So, Harry Styles can now fly. He can walk on water too, bearing uncanny resemblance to one famous Messiah. Is his new music video trying to tell us something?
Harry Styles – formerly of pop boy-band sensation One Direction – has gone solo, and yesterday released the first music video of his new career, for his hit single 'Sign of the Times'.
The video, an impressive, beautifully shot production, features a lonely Harry walking, looking pensive and singing. So far, so standard, but then, like Superman just discovering his powers, Styles' feet lift off the ground, he levitates, and is soon seen swooping majestically across vast rural locales.
In a shameless rip-off of Jesus, Styles even takes a moment to skip along the water, with a big cocky grin on his face.
If you think the video is absurd and grandiose, then you don't understand the rich message at play: Harry Styles' 'sign of the times' is just this – he is a god, come to save us all.
Just as Christ bid farewell to his disciples then ascended into heaven, so Styles has bid adieu to his One Direction brethren, and is now quite literally soaring above us all.
Christian audiences – especially pastors – shouldn't be offended but delighted. Just imagine the sermon potential.
If you're low on content, just show this music video ('engaging with culture', always good), and simply add that 'Jesus is the true and better Harry Styles' at the end. People will be moved. Some will be moving quickly to find a new church, but you can't please everyone.
Who knows quite what Styles intended for this video. Perhaps, being only 23, he just thought flying would be pretty cool.
Or is there more going on? Does his heavenly ascent signal his own turn to faith? He has been seen wearing a cross necklace, and has a tattoo of a Holy Bible on his left arm. How many Bible tattoos do you have? And isn't walking on water a sign of great faith? The wonder-working St Harry puts us all to shame.
Alternatively, Harry simply believes that he is himself divine. In his song he declares: 'They told me that the end is near/ We gotta get away from here'. Is Harry taking us to heaven?
It was John Lennon of the Beatles, another British pop-sensation, who famously said: 'We're more popular than Jesus now.' Everyone's a Messiah these days.
Styles' fame looks set to continue – he's moving into acting (aren't we all) and has nabbed a role in visionary director Christopher Nolan's upcoming war movie Dunkirk. The recent trailer for the hotly-anticipated film glimpses Harry drowning in deep water.
A fascinating contrast. Walking on water one moment, drowning in the next – Styles refuses to be put into a box.
Just like God.
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