Tony Cummings grilled Martin Wroe and Martin Evans about Europe's biggest Christian arts festival GREENBELT.

By any perspective Greenbelt is the world's foremost Christian music festival. Now in its 17th year, Greenbelt is, of course, more than a music showcase. The festival, held at Castle Ashby, Northants, offers a platform for the whole of the arts: drama and dance, painting and pottery. And the seminar programme attracts packed tents.

But it is contemporary music which has seen Greenbelt emerge from the parochial fringes of an evangelical subculture to become an internationally known Festival featuring stars like U2 (well, they did a 20 minute set back in '81) and Cliff Richard and regularly attracting a Radio One live broadcast. And it is music that draws most of the 28,000 or so to make an August Bank Holiday weekend pilgrimage and endure uncomfortable nights under canvas, over-priced hot dogs and unspeakable public toilets.

The list of all the Christian music figures who've played Greenbelt down the years is staggering-the biggest international pop stars to the obscurest church hall strummers, the most overt text-scattering musical evangelists to pop artists whose message extends no further than "let's have a knees-up." It's hard to think of an artist who has graced the pages of Cross Rhythms who won't, sooner or later, play the festival.

With a permanent headquarters-cum-centre-for-the-arts 'The Greenhouse" now established in North London, Greenbelt seems assured of ongoing success, if not commercially (it struggles to break even) at least creatively - a yearly demonstration that Christians have much to offer that is creatively excellent in the world of art.

But despite the festival's popularity there have also been steadily increasing murmurs of disquiet about Greenbelt heard within evangelical circles. As an event which pioneered what once seemed a revolutionary idea - that you could be a committed Christian and perform rock'n'roll - Greenbelt is of course, no stranger to criticism. It has long been attacked by misguided fundamentalists who denounce this perpetrator of the 'satanic' rock n' roll beat. But this new criticism has more substance and comes from quarters who not only actively supported the Church's re-entrance into the arts and contemporary culture but who, in years past, have often taken their youth groups to Greenbelt.

Words like "worldly" and "near-Christian" are now sometimes heard with regard to Greenbelt while more than one eminent evangelical leader has gone on record to denounce Greenbelt for its seeming obsession with left wing political activism. Greenbelt's decision to introduce non-Christian performers onto mainstage has been criticised by conservative evangelicals and seen as further evidence that it's become uprooted from its evangelical moorings and become at best, a broad church event for the nominally religious.

To get some response to these criticisms from the organisers of Greenbelt I went to North London, where in a leafy suburban street off the Caledonian Road stands St. Luke's, a Victorian grey stone edifice, part of which now houses The Greenhouse. There I met Martin Wroe a member of Greenbelt's 15-strong board of management, editor of the Greenbelt magazine 'Strait' and chairman of the 'Artists Collective' sub-committee who choose which soloists and bands should be invited to Greenbelt. We were joined by Martin Evans, Greenbelt's general manager and fulltime organiser extraordinaire.

Greenbelt is clearly a very elusive animal. What is Greenbelt?

MW: It's primarily an arts festival organised by people working from a Christian viewpoint eager to showcase what other Christians are doing in the arts. If you're talking religious terms it's a celebration, it's a carnival, it's a festival.

Why did you say 'from a Christian viewpoint'? Does that mean you're broader than Christian?

MW: Well the organising group are drawn from Christians only. But within the festival sometimes we have 'guest' contributors who wouldn't call themselves Christians. They are a minority to be honest; I don't want to make a big deal out of it. But we would be showcasing their work because we think there is some aspect of it we think God is applauding.

ME: We have a clear understanding that the creativity they are demonstrating in their various styles of music has actually been given by God.

The decision for Greenbelt to extend its parameters beyond the Christian artistic world was surely a controversial one.

MW: There is a view, yes, that it was a very adventurous or controversial move. But we never ever come across any flak from people for that.