And the Godlike Genius Award goes to…

Awards season is in full swing—from the Grammys to the Brit Awards—the most recent ceremony being the NME Awards held last night in London. The event has a reputation for the being the most rock-and-roll awards ceremony of them all. Even the trophies themselves are hands arranged in what can only be described as an impolite gesture. The gongs are given out for eclectic categories, perhaps most intriguingly the “Godlike Genius Award”—last night awarded to British band Coldplay. 

In one sense, of course, it’s a deliberately irreverent title for an award.

In another, it’s the truth.

Because Coldplay’s genius is God-like. Not just because I’ve been humming Hymn for the Weekend all week (although perhaps you’re still enjoying Yellow from 2000). Our urge to create and enjoy—be it music, home décor, writing, adult coloring books or babies—is part of being made in the image of a wonderfully creative God at the centre of the universe:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image,
 in the image of God he created them;
 male and female he created them. (Genesis 1 v 26-27)

Mark Meynell celebrates God-like creativity in this way:

“For all the wonders and ingenuity of the animal kingdom, and the complexities and similarities with computer chips, it seems to require the unique ingenious creativity of human beings to compose Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier or The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper; to paint Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescos or Banksy’s street art; to perform Hamlet or Les Misérables. Neither fleet-footed mammals nor laptop motherboards have anything on us! We are absolutely magnificent! There must be more to us than our consciousness, physicality, biology or neurology. We can’t be reduced to any one of these things.” (Mark Meynell, What Makes us Human?)

Any day we look at the news, it’s tempting to see what’s wrong with the world around us—because there’s plenty. But it’s good too, to stop and seek to celebrate where we see the image of God shining through the humans he’s made—including Coldplay’s God-like genius.

Coldplay is evidence that we’re so much more than highly evolved animals—we’re human beings, made in the image of a brilliant Creator God. And our favorite musicians are imperfect little pointers towards a perfect eternity full of music—melodies which will make our souls soar higher than even the best of what we hear on our radio airwaves (Revelation 15 v 3-4).

So, congratulations Coldplay.

And Father—thank you for making us in your image and giving us so much to enjoy. In fact, in the fullest sense of the words of Abba (who have sadly never been honored by NME)—thank you for the music…

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