Sir Elton's 60th birthday bash was celebrated last Saturday at New York's Episcopal Cathedral of St John the Divine, with 400 revelers in attendance. Lots of big name celebs were there - Jon Bon Jovi, Richard Gere, Whoopi Goldberg, Rod Stewart, and Barbara Walters - all noticeably greying a bit.

Dress was black tie. Floral arrangements reportedly cost $18,000. 1,000 bottles of champagne were laid in. Dessert was a sticky butterscotch toffee, said to be a particular favourite of the birthday boy. The high altar was transformed into a stage for performers like Scissor Sisters, Sting, and another peer of the realm, Sir Paul McCartney.

Now let's assume that there are sane people who would wish to attend Elton John's birthday; after all, there are people who wish to vote for Hillary Clinton. But why was it held in a Cathedral, you ask? And why would the Cathedral agree?

Well, in the first place because that Cathedral is part of a denomination that has lost its raison d'etre. Episcopalians are Anglicans, and the Anglican Church worldwide is in a state of withering uncertainty about what, if anything, it believes. Whatever it is, its new agenda has a lot to do with gays ("Welcome, Sir Elton"), a lot to do with women, and a lot to do with the environment; biblical authority remains a bit hazy, but then Anglicanism was always something of a hazy fudge between biblical authority and modernity. So the powers that be at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine saw nothing wrong with renting to those openly contemptuous of what the Church once stood for.

Second, there is a strong religious element to our current devotion to celebrities. People like Elton John and his friends are like gods and goddesses. When decades ago the Beatles said they were more popular than Jesus Christ, they spoke the truth. The fact that our celebrity gods do nothing consequential except imitate someone on stage, or bawl cacophonies into microphones, does not diminish their status. They are rich, they are famous, they are adored - and they accept adoration as their due. We watch their affairs, their divorces and remarriages, with sick fascination; we hang upon their words; we are flattered when they deign to notice us.

In 1985 Neil Postman wrote a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Showbusiness. Postman's thesis, simply put, was that the ubiquity of mass communication media - and particularly television - would ultimately convert everything, including politics and religion, into a branch of showbusiness. Over time, people would forget what the point of politics or religion was, and it would all become entertainment.

Living in Canada, the truth of Postman's insight is borne out daily. Elections now bear the same relation to reality as professional wrestling. If our Courts are good for anything, it is for an occasional, and always inadvertent, comic turn. Most Churches are in the entertainment business big time - with trendy hymns, feel good sermons, and socializing over coffee and donuts just as soon as we can get through the boring bits. No doubt the Church of St. John the Divine feels flattered that Sir Elton would consider staging his bash in their no longer sacred precincts.

Only that Church's namesake, the John who wrote the Book of Revelation, who described himself as being "...on the island of Patmos but in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ" would weep; compared to the birthday John's elation at the bouquets, and champagne, and his favourite sticky toffee, what matter the tears of that other long-forgotten John?

---Dr. Ian Hunter is a Canadian writer and attorney. This column first appeard in the Globe and Mail, Toronto, Canada