Forsaken by God (2)

Here's some of the material that we're using for the "Forsaken by God" Good Friday service that the "Atheism for Lent" are putting together at Journey, Birmingham, UK, tomorrow, 3pm.

Sydney Carter's "Friday Morning" will sound awesome when played by Dave, our very talented musician.



It was on a Friday morning
That they took me from the cell,
And I saw they had a carpenter
To crucify as well.
You can blame it on to Pilate,
You can blame it on the Jews,
You can blame it on the Devil,
It’s God I accuse.

Chorus: “It’s God they ought to crucify,
Instead of you and me,”
I said to the carpenter
A-hanging on the tree.

You can blame it on to Adam,
You can blame it on to Eve,
You can blame it on the apple,
But that I can’t believe.
It was God that made the Devil,
The woman and the man,
And there wouldn’t be an apple,
If it wasn’t in the plan.

Now Barabbas was a killer,
And they let Barabbas go.
But you are being crucified
For nothing here below.
But God is up in heaven
And he doesn’t do a thing,
With a million angels watching,
And they never move a wing.

“To hell with Jehovah,”
To the carpenter I said.
“I wish that a carpenter
Had made this world instead.
Goodbye and good luck to you,
Our way will soon divide.
Remember me in heaven,
The man you hung beside.”

And we'll end with Pádraig ô Tuama's "Maranatha."


Maranatha from Peter Rollins on Vimeo.


You are my strength, but I am weak
You are my strength, but I am weak
You are my strength, but I am weak
Maranatha, maranatha, maranatha.
I’ve given up some times when I've been tired
I've given up some times when I've been tired
I've given up some times when I've been tired
Does it move you? Does it move you? Does it move you?

I've fucked it up so many times
I've fucked it up so many times
I've fucked it up so many times
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

I've found my home in Babylon
I've found my home in Babylon
I've found my home in Bablyon
Here in Exile, here in Exile, here in Exile.

Forsaken by God (1)

To mark the end of the “Atheism for Lent” Course, the group is going to create a worship service for Good Friday to reflect on the content of the Course. "Forsaken by God." Remembering Jesus’ words on the Cross and God’s own atheism, this service will also help us to feel something of what God felt at the Crucifixion when God experienced the absence of God.


How might a worship service enable us to call to mind those times when we have been guilty of what these great atheist critics of religion accuse us? Of using Christianity instrumentally? To fulfil our own psychological needs, desires and wishes? To legitimise various forms of oppression and justify our social complacency? Or to enact revenge through moral superiority?

What kinds of words, acts and performances can we stage to encourage others to ask these questions?

How might a worship service allow us to recollect through liturgy and ritual our doubts and our uncertainties?

Our very real experiences of the absence of the presence of God?

Our theism, atheism and a/theism?

Thinking ahead to the "Forsaken by God" service, I came across this song, "Church of No Religion" by Ed Harcourt:



Now it’s time to readdress
What is sacred?
Are you sacred?
Are you cursed or are you blessed?
Were you created
From all this hatred?

And I don’t need a devil to change my mind
And I don’t need an angel to keep me in line
I've got my head screwed on like a nail in a cross
And I'll make my own decisions

And so the cut it overfloweth
Into the Red Sea
Into the Dead Sea
Above the mountain or deep below it
It flows as freely
As you believe me

And I don’t need a devil to change my mind
And I don’t need an angel to keep me in line
I've got my head screwed on like a nail in a cross
In the church of no religion

You would think all of your cardinal sins will stay underground
You have ruined almost everything so step down down down down down

All your money and all your faith
All your miracles and holy visions
Won’t make the world a better place
So take a pew and stop to listen

I’m tellin’ you the truth
If World War III comes soon
You’ll find me singin’ in a church
Singin’ in a church
Singin’ in a church
Of no religion

Get the scissors, cut the strings
It’s time to move on
It’s time to move on
The puppeteer is out of time
We’ve waited so long
We’ve waited so long

And I don’t need a devil to change my mind
And I don’t need an angel to keep me in line
I’ve got my head screwed on like a nail in a cross
And I’ll make my own decisions

You will think all your cardinal sins will stay underground
You’ve ruined almost everything so step down down down down down

All your money and all your faith
All your miracles and holy visions
Won’t make the world a better place
So take a pew and stop to listen

I’m tellin’ you the truth
If World War III comes soon
You’ll find me singin’ in a church
Singin’ in a church
Singin’ in a church
Of no religion

Singing in a church
Singing in a church
Singing in a church
Of no religion

Singin’ in a church, singin’ in a church
Preachin’ in a church of no religion
Singin’ in a church, livin’ in a church
Prayin’ in a church of no religion

Singin’ in a church
Singin’ in a church
Singin’ in a church
Of no religion

Paris

Sim and I are taking a few days off and heading to Paris for a few days.

We're going to see Antony and the Johnsons tonight at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, staying in a hotel on Brindley Place and then Eurostar-ing it tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to some mellow time wandering around and looking at pretty things... Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Sainte Chapelle, the Louvre, Musee Rodin... Very excited!

While we're away I'm going to be (re)reading Jamie Smith's Speech and Theology Language and the Logic of Incarnation. Just in case you were thinking I was going to be able to leave work behind for a bit. Oh no. No time, missy!

The Values of Metal?

I recently helped out a former Religious Studies student of mine by filling out a questionnaire about the values of metal music and I thought I’d post some thoughts about it here. Christian Goths have long been among my interests for future research, so it was a really interesting questionnaire for me.

For a bit of background, here’s some of the bands I listen to: Nine Inch Nails are my favourite, closely followed by Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, Tool and Korn. There’s also My Ruin, Disturbed, Apocalyptica, Within Temptation, Nightwish, and Lacuna Coil – the last four of which could be called rock opera or orchestral metal rather than industrial rock like MM. I also like Switchblade Symphony who are (a now-split) goth/electro pop group (NIN are also pretty poppy). Then there’s stuff like Lycia, Faith and the Muse, This Ascension, and Love Spirals Downwards, which are more like ethereal goth, and the Cocteau Twins, of course. The Mission and Siouxsie and the Banshees can’t be left out, and neither can a few others that harbour a love of eighties goth electro/pop, like London After Midnight and The Cruxshadows.

Anyway, here are my thoughts, distilled through the process of justifying my musical tastes to my partner – he is now at the point where he can have a great time at Marilyn Manson, NIN and Korn concerts! – and as articulated in a questionnaire about the values of metal.

In a nutshell, I think that the values of the music I listen to revolve around three things:

• politics,
• religion,
• and sex.
  
  

Politically, RATM [Rage Against the Machine] are one of the most obvious band to mention in this respect. But I think that artists like Marilyn Manson, Trent Reznor [NIN] and Jonathon Davies [Korn] are particularly adept at tuning into a level of discontent with current social trends (capitalism and consumerism, for example) and current events (for example, the war in Iraq) and expressing this discontent creatively through music and lyrics.

When Marilyn Manson sings about fascism, he isn’t espousing that as an appropriate model for society; rather, he is trying to point to the fact that capitalism, liberal democracy, etc, is no more an appropriate model for society than fascism – it’s doing just as much damage to people as fascism does. These artists deconstruct the accepted meta-narratives of society, through which the status quo is justified and maintained, thereby trying to destabilise it through, among other things, word play, parody and anger.

A good example is the reaction I see in music to the position the UK and US took on the invasion of Afghanistan and the war in Iraq. It’s clear in Nine Inch Nails’ last album Year Zero, and even Muse are singing about it in their track Take a Bow! I don’t think that anyone can miss the anti-war sentiments in a lot of music today.

In terms of religion, the music I listen to does two things. Firstly, it critiques “traditional,” institutionalized, authoritarian, exclusivistic, patriarchal, homophobic Religion. This is most clearly seen in the kind of deconstructive lyrics I mentioned above, particularly in the music of NIN and MM, but another good example is Jonny Cash’s Personal Jesus which parodies televangelism and other aspects of American evangelical culture.

But, secondly, music enables spiritual experience and therefore constructs a much more positive (though definitely not institutional) religiosity that is probably more accurately called a spirituality. So, rather than having to contain any overt spiritual message in and of itself, metal is also a vehicle for me to have spiritual experiences.

And then, of course, there’s sex. Often, the lyrics themselves espouse particular approaches to sexuality – liberal, subversive, and explicit – for example, Nine Inch Nail’s Closer. However, other tracks are either less explicit in their lyrics or the music itself is sexual, with particular rhythms and bluesy chords which evoke the sexuality of metal’s musical roots. Also metal is often very poetic and mythological. Love and tragedy are a very common theme among lyricists – Marilyn Manson’s last album Eat Me, Drink Me is a good example of this!!!

In relation to these three things I think that metal deconstructs the normative value systems which uphold the status quo. Metal attempts to expose the power plays in contemporary society which privilege some of its elements whilst oppressing others. So its values are that of equalising power imbalances through espousing the values of marginalised groups.

I share many of these values, especially anti-war sentiments, socialist and anarchic political leanings, spiritual movements away from institutionalised religion towards what could be called an a/theism, and fluid sexual identity.

Some of my favourite lyrics, some rock, some not (‘xcuse the French):

“Well did you hear, there’s a natural order? Those most deserving will end up with the most? That the cream cannot help but always rise up to the top? Well I say, sh*t floats. Bluntly put, in the fewest of words, c*nts are still running the world,” Jarvis Cocker, Running the World.

“This is Evolution, the monkey, the man, then the gun,” Marilyn Manson, Cruci-Fiction in Space.

“I pushed a button and elected him to office, he pushed a button and dropped a bomb, you pushed a button and can watch it on the television, those m*th*rf*ck*rs didn’t last too long,” Nine Inch Nails, Capital G.

“I never really hated the one true God, but the god of the people I hated,” Marilyn Manson, Disposable Teens.

“Lift up the receiver, I’ll make you believer, I will deliver, you know I’m a forgiver,” Johnny Cash, Personal Jesus.

“And it give us sight, and you’ll see the light, and it burns so bright, now we know we’re right. When his kingdom comes, and thy will be done, we’ve just begun, we’re the chosen ones. You cannot win, with the colour of your skin, you won’t be getting into the Promised Land. It’s just another case, you people still don’t know your place, step aside, out the way, wipe that look off your face, cause we are the divine separated from the swine, come on, sing along, everybody now, God-given,” Nine Inch Nails, God Given.

“Cast a spell, cast a spell on the country you run. And risk, you will risk, you will risk all their lives and their souls. Death, you bring death, and destruction to all that you touch. Yeah hex, feed the hex, feed the hex on the country you love. What we’ve become, is contrary to what we want. Now burn, you will burn, you will burn in hell, yeah you’ll burn in hell for your sins,” Muse, Take a Bow.

“Return to me, return to me, return to me, turn to me, leave me no one. Return to me, return to me, return to me, turn to me, case aside. Return to me, return to me, return to me, turn to me, leave me no one. Turn to me, return to me, return to me, you’ve made me turn away,” Disturbed, Prayer.

“I cross the oceans, I cross the seas, I cross the mountains, like a new disease. Take a look at the Earth from a plane, you’ll see the Earth cut up and in pain. I’m the scum of the Earth, I am a cancer, I am humanity,” Filter, Cancer.

“Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses,” RATM, Killing in the Name of.

“San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell. May your walls fall and may I live to tell. May all the world forget you ever stood. And may all the world regret you did no good,” Johnny Cash, San Quentin.