Sufjan Stevens and the Secular-Sacred Divide
It used to be that there was a rather thick black line between what music was inherently Christian, or "sacred," and what was considered worldly, or "secular." I remember it vividly. It was the day that my friend Chris broke all of his secular CDs because they were evil. He said God convicted him. You may have seen the scene in The Virgin Suicides where Lux is forced to burn her rock and roll records. It's the same concept. Music that isn't talking about God isn't Godly and therefore is evil. Many a Sunday morning preacher has said it. I've heard it a thousand times. Why, then, has the Lord not convicted me? Am I a sinner because I find no problem listening to music made and marketted outside of the Contemporary Christian Music Industry?
Certainly not.
Then what about Sufjan Stevens? He's an openly Christian man. Take a song like "Casimir Pulaski Day," in which he talks about lifting his hands and praying over people at a Bible study. These are words pulled out of experience and memory, things he's probably done many times before. Take pretty much the entire album Seven Swans, which for all intents and purposes is a worship album. Despite all of that, not one Christian book store I've gone to has sold his albums. You ask the people who work there, and they've never heard of him. In fact, I have friends who work at a rather large Christian label who have never heard of him. The reason is simply because he never intended to be a part of that. Rather than stay within the comfortable boundaries of Christian music, he chose to take the road of an indie rocker and came out winning over the hearts of a lot of people who would normally not condone such openly Christian lyrics.
Now if you accept that the only holy music is sacred music and the only sacred music that is truly sacred is in the contemporary Christian music industry, you accept that Sufjan Stevens' music is not sacred, but secular, and therefore sinful. Not adding up? It shouldn't. It's simply a messed up theology, one in which the Christian music industry, and pretty much Christian culture in general, has its head entirely up its own butt. Not only is it closed-minded but it's not Biblical. After all, wasn't it Jesus Himself who ate with prostitutes?
In her article "Secular, Sacred or Both?" on ChristianityToday.com, Kate Bowman addresses this exact same issue. She cites the essay "Being There," written by Steve Turner. Both Bowman and Turner agree that there is a very big problem with the argument that you can hide from sin by turning to things that are inherently sacred. It's the idea that you can hide from sin by listening to Christian music, which, ironically, is made by sinners. It's the idea that the more Christian things you do with your life, the more Christian you are. This is contradictory to the Christian doctrine that works and good deeds don't earn you favor with the Lord, which is one of the fundamental arguments for salvation. To put it another way, Turner asks, "Was the Dutch art historian Hans Rookmaaker right when he said that Christ didn't die in order that we might go to more prayer meetings but in order that we might be more fully human?"
Which brings me back to Sufjan Stevens. Stevens' priority isn't to please those who speak Christian-ese but to live as a follower of Christ. It's ridiculous to say that the Lord can't or won't call someone to play music to a "secular" industry because who are we to tell God what he can or can't do? Says Stevens, "Art is … a reflection of a greater divine creation. There really is no separation. There's a fullness of being in the world that takes into consideration the supernatural and the natural, and everything we do and say is evoking and expressing eternal things without even knowing it." Simply put, there really is no line between sacred and secular, or at least there shouldn't be.
Bowman elaborates on Stevens' thoughts: "The whole of life is available to believers as the substance of art. Simply because it does not overtly confess Christ does not mean it is exempt from possessing truth."
There is a danger in drawing the line between secular and sacred. Take Sarah Masen. Originally a musician embraced by the Christian music industry, she's become virtually unknown to it since she chose to become an independent artist.
What she and Stevens are doing is what Bowman considers "a refusal to separate one's faith from one's involvement in the world at large, and a recognition that although the entire creation is broken, God's grace and truth continue to permeate all spheres of life." Well put. To deny this the same acceptance as today's mainstream Christian music would be a travesty.
And now here's where I throw out my opinion. As you can tell, I agree entirely with what Sufjan Stevens, Sarah Masen, Steve Turner, and Kate Bowman have to say, and for those of you who aren't Chrisitan, here's my point: Christians aren't bad. Sufjan Stevens breaks the mold that Christian musicians have to be perfect. He's not the first. David Bazan, also known as Pedro the Lion, is notorious in the Christian music industry for being all too frank about his walk with God. He was actually moved to a smaller stage at Cornerstone Christian Music Festival after being on the main stage the previous year because he was too controversial. The funny thing is that he shouldn't be, because of every single artist at Cornerstone, he was probably the most real about Christianity. He admits that the church is hypocritical. He admits he has problems with infidelity and alcohol. He admits he's a sinner and that he's just an average Joe Schmoe. That's what Christianity, in my opinion, should look like.
I hope you, whether you're Christian or not, are touched by Sufjan Stevens, and I hope that he is living proof to you that there are Christians out there who get that they are not above everyone else. To me, it's about time.
You can read Bowman's entire article at ChristianityToday.com by following this link.
And now for some news...
Thanks to Brooklyn Vegan for providing linkage the video of Jeff Mangum joining Olivia Tremor Control on stage.
Ladytron has a faaaantastic new video out for their latest, "Destroy Everything You Touch." It makes me want to play in the snow. Video courtesy of 'boards.
Franz Ferdinand released the tracklist for their latest self-titled album, the sequel to their first self-titled album.
Prefix interviews Sam Beam of Iron and Wine fame. Just out of curiousity, was anyone else totally freaked out by the M&Ms commercial featuring his cover of "Such Great Heights"? I thought I was in the twilight zone for a second, and then I was kinda disgusted.
Lots of great people have contributed to the tribute to the famous Beatles' album Rubber Soul, including Ted Leo and, you guessed it, Sufjan Stevens.
The Sun reports that Liam Gallagher has actually made ammends with someone for the first time in his life. He has let by-gones be by-gones with ex-wife Patsy Kensit to support their son Lennon as he goes into surgery. Isn't it sweet?
Spin has a song-by-song preview of the new Strokes album.
Thanks very much to Stereogum for linking us up with the Cliff Notes version of R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet.
One more Sufjan Stevens thing. Has anyone noticed that the tune for the ending of "Transfiguration" on the Seven Swans album is the same tune as the refrain for "Chicago" on the Illinois album? I love it.
Upcoming Columbus Shows
8.11 - Ben Folds w/ Ben Lee and Rufus Wainwright - Promowest Pavilion
8.12 - Velvet Revolver w/ Chevelle - Germain Ampitheater
8.13 - Switchfoot - The Ohio State Fair
8.20 - Pretty Girls Make Graves - Little Brothers
8.23 - Thunderbirds Are Now! w/ Kiss Me Quick - Little Brothers
8.30 - Xiu Xiu w/ Das Yellow Swans and Nedelle - Little Brothers
8.31 - Coldplay w/ Rilo Kiley - Germain Ampitheater
9.02 - Over the Rhine - Little Brothers
9.10 - The White Stripes w/ The Greenhornes - Ohio Theater
9.12 - Stellastarr* - The Basement
9.14 - Sufjan Stevens - Southgate House (Newport, KY)
9.24 - The Rolling Stones w/ Beck - Germain Ampitheater
10.08 - The Fiery Furnaces - The Wexner Center
10.14 - The Decemberists - Newport Music Hall
Daily Downloads
From the Regnyouth Archives
Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water
Simon and Garfunkel - Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme
And a re-post from yesterday...
Sigur Ros - Takk
Okay, guys, hopefully this will ease you for a while. I will try to be back again soon.
posted by Rebecca @ 12:45 PM
4 Comments:
nice post...it's fascinating that the only "christian" music worth listening to (sufjan, pedro the lion, danielson famile) is ignored almost completely by fans of contemporary christian music in favor of crap that spoonfeeds christian ideals down their throats.
Aaron, that's exactly what I'm saying. He's not a contemporary Christian musician in the way that the contemporary Christian music industry would consider some new hyped up band that talks about Jesus. Sufjan Stevens is, however, what contemporary Christian music should be. The reason I bring up people like him and David Bazan is because they are doing exactly what you said. They aren't sugar coating everything to make it sound pretty. They are honest about their lives as Christians, sometimes brutally honest. They are the ones who meet both Christians and non-Christians where they're at: in the darkness of their own sinful nature. To go and listen to all Christian music because secular music is inherently evil is to say that you can run away from sin and your sinful nature, but that's absolutely impossible. People like Sufjan are the true Christian musicians. They tell it truly like it is. I don't understand why the Christian music industry doesn't embrace people like them. It's hard to imagine we live in a society where Christians flee from the truth that they are, in fact, not perfect, and they don't want to hear about it when they're reminded that they are. But that's how it is these days, sadly, and that's why Sufjan and Sarah Masen and David Bazan all chose to separate themselves from that entity. The contemporary Christian music industry seeks, at least in my opinion, only to sugar-coat the message and force would-be Christian artists to speak and sing Christian-ese, live like they're role models, and attempt to create this false idea of Christianity. It's bogus, really. We're so very blessed as Christians to have musicians out there like Sufjan. They're the ones who give me hope that there are Christian musicians in the world who actually have their heads on straight.
I have to admit that for a good portion of the 90's, I listened to almost nothing but CCM. I switched because I had had a conversion experience and wanted to take the next step in enjoying my life as a Christian. At first, I was very happy to have traded my Peter Gabriel and The Smiths for the Gaither Vocal Band and Sandy Patti, because I was in a "honeymoon phase" of my faith, and lyrics like "Hello, hello, hello! Heaven is a long 'hello'" were really resonating with me at the time.
But then I discovered that the Newsboys sounded like EMF and Jesus Jones, and that Painted Orange and Code of Ethics sounded sort of like Depeche Mode. And that was the beginning of the end.
After a while, I got tired of buying an album because a particular band reminded me of another better band, who would have had more than one or two decent songs on their albums. And the other thing that drew me away from Contemporary Christian Music, and back towards music I liked on its artistic and aesthetic merits, was the way that CCM artists feel they have to pack a sermon or theological proposition into a song. Good songs are generally written about experience, and create an experience for the artist performing and for the listener. CCM is basically propositional, not experiential, and because of this fails as music. Sufjan Stevens, as well as bands like Havalina Rail Co, Pedro the Lion, Denison Witmer, Robert Deeble and U2 aren't as accepted within the American church as they are outside of it because much of the church is afraid of experience. They believe that doctrine is more important because it is definable, whereas experience varies for each person, and can't be packaged or enforced. (Nevermind that most people are in church because of some kind of experience.)
Thank God for artists like Sufjan. If I had encountered that kind of honesty and beauty sooner, my 20's would have gone by a lot easier.
Great points about Sufjan. I stumbled on your blog and thought I should comment.
Happy holidays!
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