A spirituality of rock - part four...

NOTE:  Part of my on-going series based on my dissertation topic. To date I have begun to set a context for why the Reformed Church tradition might want to explore rock spirituality in a deeper and more thoughtful way.  The context moves deeper...

Kelton Cobb, in his ground-breaking Theology of Popular Culture, gave St. Augustine a go when it comes to appropriating the truth, beauty and goodness of popular culture. He writes that Augustine offers a strategy for the appropriation of pagan symbols and all varieties of popular art:

... in service of charity, into the journey of the soul of God, as a means of devotion rather than the objects of devotion, if they can be used rather than enjoyed... all may be plundered if they can be put to use in such a way as to enable one to enjoy God and imitate divine goodness. From Tertulian we have inherited a view of culture and the church as discrete realities, in which the surround culture is essentially a great expanse of human activity riddled with idolatry that beckons as a sweet poison to the pious. From Augustine, however, we have a view of culture and church as two intertwined cities with many common spaces and activities... One promotes the withdrawal from if not open resistance to the world... while those in the other seek compromises with the surrounding culture, leveraging the good where it is found and acknowledging their participation in the general life of the world.

At its best, the Reformed tradition has carefully allied itself with this aspect of Augustine's commitment to contextualized discernment of popular culture as the writings of Martin Luther, John Calvin, H. Richard Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Harvey Cox, Dorothee Soelle and Douglas John Hall suggest. And while there has never been unanimity among these theologians, a point Brian Wren is careful to observe in Praying Twice, it is clear that the fathers of the the Reformation - Luther and Calvin - appreciate the sacred value of music:

Calvin and Luther called music a gift from God, but with different emphases. While Luther celebrated music as God's own creation, Calvin regarded it as an indirect gift, given through fallible human intervention... (so that) Calvin focused more on the risk of corruption while Luther was more aware of how music can be a medium through which the gospel can be preached and Christ's victory celebrated.

Additionally, Wren is careful to note that while Luther did not "borrow tunes from the local tavern as many erroneously" report, he did use a style of composition "common in popular German songs of the time... while Louis Bourgeois (writing in Geneva for Calvin) adapted some tunes from French and German secular songs" for congregational use. Further, it is clear that Tillich and Cox wished to explore the dynamic interplay of church with culture - as well as the multiple cultures and traditions within the church - trusting that God's truth, beauty, love and light will prevail for while "the light shines in the darkness, the darkness does not over come it." (John 1: 5) Their insights, too, are critical for a spirituality of rock music.

This tension between the God given blessings of music and the potential for human corruption is grounded in the fears of human sensuality that have long crippled the Church from claiming the the sacred presence of God in popular art, music, dance, sculpture, etc. From the earliest days of the faith, Christianity has wrestled with a long seated antagonism between spirit and flesh. This historic dualism informed by both Greek Neo-Platonism and Persian Manicheaism, posits a battle between the spiritual and the corporeal. The ultimate goal of such binary thinking is, "to set the light substance (spirit) free from the pollution of matter." And while the Church Universal has fought this heresy, insisting at times with greater and lesser vigor that the "Word of God became flesh" (John 1: 14), its impact continues to pollute the faith community's imagination through a wooden and mechanical reading of St. Paul and St. Augustine as well as the profound support that still exists for Manichaesim in the East.

Let us be clear that Augustine, too, is sometimes trapped within this tension.  Brian Wren writes that Augustine sometimes:

Wavers between the danger that lies in gratifying the senses and the benefits which, I know from experience, can accrue from singing. His knowledge of music is sophisticated; his attitude to music, he admits, is ambivalent. "I must allow it a position of some honor in my heart and I find it difficult to assign it to its proper place..." In spite of this, the power of music makes Augustine cautious in his endorsement of music provisional. "When I find the singing more moving than the truth which it conveys, I confess that this is a grievous sin and at those times I would prefer not to hear the singer." 

Think of St. Paul's admonition in Galatians 5: 16-21:

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy,^* drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

If this lower order - the inferior realm of the flesh, the feminine and the sensual - leads the faithful away from the kingdom of God, it is small wonder that ambiguity, tension and even fear should exist in the Church when it considers popular culture... Generations of the faithful have been taught that dancing is sinful, movies are not of the Lord and personal fashion demands chaste and conservative attire.  That Jesus clearly challenged some of the external symbols of piety in his generation in favor of a deeper commitment to holiness apparently matters little. "Go and find out what this means: I desire mercy not sacrifice." (Matthew 9:13)

Contemporary Reformed thinkers, however, are finding a more integrated approach.  Tearing down the false walls of the Christian cultural ghetto, these voice join all of creation in crying: "Holy!" Steve Stockman, pastor and host of the "Rhythm and Soul" program on BBC radio in Northern Ireland, expressed the challenge of discerning God in the ordinary world of popular music with the words of the Irish poet, Patrick Kavanagh:

I saw Christ today at a street corner stand
In the rags of a beggar he stood, he held ballad in his hand
He was crying out, "Two a penny, will anyone buy
The finest ballads ever made from the stuff of joy?"
But the blind and deaf went past knowing only there
An uncouth ballad seller with tail-matted hair
And I whom men call fool his ballad bought
Found him who the pieties have vainly sought.

Don and Emily Sailier have written that, "music... is some kind of mysterious mediator between us and the God we seek." This has certainly been true for me: from the raw, embodied energy of Elvis to the wild, gender-bending abandon of Little Richard; from the Beatles' fusion of working class angst with black rhythmn'n'blues sensibilities to Bruce Springsteens' patient trust and unapologetic search for the integrity of the American soul; from Sarah McLachlan's songs of sweet surrender and social confession to Joan Osborne's relentlessly radical commitment to the incarnation:  rock and roll is prayer to me.

And I mean prayer in the sense that it is a vehicle for communicating the gospel's promise of personal grace and social justice to my heart of hearts as well as a way of meeting and being embraced by the Living God in mystical communion with the holy. Perhaps Tex Sample understand this connection better than most traditional religious scholars:

Our senses, our feelings, our bodies and our way of engaging life are culturally and historically structured... I really am wired differently from my children and grandchildren. What speaks to me does not speak to them. What moves me, entertains me, touches me is not what does so to them. People of my age will not engage younger generations until we recognize this otherness and concede that along with images, sound and especially sound as beat are crucial to that recognition.

Rock demands that we take the incarnation seriously whether we're playing, listening or dancing to it because the beat simply will not let us ignore our bodies. Christianity may have an ambiguous - and sometimes troubled - relationship with the flesh, but rock music demands that we learn to honor and celebrate the physical and sensual realities of life. For, in addition to helping us become at home in our skin, a healthy sensuality grounds us in the Biblical imperative for justice.

It is not a coincidence that a rock star - Bono of U2 - was able to bring together divided people on behalf of international HIV/AIDS relief and preach to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund about "the year of the Lord's favor" as a means to debt reduction.  As an embodied rock'n'roll man of faith, his sermon at the 2006 National Prayer Breakfast on Capitol Hill, was unambiguously sensual:

Our work is not about charity, it's about justice. And that's too bad because you're good at charity. Americans, like the Irish, are good at it. We like to give and we give a lot, even those who can't afford it. But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our ideas of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concerns, it questions our commitment. 6,500 Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about Justice and Equality. Because there's no way we can look at what's happening in Africa and, if we're honest, conclude that deep down we really accept that African bodies are equal to ours... In Africa, 150,000 lives are lost every month. A tsunami every month and it is a completely avoidable catastrophe. It's annoying - but justice and equality are mates, aren't they?  (That's what it says in the Psalms) so we must go on with our journey into equality and in pursuit of justice.

Rock music is equally unsubtle: when the back beat is pounding and the bass has a groove, the sound simply grabs the listener by the throat and demands a response. Historian James Miller knows that:

Whatever its expressive limitations - and they are manifold - rock and roll speaks to millions. Out of the chaos of our time has come a prerecorded music bearing the promise of redemption through Dionysian revelry. "Tutti Frutti" and "Hound Dog" and "Lonely Teardrops" and "She Loves You" and "What's Going On" and "Born to Run" and "Anarchy in the UK" (and, yes, even "With or Without You," too) have probably touched more lives more deeply than any opera by Wagner or any symphony by Beethoven. And because people around the world want to hear this sound - and share in the fantasies it still excites - rock and roll is here to stay - for better, for worse - and for a long time to come.

That's a good place to end tonight... and tomorrow I will finish the context so that we might consider the actual spiritual practices of rock. Thanks so much for visiting.