A video of Evangelical Christians singing loudly on an easyJet flight has gone viral, with strong opinions on whether it was charming or offensive.
Self-styled pastor Jack Jensz Jr, who is behind the organisation Kingdom Realm Ministries, posted the video of himself and a group singing the worship song “How Great is our God” along to a guitar, with some of the group standing in the aisle.
“Worshipping our King Jesus 30,000 feet in the air!” wrote Mr Jensz alongside the video, which pans over the passengers singing in harmony and shows the view from the window at cruising altitude. On TikTok, his caption was, “We are taking this flight over for Jesus!”
Since being posted on 9 April, the video has had 36 million views on Twitter, and attracted more than 13,000 comments across Instagram and TikTok combined.
Not everyone thought the mile-high sing-along was cause for celebration.
“Completely intrusive and obnoxious. Be considerate of other people,” wrote one Instagram user.
“I would rather go to Jesus right NOW than endure that nightmare of a flight,” commented another.
“Y’all about to meet him if you keep singing,” reads the top most liked comment on TikTok.
“This is a hostage situation,” wrote another horrified TikTok user.
“This is when I would see if I could in fact open the emergency door,” quipped another, while a fellow user suggested, “If God loved me he’d give me a quiet flight.”
However, many religious social media users thought it was a nice idea, with one writing: “I was very happy to see this. Not ashamed to worship publicly at the risk of persecution.”
Several commenters pointed out that such public worshipping from any other religious or cultural group might not have been met with such indulgence from the airline crew.
US congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who is Muslim, tweeted the video with the caption: “I think my family and I should have a prayer session next time I am on a plane. How do you think it will end?”
The group said it was returning from Ukraine where it had gone to do some charity work. Another of Mr Jensz’s videos shows him and his wife preaching to a train full of Ukrainians.
Mr Jensz, who is from Australia but now lives in Philadelphia, later posted a defence of the impromptu sing-along, saying the group had asked permission before breaking into song.
He wrote: “We went up to the air host and shared with her what we were doing in Ukraine and asked if it’s OK if we sing one song to bring hope and joy to this flight.
“There were many Ukrainians on this flight. She was happy and said this would be great! She then asked the pilot, the pilot and all the air hosts were 100 per cent in agreement (If they said no, We would of [sic] honored that!).
“They even made an announcement to all passengers letting them know who we are and what we did in Ukraine and introduced us and allowed us to get the guitar out!”
He insisted that people had “clapped and welcomed them” and that they were only “up for three to four minutes”.
“People were filming and smiling. People were truly touched.”
