* Wealth without Work
* Pleasure without Conscience
* Science without Humanity
* Knowledge without Character
* Politics without Principle
* Commerce without Morality
* Worship without Sacrifice

My version goes something like this:

Lord, You know we’ve seen it
Wealth without the work
And pleasure with no conscience 
Both plagues upon the earth

We are overwhelmed; we are overcome
And yet we live in expectation

Lord you know we’ve lived it 
Religion with no cost
Worship that means nothing
Because it does not bear a cross

 We are overwhelmed; we are overcome
And yet we live in expectation

 Science with no heart
Knowledge with no character
Politics without a sense of place
And we’re selling things without a thought
For what we need
And what really cost.

We are overwhelmed; we are overcome
And yet we live in expectation 

I also suggested that some of the songs we sing in church are contributing to the sluggishness of many church-goers. I want to be clear here that I am not making a sweeping judgement of ‘church music’ as a whole. I happen to really enjoy a great deal of church music. In this case, the sweeping judgement is not only about the particular songs we sing or listen to, but at least as much about our ability to actually hear what we are listening to.

So, just as it would greatly benefit listeners to take a long look at the lyrical content (and musical craftsmanship) of Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs” or The National’s “High Violet,”  it would be equally beneficial to take a look at some of the songs churches are already singing and are familiar with.  There are some dangerous songs in rotation Sunday mornings.

For instance…

“In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song.”

I’ve sung this or led this song well over one hundred times and it wasn’t until reading Brian J. Walsh’s “Colossians Remixed” that I connected some dots regarding the claim Keith Getty and Stuart Townsend make with the song.

Jesus Christ’s exclusive claim of Lordship (to which the song is referring) stood against the claims of Roman leadership and supremacy.  The community in Colossae (to whom Paul’s letter was written) knew that claiming Jesus was “the image of the invisible God” and that “He is before all things.. in Him all things hold together” would fly in the face of Roman and power.  Walsh writes in Colossians Remixed that

“Proclaiming a lord other that Caesar would result in immediate imprisonment and a closer view of imperial games than anyone would want… a threat to the empire.”

The obvious question here is “Does the exclusive claim to hope only in Jesus sincerely mean something when we sing it?”  Because if the answer is yes, that’s an awfully dangerous thing to claim.  The Supremacy of Christ is a threat to all else. Our comfort, our politics, our career path, etc.. And yet how often have I sung that it is “in Christ alone” that my hope is found but not considered the very real consequences of such a statement?

Earlier this Fall, I wrote a blog entry for the Art House America blog on the relationship between Worship and Justice.  The piece was part of a longer bit I wrote about the triad of Art, Worship and Justice. If you’ve not yet read the initial posting at Art House America, you can do so here. Below is the continuation of that thought.

——

In his book “The Dangerous Act of Worship” Mark Labberton writes

“The perception that issues of justice and issues of worship are separate or sequential or easily distinguishable shows the inadequacy of our theology: both of worship and of justice”
-The Dangerous Act of Worship, Intervarsity Press

I believe that artists are uniquely and particularly positioned to invite and challenge their people to this work of Worship and Justice.  This is so because of the nature of the artistic gift and the authority that gift grants an artist culturally.

The Nature of the Artist’s Gift

Creation was (and is) of value to God because He made it; not because of it’s usefulness.  According the the Genesis account of creation, God created light and immediately called the light “good.”  This despite the fact that, in the creation sequence, much the physical had yet to be created.  Light, the function of which is to make things see-able, was “good”  not because of it’s usefulness but simply because God made it.

It seems to me that the Genesis account of creation establishes a basis for the worth of all things that runs much deeper than utility.  Creation was (and is) of value to God because He made it; it is His,… The innate value of all things rests in their relationship to the Creator.

Similarly, the nature of art proclaims this same value relationship between Creator and creation.  To a songwriter, for instance, a song’s worth is not established by it’s success in the marketplace. Nor does failure in the marketplace detract from that same song’s worth.  Intrinsically, that song’s worth is established in it’s relationship to its artist.  Because of this truth regarding the nature of art, I believe every time an artist makes a piece or writes a story etc… the Creator-creation value relationship is proclaimed.  It is this value-relationship that provides the most consistent foundation for advocacy: The elderly, the poor, the developmentally disabled and the unborn have their worth equally established and maintained in their relationship to the God who made them.  Their inability to contribute to the Market’s bottom line does nothing to detract from their value.

The Authority of Art

Furthermore, art opens doors in the hearts of those who engage it.  The artists behind this work (or in it as the case may be) are granted a peculiar authority to walk through those doors and make suggestions as to how listeners or viewers perceive and interact with reality.  Perhaps because of its much wider cultural accessibility, this is most clearly exemplified in the case of music wherein the fashion of young women can often be directly traced to a particular artist or (on a brighter note) concern for a region of the world can become somewhat fashionable due to the poetic call of another artist or band.   This authority begs the question “how will you use it?”  The other way to ask the same question is to ask “What are you calling your people to?”  I would hope (in fact I would suggest) that

Conclusion

Having an intentional knowledge of both the Nature and Authority of their gift, artists can enter the conversation about art’s role (particularly music’s role) in worship more completely; knowing that music, as form of art, tells a key part of the Story by its very nature; that the authority art gives an artist must be handled with wisdom and that embracing his role as an artist among people means knowingly leading that people in worship that truly transforms their lives and the world in which those lives are led. A worship indistinguishable from the practice of Justice.

She was leaning heavy on her driver side door and smoking so that the ashes would fall to the pavement instead of inside her car… I parked just behind her so that I could get a better look while putting my running shoes on and as I opened my door, I noticed she was listening to the radio quietly and writing. Pink pen. Lined notebook paper, frayed from being ripped out.  Despite the pink pen, the note or letter she was writing was comprised of at least 3 other pen styles and colors; as if it were a letter she’d started and stopped several times before.

I got my running shoes tied on and weaved the wire for my earbuds through my shirt before locking my car and walking her way: I’d have to pass her to get to the head of the running trail.  Before I reacher her car, I saw her jump slightly and say aloud “O, wow,.. Oh, God, Oh, God, Oh, God!”  I though she was noticing me approaching and awoken from some trance.. But no..

She leaned forward and turned up the radio, saying “Yeah, yeah, YEAH!” while pinching her cigarette in the corner of her mouth.

“I’m gonna make a change for once in my life
It’s gonna feel real good
I’m gonna make a difference, gonna make it rii-iiiiight..”

She picked up singing along as the beat dropped…

“As I turn up the collar on my favorite winter coat,
The wind is blowing my mind”

It was quite a moment. I could see tears roll down her cheek beneath her Oakley sunglasses.

Now, this is exactly the kind of scenario I might just as easily make fun of: someone singing along with Michael Jackson in public, with a poorly groomed mohawk,..wearing Oakleys. And perhaps it’s because I just became a father so that everything has a touch more emotional punch to it (this is, of course, greatly aided by not sleeping through the night for a week).  But I was reminded once again of the place music takes us to.. the way a song can find us right where we are and in some way, complete the moment.

Before I hit the trail for my run, I paused at her door and asked “are you alright?”
She didn’t even look up.. she just kept her head moving to the beat and said “Yeah, honey.. I’m gonna be fine.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Aaron James (MathDept.com) compiled images from the making of the “..Undone” artwork and then set the sequence to my cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Head Like A Hole.”  I think it ends up being a nice introduction to the album…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s an excerpt from the blog I just posted at Soul-Audio.com:

“At times it can be difficult for me, as an artist, to articulate what I want to see happen with my work. In one way, the ‘result’ or desired effect of my work once it’s left my hands is not really even my responsibility. But if I desired any particular kind of response or reaction it would be something like what a recent visitor to my blog articulated when he wrote…”

Read the whole entry at Soul-Audio.com

If you knew what would happen and made us just the same,
You, My Lord, can take the blame.

So the evening began in song with David Bazan; the same way that my engagement with his work has always been.  His challenge to the “assumed goodness” of God pushing me to search my own heart for similar untested assumptions, contradictory premises, doubts, frustrations… his courage in doing so freeing me to find the darker corners of my own mind with less fear and, in that way, greater faith.

Bazan was in Grand Rapids (as was I) to participate in the Festival of Faith and Music (of which I will write a bit more in the near future).  Along with playing a set on Thursday night, Bazan talked with NPR’s Jessica Hopper about… well… faith and music.  He reflected on his own history as a songwriter as well as the music he’s listened to over the years.  He continued to point at moments in songs or albums that unsettled him in relationship to christianity.

Between times and during late nights, I had the pleasure of finally talking with him quite a bit about his new record, house shows, his Pedro days, christian bumper stickers and festivals we’d never play again.  Those conversations only made the songs from his next release “Curse Your Branches” (August 09) more intriguing to me. He is calling “Branches” his first truly autobiographical piece.  It’s an autobiography I’ve been hoping to hear for a while as it is specifically focused on his distancing from christianity.

The title track is highlighted by this masterful chorus…

..falling leaves should curse their branches
For not letting them decide where they should fall
And not letting them refuse to fall at all

While he has always been comfortable in a critical posture towards christianity for it’s … well.. being all “christian” and stuff, Bazan, in song and in conversation, does not seem at all settled on the distance between himself and God.  He directs his discontent back toward the space God previously occupied, singing:

In my throat, there swells a darkness
It fills my mouth, and coats my lips
And even as the threat of Hell is disappearing,
The threat of losing you is blowing up..

For those of us who have been listeners of Bazan’s since early Pedro the Lion, this tension he creates by directing his frustration and confusion at a God whose character is awfully confusing, a God he is not sure exists and is the root of his frustrations to begin with is exactly why we love his music; because for many of us, this has been at least part of our experience of faith.  For many of us, christian art, whose songs of doubt are generally tamed with an overly obvious and predictable happy ending of unwavering assurance or whose stories of tragedy are most often girded with the glaring undertone that “everything is going to be just fine in the end,” not only misrepresents our experience thus far, but leaves us with a sense that something is very wrong with our own weak faith.

Similar to writers like Frederick Buechner, David Bazan provides a place for skeptics, poets and the religiously frustrated to find some normality.  A place where doubt is not a disease or a phase that needs to be medicated, grown out of or explained away but actively wrestled with;  a place where frustration with God and confusion at who He is becomes part of the journey itself; where the decision to continue engaging, even if it’s only to shout into the dark space we thought God had been living all this time, is an act that is full of faith.

In William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying,” he uses one of his character’s voices to critique the religious compromise we make with doubt, writing

“…sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they forgot the words.”

Bazan’s life and work have given shape to Sin and Love and Fear for many of us who could find few if any fleshly, mortal connections with these realities in the artistic expressions of faith offered by popular religious culture.  The art he’s produced in the throes of doubt, alcoholism and folly have served as the tragedy that some of us have lacked the vitality to suffer for ourselves; in the light of which art, our own process of redemption or restoration has fuller meaning rather than being the half-lived half-truth that is the result of the half-thinking compromise we strike with our often half-conceived idea of God.

The following night after Bazan’s show, Cornell West highlighted the role of death in christian life; particularly the death of ideas, prejudices and suppositions.  That same night in the middle of a conversation about the history of either losing or letting go of things he had previously thought necessary for life and faith, Bazan listed a few of the influences that had been his guides along the way; just about all of them being songwriters.  He paused for a moment and then said “I guess it is through songs that I was first undone.”

Here they are my musical favorites of 2008, in no particular order, besides the order in which I came across them on my playlists…

All Alright — Sigur Ros, from “Med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust”
This album had me off balance for the first few listens; a departure from what I’ve come to expect from Sigur Ros.  But like many of my other favorite artists, reinvention has thus far meant new dimensions of beauty and artistry.

Your Love Is Strong — Jon Foreman, from the “Spring” EP
Jon’s work has always had a quirkiness to it reflective of his personality. The songs that make up each EP are even more sharply characterized in this way; this makes the power of songs like “Your Love…” more human and less lofty or inaccessible; a characteristic that marks far too much religious or devotional music.

Dangerous — Joshua James, from “The Sun Is Always Brighter
The album lags at times, but the highlights really shine, including “Dangerous.”  James’ delicacy as an artist stands in opposition to deep tensions in the song’s arrangement.

Hallelujah — The Helio Sequence, from “Keep Your Eyes Ahead.”
I really like the clash of electronic and pop-folk elements that meet in this song.

Closer — Kings of Leon, from “Only By The Night”
I didn’t think this stuff would grow on me the way it has.  It’s a little bit on the Jock-Rock side of my taste, but we all have our strange tastes.

I’ve Seen Enough — Cold War Kids, from “Loyalty to Loyalty”
This band’s performance in the movie “Call and Response” was one of my favorite moments in the movie.  The Cold War Kids find a way to draw the raw energy out of their songs.  In this case the tone of the bass track is the key to that energy.

Terror for Two – The Broken West, from “Now or Heaven”
This whole record is fun.  As a fan of 80′s and 90′s new wave, I liked the turn The Broken West took with production here.  As I mentioned earlier, a well thought out reinvention can make for some great moments.  This is another great example of that.

Can’t Go Back Now — The Weepies, from “Hideaway”
Just barely trailing Linford and Karen of “Over The Rhine,” I love this couple’s music.  Much like Eastmountainsouth, it is the combination of their talents and particularly their vocals that works so well.

Little Plastic Life — Sam Phillips, from “Don’t Do Anything”
If you are yet unfamiliar with Sam Phillips’ music, I really think she’s one of the most inventive and creative artists in music.

And finally, a holiday selection:
Can I Interest You In Hannukah? — Colbert/Stewart (from “A Colbert Christmas”)