A Playlist for Recovering Fundies

A couple of years back, I dragged my agnostic husband, Brian, to a Calvinist megachurch. Calvinist means God preselected a few humans for salvation and the rest for eternal torture. We sat there for an hour, goats among the sheep. Brian's reaction? "That was the best indie rock I've heard in a long time!"

Christians have a love-hate relationship with popular music. I came of age during a hate phase. Rock was diabolical. In my generation, Alice Cooper, missionary kid, played out his parents' fears about rock music, chopping up baby dolls and screeching about necrophilia while dressed as a 17th Century witch. Having dabbled on the enemy side of a fantastical spiritual war that supposedly encompasses us all, he now attends an evangelical mega in Scottsdale, Arizona.

In his youth, Alice had to choose between edgy rock and Jesus. By contrast, my nephew (raised by the same woman who raised me on Swan Lake--my mom) spent his teen years consuming a steady diet of Christian heavy metal. Mom's complaints were focused on aesthetics. Matthew's beloved "screamers" were distasteful, but not dangerous. Heavy metal had been co-opted. Instead of sketching daggers and bones dripping with stylized blood like secular metal fans, Matt could draw hearts and crosses dripping with stylized blood--and that was ok.

In Christianity, music is cement for faith. It can put people in that otherworldly frame of mind needed for repentance and conversion. It can call people to action and bind them to each other. It can evoke submission or ecstasy. Even the traditional interweaving of music and liturgy transforms passive observers into active worshipers. But it's also thought of as dangerous.

The problem for fundies is that music also can call people into the playful, sexual or political dimensions of social life. Young Christians are enticed to be "unequally yoked" with nonChristian band members, compatriots, or even lovers. At least that's what a lot of parents and ministers worry about. That's why in the long run revival movements often co-opt pop music, whether it's heavy metal or, in past times, the folk tunes or medieval love songs that provided melodies for now-traditional hymns. Some evangelists still try to guard young people from rock or hip hop music. But others work to "melt your face off" with a band that screams about Jesus.

Either way, I think they are right about the risk of secular music. Music can be a path out of insularity. Not by itself, of course. But music creates links to a whole wide world of human activities and ideas. For former fundies, it can also help with the healing process. When you've had your child-mind warped by scary songs liked "I Wish We'd all Been Ready" or when you've spent Sunday mornings swaying to "I'm a Pentecostal" or your dulcet tones were trained on "Saved by the Blood," it can help to start feeding your brain some alternatives.

During the summer I sent out email to a few friends and online ex-Christians saying I was going to put together a playlist for recovering fundies. Seventy-three song titles came back at me--everything from Gershwin to Nine Inch Nails.

"Now what do I do?" I asked my daughter. "They won't all fit in an article."

"Just list mine," she said, as if the solution was perfectly obvious.

So here are the top ten picks of a 14 year old (whose musical tastes, as will be apparent, were shaped by her dad more than her peers).

1. Heaven's Here on Earth - Tracy Chapman
2. Blasphemous Rumours - Depeche Mode
3. Losing My Religion - REM
4. Jesus' Brother Bob - Arrogant Worms
5. Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
6. One Tin Soldier - Coven
7. Cathedral - Cosby, Stills & Nash
8. Freewill - Rush
9. Everbody Knows - Leonard Cohen
10. One of Us - Joan Osborne

"Oh, and of course, Imagine." It goes without saying.

__________________________________
The 147(!) suggestions that have arrived to date can be found at www.spaces.live.com/awaypoint. Thanks to Mriana and John Lowe at www.exChristian.net for seeding this collection with their own lists. Lyrics for many of these songs can be found at: http://atheistempire.com/entertainment/music_lyrics.php

 

 

Follow Valerie Tarico on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ValerieTarico

Comments

[wondering]

OK, children, time to get schooled.

The Kinks' "Big Sky" on the brilliant, and often over-looked, Village Green Preservation Society.

And the rock song with the greatest opening line ever, Patti Smith's version of "Gloria" on her debut album Horses :

"Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine.
Meltin' in a pot of thieves,
wild card up my sleeve.
Thick, heart of stone
my sins my own
they belong to me ...
me!"
.

[Valerie Tarico - Huffpost Blogger]

I'll add them to the list over at awaypoint. Thanks!

[wondering]

Thanks,

By the by ...

"Imagine" is great, of course, but Lennon had explored that theme even earlier. Check out "I Found Out" and "God" on 1970's Plastic Ono Band album.

And - probably much too harsh for the recovering fundamentalist's ears - there is also Public Image Ltd.'s "Religion I & II" on their First Issue album. You can't beat Johnny Lydon for sheer, unrepentent bile.
.

[bpomer]

Wow your daughter is impressively sophisticated! I'm sure she'll she'll be following in your footsteps in one way or another. Take a look at what she's referencing. Or even better listen!!!!!!

'm flying in Winchester cathedral.
All religion has to have its day
Expressions on the face of the Saviour
Made me say
I can't stay.

Open up the gates of the church and let me out of here!
Too many people have lied in the name of Christ
For anyone to heed the call.
So many people have died in the name of Christ
That I can't believe it all.

And now I'm standing on the grave of a soldier that died in 1799
And the day he died it was a birthday
And I noticed it was mine.
And my head didn't know just who I was
And I went spinning back in time.
And I am high upon the altar
High upon the altar, high.

I'm flying in Winchester cathedral,
It's hard enough to drink the wine.
The air inside just hangs in delusion,
But given time,
I'll be fine.

[JohnFromCensornati]

Love the BH Surfers!

[JohnFromCensornati]

I recommend just about anything by JacksonBrowne. I don't know that I have heroes, but he could be for any number of reasons. I even have a favorite-xmas-song called The Rebel Jesus and he wrote it. I don't believe they play it down the mega-church.

[JohnFromCensornati]

Better bring your own redemption when you come
To the barricades of heaven, where I'm from
- Jackson Browne

[myzenthing]

Personally, I would have put XTC's "Dear God" in the top ten. But a good list nonetheless.

[Mriana]

Your daughter doesn't have bad taste in music, esp if Tracy Chapman's "Heaven's Here on Earth" is her first pick. :) Not only that, she has John Lennon and Led Zeppelin on her list too.

And you are very welcome. I was very glad to help. :)

[JohnFromCensornati]

I hate Stairway to Heaven. A lot.

[wondering]

(Oops, forgot the moderators)

The BH Surfers' "Hairway to Steven" is much cooler.
.

[Mriana]

Not sure what you hate about it, but each his/her own. There is no explaining anyone's taste in music.