Do so by joining Behind The Seen. Alongside other benefits, you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing my reading and reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin
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