A Note on Bazan

Anyone who knows me knows I have an affinity for slightly depressing music. I've been a fan of Pedro the Lion since I first came to know about them. The lead singer, David Bazan, always struck me as extraordinarily honest in his struggles with his Evangelical upbringing. As someone who came from a similar background, it was comforting to find someone that sometimes wavered between steadfast faith, apathy, and apostasy. From the overtly Christian It's Hard to Find a Friend, to questioning all forms of relationships on the soul-crushing Control, to the more nuanced Pedro the Lion's Achilles Heel - whenever I wanted a bitter dose of reality, or when I wanted to think more about the relationship between my faith, reason, and how it affects my relationships, I always listened to Pedro.

After their demise, Bazan went solo and while I enjoyed his work with Headphones, I started to see a darker trend in his lyrics. With his solo EP Fewer Moving Parts, I thought the situation mostly absolved, but something felt different. In a few discussions with friends who checked out his newest album Curse Your Branches, I realized, probably for the first time that Bazan had abandoned the faith almost entirely. This latest album is harsh and cynical - but in a much more overt way than previous projects at least to my ears. However, I understand that this is simply the logical conclusion once a person of faith finally manages, for whatever reason or in whatever way, to undermine the very foundation of their convictions. I realized that we had reached two different conclusions. The lynchpin, as it seems often the case, is the traditional problem of evil.

I'm not going to attempt to solve the problem of evil in this post, however, for the sake of clarity, I will say that I do understand the problem of evil to be a real problem. It's logically valid, if the given premises are true. I find a few of the premises to be questionable (and therefore, my faith to be logically true), but it isn't something I take lightly. It's still there. It's stolen former friends away from the faith because they could not hold faith and wrestle with the problem of evil or because they bought into (and perhaps misapplied) the philosophy of Descartes, scrapped their entire worldview, and attempted to build it back up from scratch with themselves at the center (leaving out God completely, as some of Descartes later critics would).

I'm still watching Bazan, albeit from a distance now. I have always loved his honesty, and I even continued to support him after the rather infamous moment where he showed up to the Cornerstone Festival drunk with a full jug of vodka on stage. I'm not naive enough to spin his new lyrics into anything else than they are: a call to question one's beliefs and recaps of fairly harsh life stories. I have no problem with either, but it does give one pause to think about how people reach different conclusions with similar backgrounds. I'd wager Bazan and myself would come to different conclusions on that as well.

In any case, I do still recommend any and all of Pedro the Lion's body of work. It's best when enjoyed with a strong beer or something stronger - in moderation, of course.

Part 2

Before I move on to blog my way through Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell, I thought I would finish up a few thoughts that I had left over from my previous post. This is pretty direct and will probably be a reoccurring theme as I read more emergent leaders writings. On a side note, I found myself intrigued by some of the arguments made in Jesus for President- particularly not being slaves to a media culture and seeking out the "cultural relevance" of the church for its own sake. This, I believe, puts them at odds with lots of people both traditional evangelicals, emergent church leaders, and even some atheists that demand that we "change or die".

Without further ado. . .
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Those who cannot reconcile the image of the crucified Christ with that of the sword bearer that divides - those unwilling or unable to see and embrace the apparent contradictions must examine the full text to get a full picture of the God we serve. War and peace, wrath and love, the death of Death, and the union between God and Man are all central to the faith Christians hold in common. Those unwilling to do this find themselves alienated, and without correction will not come to fully understand the true depth, breath, length, and width that the Cross of Christ communicates to this defiled world. In the cross, Christ, our fully human, fully God, gave himself as a propitiation for us, making atonement for the sins of those who would come to believe in him. God is not angry with us. His wrath has been satisfied and Christians are saved from that wrath, not into comfort or safety, but into good works by the power of the Holy Spirit. If he had not done this, we would not be able to approach a God who, because of his holiness, would have consumed us as straw thrown into a fire. Not only does he save us from the wrath of God, but Jesus is raised from the dead for our justification: All authority is given to him and he intercedes for the sins of his elect and for the exaltation of the Church universal. This Church would divide the world, and sunder it with the message of Revolution and Redemption - separating the sheep of his flock from the goats, uniting the profane with the holy by justifying his enemies, walking two miles and heaping hot coals on their emeies heads in perfect love, and hardening (not softening) the hearts of the establishment with God's perfect symbol of Grace and Wrath and Redemption - The Cross of Christ; this the basis of faith, the catalyst of hope, and the foundation of all true community.