Wickers Man - Gothic Seminaring

A friend of mine became principal of an Oxford theological college (not the one I went to), and has begun a series of evening 'symposia' for students, not always on Christian subjects, to increase the general levels of gaiety and interest. He asked whether I would come to talk about Goths and Gothic. I could think of no better title for the talk than the one our lay reader arrived at for my seminar on Anglican Spirituality scheduled for this weekend - 'Fifty Shades of Black'. So last week I made my way through the incomprehensible corridors of the institution concerned and figured out how to get my Powerpoint presentation working for the benefit of the dozen or so students, and my friend, who were there. I'd been given the brief not to talk about 'Gothic and Christianity' on the grounds that the ordinands hear plenty about God and could do with a break, but the questions they wanted to ask me began, a bit predictably, with queries over how one reconciles being a Christian with expressing in what one does an instinctual itch in a morbid direction, before moving into far more interesting and challenging discussions about individuality and marginalisation. One student outed himself as a former Goth: he'd been at Sheffield University in the early '80s, the only Christian in a household of Goths trying to work out quite what if anything God wanted him to do there. His experience was not of a subculture with exclusive boundaries - a night out seeing a Goth band, for instance, might be followed by dressing completely differently to hear a reggae act in an entirely distinct milieu. 'Goth now seems completely different to how we were,' he said. 'We didn't feel self-consciously marginal; we felt we were doing and being something positive.'

'That was great, thank you,' said my friend afterwards. 'Let's go and copy your train ticket, and then we can reimburse you. It's the very least we can do', he went on, 'so naturally that's what we're doing.'