Part 1 of Tony Cummings' song-by-song analysis of GODFREY RUST's 'Entangled' album

Godfrey Rust

Godfrey Rust has "experienced much of wisdom and knowledge". His exceptional IQ, his poetic gift and his commitment to learning enabled him to pursue a successful career. After achieving a BA in Philosophy and Literature, he served as a consultant data architect and ontologist and became an executive at the UK's music copyright societies. His creative outlet flourished down the decades and have included several albums and two books and a website of his poetry.

King David experienced much of wisdom and knowledge. His exceptional IQ, his poetic gift and his commitment to learning helped him to pursue a successful career as a king. After achieving a deep familiarity with the Pentateuch, he served as a consultant/king's helper, army soldier and musician before becoming the king of Jerusalem. His creative outlet flourished down the decades and have included numerous song lyrics/psalms, many of which are preserved in the largest book in the Bible.

King Solomon experienced much wisdom and knowledge. His exceptional IQ, his poetic gift and his commitment to learning helped him to pursue a successful career as a king. After inheriting the throne from King David he served as an acclaimed ruler of Jerusalem before disaster overtook his kingship. His creative outlet flourished down the decades and included numerous proverbs, The Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, all preserved in the Bible.

Now, with the release of the Godfrey Rust album 'Entangled', the thoughts, writings and history of two ancient Jewish kings have converged as I seek to analyse song-by-song this thought-provoking album.

Godfrey has a long musical history. His first three albums were recorded with his friend Geoffrey Shattock as the duo Shattock & Rust. Then came a solo project, 2018's 'Prayers In Time' which Cross Rhythms called "a masterly album". Last year Godfrey made a surprise appearance on the Cross Rhythms radio playlist as the guest vocalist on the Jeff Lowe Psalms Project "Psalm 62 My Soul Finds Rest In God Alone". The words to "My Soul Finds Rest In God Alone" were penned by possibly the greatest poet of all time, King David, and the Jeff Lowe melody was produced by Godfrey's son Adam, who has forged a successful career as a keys and guitar man who's worked with many mainstream luminaries. Adam was able to bring a jazz-tinged lilt to Jeff Lowe's wistful melody to give his dad a well-deserved place on contemporary radio.

In recent years two thunderbolts of painful circumstance exploded in the life of Godfrey. First, his beloved wife Tessa then Godfrey himself contracted different forms of incurable cancer. Both Tessa and Godfrey, thanks to the brilliant attention of doctors and nurses, are still alive and so it was particularly exciting news for Godfrey's many supporters when it was announced that he was recording an album produced by Adam. Joining them on their creative endeavours would be two of British Christendom's most talented musicians, woodwinds maestro Dave Fitzgerald and percussionist extraordinaire Terl Bryant.

Putting Dave and Terl, among others, behind Godfrey's warm, mellow voice proved to be a master stroke. The album showed that Godfrey's voice had something of his long-time musical hero Paul Simon in its incomparable diction and its ability to draw the nuances of particular lines. Overall, 'Entangled' is musically a quality album. But it is what the lyrics say which have caused me to meditate deeply.

The first song on 'Entangled' is "Belief (Voices Of Experience)". The first verse powerfully depicts Godfrey's experience, and for that matter of many other people, of growing up in Britain. He sings, "When I was young I saw the blue horizon/the rainbow's end, the pot of gold/I believed I had a guardian angel/I believed what I was told/I found people had their own agendas/hidden behind their eyes-/they took my loyalty to serve their purpose/took my money for lies." After this comes the chorus, "With more wisdom comes more sorrow/more knowledge, more grief/We never know what we will know tomorrow/we don't choose our belief." The first part of this chorus is inspired by King Solomon's "For with much wisdom, comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief" (Ecclesiastes 1:18).

It seems to me to appreciate the truth of these words we have to scrutinise the life of the man who wrote them. They were written by Solomon, a man who, despite the wisdom and knowledge bestowed on him, gave his libido such unrestrained expression that he allowed his wives to beguile him to pursue idolatry and that inevitably led to the splitting of his nation and the ruination of his kingship. All Solomon's wisdom and knowledge was not enough to resist the enticements of those foreign wives and it's a tragic truth that this kingly proverb writer wasn't able to obey his own insights and fell for the charms of the wayward woman. All his reading, all his philosophic discussions gave him with a keen, enormously developed intellect. But because he chose to disobey Moses' clear instructions given by God, the king found, what countless other philosophers and teachers have found down the centuries, that wisdom and knowledge can never be a replacement for obedience that comes through faith.

The pivotal point in these matters is from where, in our modern world, do we acquire our wisdom and knowledge. It begins with our parents, but of course teachers, books, TV, friends and computers soon take over the task. Godfrey, like all of us, grew up in a world where we are bombarded by truths and falsehoods. He learned from experience that a school friend could tell you a whopper or that a slick ad could sell you something that was rubbish. But then at age 14 Godfrey went forward at a Billy Graham Crusade. Godfrey's was less a conversion experience and more an intellectual assent to what some of his teenage friends believed. His own church going fell away when he went to university and when he returned to Christianity it was because he found a number of things in the New Testament trustworthy. Indeed, he had supernatural experiences related to them. But by then he had become what we evangelicals would call a theological liberal. Now this spiritual stance, to believe and obey some parts of the Bible teaching, or maybe I should say our interpretation of them, but to discard other parts has led to turmoil in the Christian Church for hundreds of years. And of course during Old Testament times it led to disaster for those poet kings David and Solomon. In their early years they had delighted in God's special revelation to the Jews, God's law, but once their experience of the countless voices of friends, enemies and presumably non-biblical writings began to bombard their lives, they found that you could only obey the first supernaturally-delivered commandment of God to love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind if you have regular encounters with Him. And the most reliable way to do this is to meditate on Holy Scripture. What Moses knew and what King David and King Solomon found to their cost was that without this reverence and love for God's law there would be a lessening of our love for the God who breathed it into existence. And with that, disobedience of God's laws was bound to follow.

Godfrey, like most theological liberals, has, it seems, come to disregard much of the Old Testament and, rather alarmingly, some parts of the New. Godfrey sings "I believe the first creator laid down the natural laws/I suppose that just a moment later the Big Bang broke out in applause/I believe it was the basic intention loveable creatures should emerge from the gloom/I believe in the dying lover/I don't know about the empty tomb." It is that last line expression of doubt in the resurrection which would cause any evangelical concern. To quote a Scripture, "If you declare with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved."

To express doubt about Christ's resurrection is therefore not something that I can easily shrug off as simply the differing theological perspective of a fellow traveller on the road to glory. Personally, I am prepared to do this while reading the works of great writers (for instance, Catholic G K Chesterton or theological liberal Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr). If one is to gaze at world history one can note how such diverse voices as popes and theologians, philosophers and statesmen, theorists and scientists have made pronouncements and offered theories that have enhanced human knowledge when it marries up with the divine word of God. But when it doesn't, the consequences are profoundly harmful.

I remain a great admirer of Godfrey Rust, poet and songwriter. But I am convinced that he has fallen into the same trap that beset King David and King Solomon in leaning on his own understanding rather than believing that all scripture is God-breathed, unequivocably true and will guide us through life and towards death.

I'll conclude this review/contemplation by quoting part of a poem written not by Godfrey but by Robert Winnett. "For doubt is not faith's for but is its correlate/In doubt lies faith that truth is ours to find/Discovered, not created, by the mind/By very doubt truth's sovereign claim who own/Are seekers after God though He remains unknown/Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief/A father prayed whose heart was torn by grief/A prayer which rose from mingled faith and doubt."

With commendable courage Godfrey, now nearing the end of his life, has chosen to write and record a song articulating his belief in a created world and his doubt in the monumental significance that a resurrected Christ has to play in this world. Near the end of his life, King Solomon was to reflect on his experiences of passionate human love, vividly articulated in his Song Of Songs. This eventually led to him being disobedient to the divine lover of his soul which brought forth his observation that "with much knowledge comes much sorrow." I have no idea what experiences - internal or external, philosophic or scientific - have contributed to Godfrey composing "Belief" and the falsehoods of universalism he has embraced. All I can do is value his creativity and pray for more Holy Spirit revelation for both of us.