A spirituality of rock (part two)

NOTE:  Yesterday I shared the opening of my "spirituality of rock" and today there is part two. It seems that I will be in this groove for a while so sit back and see how it shakes out, ok?  And, as always, any and all comments are welcome.
The ancient Psalmist once wrote: I will listen to what the Lord God is saying for God is speaking to the faithful people and to those who turn their hearts to him... Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring up from the earth and righteousness shall look down from heaven... and righteousness shall go before him and peace shall be his pathway. (Psalm 85)

Conrad Ostwalt wrote, in his study Secular Steeples: Popular Culture and the Religious Imagination, that contrary to the first predictions of sociologists like Peter Berger and others, "secularization does not destroy religion, (rather) religion will persist across cultural forms... and there is something in music that inspires a more powerful religious response than other cultural forms." Indeed, as some spiritual traditions appear to atrophy, ebb and flow in vitality or become brittle and irrelevant to the rapidly changing needs and life styles of contemporary people, more and more individuals in the United States are finding "in pop music and other storytelling media the narratives about life that are most convincing to us, that best make sense of our lives, and through which we are persuaded to express our most deep-seated views."

To be sure, not all rock music carries within it the sounds of the sacred or the encouragement of God's grace and peace. There is music of the spirit and clearly music against the spirit, there are songs of misogyny, hatred and decadence, too.  And yet, there is a new song for the Lord being sung that is taking shape in a critical mass of popular rock songs that deserve a critical audience.

My first encounter with God's presence in rock music happened on February 9, 1964 as the Beatles were performing on the Ed Sullivan show. Everything was different afterwards: I was awakened to the possibilities of life; I was energized with hope; and I began to sense God's gracious presence pulsating through all of creation.  Theologically, this was my personal encounter with the creation story of Genesis 1:

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless voice and darkness covered the face of the deep until a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

Tradition teaches that the word wind/spirit/breath - ruach in Hebrew - is the spirit of God's holiness.  And as the music of the Beatles washed over me, it felt like God's clarifying presence blowing away the chaos of my life and offering refreshment, energy and inspiration in what I consider a Pentecostal experience not unlike that of Acts I:

Without warning, there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force - no one could tell were it came from - and it filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them.

Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farms and the spiritual father of Habitat for Humanity, once claimed that when God's fire gets into people they start acting and spreading the good news of God's love. "They start doing what Jesus had been doing all along - and they start talking so that people can really hear them -- when the church of God gets to talking, it doesn't talk in unknown tongues. It talks in the tongues of people.  It talks in their native dialect. It knows how to talk "hippie" and it knows how to talk "bum" language, too. It knows how to talk presidential and all other types of language. The spirit of God becomes articulate and speaks the language of the people... (and in that spirit) when you've got young people seeing visions and old people dreaming dreams, you've closed the generation gap."

The writing trio of pastor-student-professor - Darrell Cluck, Catherine George and J. Clinton McCann, Jr. - have concluded that in an age of profound segregation by age, popular rock music often brings together Baby Boomers (1943-1960), Gen Xers (1961-1981) and the Millennial Generation (post 1982). "On some level at least, the generation gap is being bridged by way of mutual listening to Alainis Morisette, Natalie Merchant, Joan Osborne, Billy Joel and Dave Matthews."

Pentecost, therefore, is never limited to speaking in foreign or private tongues of prayer; rather it is clearly about inspiring God's people with the fire and gifts necessary to communicate Christ with the world. It is the antidote to the Tower of Babel. It is the blessing and power Jesus promised would come to those who waited for power from above to love people where they really live. (Luke 24: 49/Acts 1: 7-8) In fact, it is the Reformation principle of "meeting the people where they are and using their music.  Those in the Community of Iona in Scotland have expressed the connection between the Spirit of God and creativity like this:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness covered the face of the deep. And the Spirit of the Lord was hovering over the waters until God said, "Let there be light" and there was light - and order - upon the chaos. Creation always begins in the place of dark, shapeless waiting. God had created a space which does not know what it will hold and a darkness which does not know what it obliterates and a time which does not know when it will be. And if this sounds more like mystery than history, that is what God intended. For to create heaven and earth there is no master-plan or blueprint, only the ability of God to improvise in the way the Spirit will determine.

The second creation story of Genesis 2 suggests an insight into the way creative music can feel like God's spirit bringing to birth the gift of beauty and joy from deep within:

On the day that the Lord God made the earth, and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet spring up... the Lord God formed a person - adam ha adama - from the mud of creation - and breathed into the mud being the breath of life: God's spirit.

To be sure, the Jewish creation stories of Genesis never considered rock and roll to be a source of divine inspiration. Still they resonate with my experience with the Beatles in February 1964. Further, since that time it has become clear that one of the unique expressions of humanity's impulse can be found within the creative and ecstatic aspects of rock music. Indeed, there is something of an embodied spirituality of grace, joy and justice to be found in rock and roll - it is the sensual call to compassion and right relationships of Matthew 25 - and it demands a deeper appreciation throughout the living Body of Christ.

It is my understanding that our still speaking God is at work in the world through popular culture: for if God is the Lord of all creation, then certainly the One who is Holy need not be bound by the limits of church, culture or technology?