Robin Sheeran

Cool Christianity: Hillsong and the Fashioning of Cosmopolitan Identities (Oxford University Press) by Cristina Rocha Hundreds of wide-eyed teenagers bounce up and down in a blacked-out auditorium chanting, “DA-DA DA-DA-DA-DA.” Searchlights flail and a band clad in baggy trousers and jumpers drives the crowd into a frenzy. Is it a school disco? Is it an indie gig? It certainly doesn’t seem like a church. The YouTube clip shows Friday youth night at Hillsong Church, Sydney, Australia.

In the early 1970s, I was a pupil at a Protestant primary school in working-class west Belfast. Considering the mayhem that was raging nearby – the rioting, bombings and shootings – the teachers did a remarkable job. The pupils flourished and, above all, the school felt safe. There was relatively little to show which community we belonged to, apart from a large portrait of the Queen that hung in the assembly hall flanked by a British union flag and a white Ulster flag.