Review

Belief

Culture

Music

7 April 2025

5 min read

Mumford & Sons search for meaning

Wonder about which love they sing of - earthly or divine.

Steve Dew-Jones

Steve is news director of Article 18, a human rights organisation documenting Christian persecution in Iran.

Pondering the reviews.

Mumford & Sons

My old RE teacher always liked to make the point that meaning can be found in anything, if you want to find it.

“Do you find meaning in a sunset?” he’d ask. “Or only beauty?”

From the outset of Mumford & Sons’ new record, ‘Rushmere’, the deeper things, as ever, are front and centre - at least for those of us who wish to find them.

The folk band’s records have always been replete with religious undertones - lead man Marcus Mumford is the son of a preacher, don’t you know? - and they are apparent from the very start of the band’s fifth studio album and first since 2018.

‘Rushmere’ kicks off with ‘Malibu’, which speaks of finding “peace beneath the shadow of your wings”, and an unnamed “you” being “all I want” and “all I need”.

There’s even talk, right at the beginning of the song, of feeling “the spirit move in me again - the same spirit that moves in you”.

Precisely which spirit is meant is never defined - these are song lyrics, after all, not a sermon - but for this listener at least, the reference to the third member of the Trinity appears clear.

Not every song on the album hits such obvious religious notes, but the opening track is far from unique. Indeed, one needs only to flick through the names of the other songs to get a hint of the deeper meanings on offer, with titles such as ‘Truth’, ‘Anchor’ and ‘Surrender’.

Meanwhile, in ‘Monochrome’, we’re told that even within a hyacinth can “life”, “restoration” - even “Christ” - be found.

Could the “out of sight” monochrome “beyond reason” that we are called to contemplate represent the Christ - in theological terms, the “Word” of God - whose fingerprints can be seen across Creation?

And what is meant when Mumford sings that “the kind of love that I’m always chasing is the kind of love that won’t be chased?”

As with many of the band’s lyrics, there appears space for both a romantic and religious reading, though perhaps romance is harder to read into metaphors such as a “cup running dry”, as Mumford sings elsewhere in ‘Monochrome’.

Is it only me for whom this evokes memories of the old Sunday school refrain: “Fill up my cup and let it overflow”?

‘Truth’, meanwhile, begins with the fairly blunt statement: “I was born to believe the truth is all there is.”

“Oh my love, hold me fast,” the song ends, and again we are left to wonder about which love he is singing - earthly or divine.

It isn’t made clear whether such belief remains intact today, nor even which truth is meant, given that we now live in times where such things seem occasionally grey. But ‘Surrender’ appears more black and white, speaking of being brought to one’s knees, “broken” then “put back together”, and “held in the promise of forever”.

“I surrender, I surrender now,” Mumford cries - words Christian congregations have sung for centuries.

And as ever with a Mumford & Sons record, ‘Rushmere’ doesn’t hold back from the trickier theological issues, touching upon the concepts of both hell and original sin.

“Let your anger go to hell,” ‘Where It Belongs,’ Mumford sings in the track of the same name, which is sung like a lament, while in the final track, ‘Carry On’, those of us who believe in original sin are encouraged to consider that “there’s no evil in a child’s eye”.

“It was made, and it was good,” Mumford sings in a nod to the Creation story, when the world was blemish-free.

Meanwhile, in ‘Anchor’, Mumford sings that he “can’t say he’s sorry if he’s always on the run from the Anchor”. Which for some of us, at least, will conjure recollection of part of the Bible’s Book of Hebrews that speaks of our “hope” - Jesus - being “an anchor for the soul, firm and secure”.

“Oh my love, hold me fast,” the song ends, and again we are left to wonder about which love he is singing - earthly or divine.

Fans of Mumford & Sons - and yes, you’ve guess it, I count myself among them - will recognise that particular phrase from a previous hit, ‘Hopeless Wanderer’, which again seemed to speak to a life of faith; of pilgrims “called by name” trying “so hard to live in the truth”, but being “prone to wander”, as it says in the hymn ‘Come Thou Fount’, which Mumford has also been known to perform.

So this is not the first Mumford & Sons album to have contained such imagery. Far from it. For those of us who’ve followed the band since their debut album, ‘Sigh No More’, in 2009, there have always been calls to ‘Awake My Soul’ or to find comfort in a future day in which there will be “no more tears.”

In the years since, we have been encouraged to be ‘Lover[s] of the Light’, or to find hope in a ‘Guiding Light’ who won’t ‘Slip Away’ in the night.

Perhaps, then, there’s nothing very different about ‘Rushmere’ - it represents just another chapter on a journey of faith - but this particular fan continues to appreciate, deeply, the depth that Mumford and his bandmates continue to bring to our ears.

And as for the music, well I suppose by now that most readers will probably be familiar with what one can expect from a Mumford & Sons album, and ‘Rushmere’ certainly doesn’t disappoint those of us who like that kind of thing.

It’s notably shorter than the previous album - nearly half the length - but is probably no worse for it. It’s hard to think of a weak song on the album, while there is something for everyone: from the country feel of ‘Caroline’ (think Counting Crows/Ryan Adams) and rock and roll of ‘Truth’, to the gentle fingerpicking and harmonies of ‘Monochrome’. Heck, the banjos even make a comeback on the self-titled ‘Rushmere’, so truly something for everyone - or at least for all of us fans.

By the way, my old RE teacher never told us what he believed, but I later found out that he’d once been ordained, so I suppose that he, like me, might still find meaning in a sunset or even, perhaps, a Mumford & Sons record.

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Explainer

Culture

Digital

16 July 2024

6 min read

Tech has changed: it’s no longer natural or neutral

The first in a three-part series exploring the implications of technology.

James Lawrence

James is Canon Missioner at Blackburn Cathedral. He researches technology and theology at Oxford University.

A caveman holding a hammer looks at a bench on which are a broken bicycle and a laptop.

Nick Jones/Midjourney.ai.

My son was born in February last year and it seems that every day he is developing new skills or facial expressions and adorable quirks. Just the other day he was playing with some wooden blocks and when they inevitably fell over, he let out the most adorable giggle. As you can guess I immediately reached for my phone so that I could capture the moment. Moments like this happen all the time in the life of a modern parent- we want to share with our spouse, family, and friends or just capture the moment for ourselves because it’s something we treasure. And yet, in this series of articles I would like to consider this moment, and the thousands like it that take place in a technological society, and ask: is everything as benign as it seems?

There are two ideas that often come up whenever people talk about technology. The first is that technology is basically ‘neutral’, that technology only becomes good or bad depending on what you are doing with it. “Look at a hammer,” someone might say, “there is nothing intrinsically good or bad about this hammer, only the end result is good or bad depending on whether I’m using it to hit nails or people!” On this reading of technology, the only important questions relate to the consequences of use.

If technology is neutral, then the primary concern for users, legislators and technologists is the consequences of technology, and not the technology itself. The only way to ensure that the technology is used for good is to ensure, somehow, that more good people will use the technology for good things than bad people using it for bad things. Often this idea will present itself as a conversation about competing freedoms: very few people (with some important exceptions, see this article from Ezra Klein) are debating whether there is something intrinsically problematic about the app formerly known as Twitter, most discussion revolves around how to maintain the freedom of good users while curtailing the freedom of bad users.

We assume that these tools of social interaction like Facebook and Instagram are, in and of themselves, perfectly benign. We are encouraged to think this by massive corporations who have a vested interest in maintaining our use of their platforms, and at first glance, they seem completely harmless: what could possibly be the problem with a website in which grandma can share photos of her cat? And while the dark underbelly of these platforms has violent real-world consequences – like the rise of antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred – the solution is primarily imagined as a matter of dealing with ‘bad actors’ rather than anything intrinsically problematic with the platforms themselves.

Jobs here draws a straight-line comparison between the bicycle and the PC. As far as Jobs is concerned, there is no quantitative difference in kind between the two tools.

The second idea is related but somewhat different: Advocates of modern technology will suggest that humanity has been using technology ever since there were humans and therefore all this modern technology is not really anything to worry about. “Yes, modern technology looks scary,” someone might say, “but it’s really nothing to worry about, humans have been using tools since the Stone Age don’t you know!” This view proposes that because hammers are technology, and all technology is the same, there is, therefore, no difference between a hammer and the internet, or between the internet and a cyborg.

This second idea tends to be accompanied by an emphasis on the slow and steady evolution of technology and by highlighting the fact that at every major technological advancement there have been naysayers decrying the latest innovation. (Even Plato was suspicious of writing when that was invented). Taken as part of a very long view of human history, the technological innovations of the last 100 years seem to be a normal and natural part of the evolution of our species which has always set itself apart from the rest of the animal kingdom in its use of technology.

Steve Jobs gives a good example of this in an interview he gave about the development PC:

“I think one of the things that really separates us from the high primates is that we’re tool builders. I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condors used the least energy to move a kilometer. And humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing about a third of the way down the list… not too proud of a showing for the crown of creation… But then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And a human on a bicycle blew the condor away – completely off the top of the charts.

And that’s what a computer is to me… It’s the most remarkable tool we’ve ever come up with… It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds”

Notice that Jobs here draws a straight-line comparison between the bicycle and the PC. As far as Jobs is concerned, there is no quantitative difference in kind between the two tools: one is more complex than the other but otherwise, they are just technologies that expand human capacity. “A Bicycle for our minds” is a fascinating way to describe a computer because it implies that nothing about our minds will be changed, they’ll just be a little bit faster.

And yet, despite the attempts of thought leaders like Jobs to convince us that modern technology is entirely benign, many of us are left with a natural suspicion that there is more going on. As a priest in the Church of England, I often have conversations with parishioners and members of the public who are looking for language or a framework which describes the instinctive recognition that something has changed at some point (fairly recently) about the nature of the technology that we use, or the way that it influences our lives. That modern technology is not simply the natural extension of the sorts of tools that humans have been using since the Stone Age and that modern technology is not neutral but in significant ways has already had an effect regardless of how we might use it. How do we respond to such articulate and thoughtful people such as Steve Jobs who make a compelling case that modern technology is neutral and natural?

I often have conversations with parishioners who are looking for language or a framework which describes the instinctive recognition that something has changed about the nature of the technology that we use, or the way that it influences our lives.

Thinking back to that moment with my son when he giggles and I take a photo of him, at first glance it seems completely innocuous. But what resources are available if I did want to think more carefully about that moment (and the many like it) which suffuse my daily life? Thankfully there is a growing body of literature from philosophers and theologians who are thinking about the impact of modern technology on the human condition. In the next two articles I would like to introduce the work of Martin Heidegger, outline his criticism of modern technology, showing how he challenges the idea that technology is simply a natural extension of human capacity or a neutral tool.

Heidegger is a complex character in philosophy and in Western history. There is no getting around the fact that he was a supporter of the Nazi Party during the second world war. His politics have been widely condemned and rightly so, nevertheless, his insights on the nature of modern technology continue to this day to provide insights that are useful. His claim is that modern technology essentially and inevitably changes our relationship with the world in which we live and even with ourselves. It is this claim, and Heidegger’s suggested solution, that I will unpack in the next two articles.