This item of news appeared on the BBC website yesterday. Of course it’s not really news because organists have been sneaking secular themes into their improvisations for as long as they’ve been able to improvise in church.
I once spent a week in Canterbury Cathedral during which the organist decided to challenge the choir to keep a straight face as they walked in each day. We were treated to, amongst other things, the theme from Postman Pat (evidently a favourite for this treatment) and the 007 theme. The latter was slowed down so that had I not known in advance that it would be played, I would not have recognised it!
Another friend of mine in my student days used to include Tristan chords in his pre-service improvisation at a local church. His friends in the congregation would nudge one another as they came round.
The organist in the article, Matthew Redman, is known to me as we were in Manchester at the same time and later in Bath he was organist at the church I then attended, although I don’t think he ever heard me sing.
I enjoy the Ship of Fools website, especially comparing the Mystery Worshipper’s accounts of services at various churches I know with my own experience of them.