So I'm having a bad night. Not a very scary someone-needs-to-save-me-from-myself bad night, but a life-kinda-sucks-and-it's-getting-to-me-more-than-it-should-and-I-don't-like-where-this-might-be-going kind of bad night. Not really a big deal, but annoying.
But here's the thing. For a large part of my life--the better part of four years in fact--I turned to religion on nights like these, or at least the trappings of religion. The thing that always helped and hypnotized me about religious ritual was music, and long after I ceased to be a 100% committed Christian, on a bad night I would turn to worship songs for comfort. The powerful feeling of music coming from my lungs and my lips felt reassuring--life affirming or something. I knew the words by of the worship songs by heart, much of the music is beautiful, and they have deep emotional memories attached to them. Sounds like no downside, right?
The problem is, on nights like these, the desire to sing is still there, which is great, because it gets me out of my head and soothes me. But the worship songs still come to mind, though I no longer even pretend to believe what they say. And the problem with this is not just that they are religious songs--I'm perfectly capable of appreciating and accepting the beauty of something that generally praises god or the beauty of creation or whatever. But some of the songs that come to mind are not just pretty happy light-hearted praise songs. Many of them are like this one:
Once Again
Matt Redman
Jesus Christ I think upon your sacrifice
You became nothing poured out to death
Many times I've wondered at Your gift of life
And I'm in that place once again
I'm in that place once againOnce again I look upon the cross where You died
I'm humbled by Your mercy and I'm broken inside
Once again I thank You
Once again I pour out my lifeNow you are exalted to the highest place
King of heavens, where one day I'll bow
But for now I marvel at this saving grace
And I'm full of praise once again
And I'm full of praise once againOnce again I look upon the cross where You died
I'm humbled by Your mercy and I'm broken inside
Once again I thank You
Once again I pour out my lifeThank You for the cross
Thank You for the cross
Thank You for the cross
My Friend.
The Passion-of-The-Christ, revel-in-suffering-and-sacrifice phenomenon is one of my worst memories from my religious days and represents one of the most damaging ideas in Christianity.
I remember sitting in a movie theater with my church group absolutely numb from the horror of that movie, unable to even express emotion because I was so overwhelmed and because the sobs couldn't break through the pressing weight on my chest, while two of my best friends sobbed on either side of me, leaning on my shoulder or holding my hand.
And because of that understanding-christ's-suffering-makes-you-better culture, we all claimed to love that horrifically painful experience. That is twisted, and wrong, and fosters self-hatred. It's self destructiveness/self punishment akin to the awful depressed/angsty teenage habit of cutting oneself, and encouraging it is disgusting.
"Humbling"? I suppose you could call it that. But I'd rather call it what it is--abuse, whether self inflicted or perpetrated by a parent, pastor, or youth leader. "Yes," they are telling you, or you are telling yourself, "Yes you are a horrible person, a broken sinner, and you must feel this deeply in your soul so that you can understand the wonder of Christ's sacrifice for you." The classic create-the-need-you-intend-to-address trick that religion uses so very well.
The explicit glorification of this mentality present in "Once Again" makes it one of the worst worship songs I've ever sung in terms of conceptual content. Of course, many worship songs use this same theme--I could do an entire series of posts on lines from "beautiful" religious songs that bug the hell out of me--but this song doesn't just say "you saved me" or "you sacrificed for me," it encourages active reflection on the actual violent death of Christ. (Once again I look upon the cross where you died? Thank you for the cross? How very morbid.) I'm sure there are plenty others this bad, and others perhaps worse, but this is the one that comes to mind most readily for me.
And the horrible thing is... this song still pops into my head.
It comes to me when I'm feeling "broken," and some small but deep part of me still wants to find it touching and beautiful.
I do not believe in god, or in the whole hating-yourself-because-you're-so-imperfect-is-good-for-you/motivates-you-to-change thing (this self-punishing mindset exists in some secular philosophies as well and I don't like it there either), so the concepts shouldn't really "hurt" me... but I don't want to sing this song. I don't want to think it, or even know it. The fact that I once loved this song, once sang it in search of comfort and understanding from god, makes me hurt and angry.
But I can't get rid of it, just like I can't get rid of the dead baby pictures or the skit I saw that blamed a desire to kill oneself on immoral acts/dancing with the devil instead of with jesus (instead of on, you know, um, depression).
And in a way, of course, I wouldn't want to, because they're part of my past and my history and my experience and ME and blah-de-blah-de-blah.
But I wish I could break the emotional potency of the song enough so that it wouldn't come to mind on shitty nights when I want to sing. Give me joyful songs, even religious ones if they're relatively innocuous, give me ordinary sad songs, but take away this perverse praising-of-brokenness.
I don't want to ever be back to this shitty-night place "once again," but I know it will happen from time to time. And when it does, the goal is to get the fuck out of it as quickly as possible, not to sit around and praise Jesus for my lovely broken soul.
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