A Discussion Of Christian Rock In Three Parts (III)

III.

Are there any songs out there that require belief? Are there religious songs that I want to listen to?

Maybe…and yes.

As for songs that require belief to enjoy them, I dislike very much to think that art ever requires something of its audience to the degree of religious conviction. So what can art require of its audience? I don’t think it’s easy to draw clear lines on any of these issues. This is the kind of argument we see when best-selling, serious authors like Jonathan Franzen or Ian McEwan use big, fancy vocabulary words that most people aren’t familiar with. We accuse them of having big heads or elitist mentalities or…well…larger than average vocabularies. Those accusations have some of the same flavor as my complaints about the requirement of a religious song, do they not?

But what the fancy-vocabulary-problem lacks is the necessity to have an entirely different frame of mind. Asking a reader to add a word or two to their head is not quite the same as asking a music fan to…well…believe in a higher power—specifically in Jesus Christ, in the case of Christian rock. At this point I’m surely coming off as a bit of an atheist—which I am (although I prefer “agnostic” because I fancy myself at least a little spiritual)—but being an atheist and not a Christian should not close me off to Christian music. The same goes for how being a Westerner should not close me off to other world views—but does it? Should it?

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Welcome, my friends, to the thorny fields of postcolonial theory—the romping grounds of famed literary theorist and cultural critic Edward Said. I will not hesitate to tell you that I am still terrified of Said after a not-so-pleasant reading experience in the fall of my freshman year—too soon, I assure you, for literary theory.

One of the fantastically difficult questions raised by postcolonial theory is the issue of how colonial and postcolonial peoples and societies are represented in literature and the arts—but, on top of that, the related issue of how people respond to about them. How does a Native American respond to old John Wayne films? Can he or she ever begin to appreciate them? The question is whether or not they are able to see beyond the folly of the racism and the (sometimes) inaccurate history. NOT that I mean to compare religion to racism; the point, however, is the same. Those old John Wayne films presume a certain cultural blinder on the part of the audience, just the same as Sanctus Real presumes that its audience understands Christianity and the impulses behind their music.

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So what am I left with? Is there any accessible Christian music out there?!

Of course there is! Some of it below.

“Yahweh” – U2

If the song’s title isn’t obvious enough (it’s the Hebrew name for God), this is a gigantically Christian song. Although Bono’s lyrics don’t usually have too heavy of a religious lean, this set of lyrics are more or less clearly religious.

But this song is a pretty mundane find—how about Josh Garrels?

A singer-songwriter hailing from Portland, Oregon, the opening of Garrels’s bio troubles me at first: “Josh Garrels is a lot of things, or has been: son of a hippie commune, skater boy, suburban drug dealer, music/design student, coffee roaster, urban shepherd, and now nation- and globe-trotting minstrel of hope and healing.”

[by Jonathan Scott – from Cdbaby.com]

That’s not exactly a promising start for a critic who’s bent on dismissing Christian rock…lower down in the bio, however, I find something that literally makes me want to fist-pump at Garrels through the computer:

“‘In a media-saturated pop culture society where “stars” are the royalty to be worshipped or fawned over, I believe the true role of artists is to serve others with their creations,’ Garrels says. ‘That means to draw people to fullness of life through revelation, longing, breakthroughs, simple beauty, and unpretentious truths. Artists help people see the obvious, the heart of the matter, and from this regained perspective people become more fully human. So much art these days has people focusing on an unattainable fantasy, lusting over what they'll never have unless they take it by force or by way of money or libido. This is all candy, and candy can't make a man healthy.’”

[ibid]

While I may not be exactly on board with the notion of “[drawing] people to fullness of life through revelation”—I suspect a Christian “revelation”—I sort of like this whole artists serving other with their creations bit…

Anyways, Garrels is the one diamond in the rough I’ve uncovered in my (rather) brief foray into the tangled world of Christian rock and its misplaced emphases. Here’s to Josh Garrels and his uncannily affecting…ahem…Christian rock. Also—he raps. You can get his latest album for FREE here.

Here's a verse sample:

"Tempted and tried, I wondered why

the good man died, the bad man thrives

and Jesus cries because he loves 'em both.

We're all cast-aways in need of rope,

hangin' on by the last threads of our hope

in a house of mirrors full of smoke

confusing illusions I've seen."

"Farther Along" - Josh Garrels

"Ulysses" - Josh Garrels