Tag Archives: christianity

Robbie’s Bodies obsession

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Image c/o www.bandwallpapers.net

I’m beginning to think I care more about pop music now than I did as a teenager.

Back then it was about deciding that Bros were unattractive, Chesney Hawkes had a preposterous mole, New Kids on the Block were probably the band which- if I was a fan – would stop the huge amount of bullying I was subject to (ironically it made let me be part of the crowd that was cool enough for just long enough to escape that school), and that I was too old for Take That, first time round.

Now, it’s what they sing that touches me.  I love the retrospective irony of Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab”, both ”Violet Hill” and “When I ruled the world” from Coldplay, Bill Bailey’s “Tinselworm” take on the mock profundity of The Killers’ “I got soul but I’m not a Soldier” (how much do you want to sing “I got ham but I’m not a hamster” now?) and the new incarnation of Take That.  Just to name a few that have been on the radio this morning.

But Robbie Williams.  Don’t you just want to give him a really big hug? 

He was on the X Factor last weekend and he looked hollow eyed, hyper from the applause and the love of the audience, still not quite right despite the time out and the rehab.  The GQ interview this month (November 2009) shows that he’s found love but that he’s still searching for something that the fame, the money and the UFOs just don’t give him.

There’s been some interesting discussion online of his latest single “Bodies”, with some Christian groups taking offence at his direct references to Jesus (“Jesus really died for me, Jesus really tried for me” ok, the chrous at the end “Jesus didn’t die for you” not so fine, altohugh we’ll come back to whether that’s what he actually says later). 

The song itself is a hodgepodge of religious symbolism – the Bhuddist Bhodi tree, the concept of eating life and becoming a god, plus the Jesus references.  But these references are so direct, so clear that it’s not a case of searching for meaning in a song where its not supposed to be.

References to religion are not new to Robbie’s music.  They are there in earlier stuff but are referencing other things, or ironic, or sometimes its hard to tell- alongside the obvious “Angels” and “Better Man” check out “Feel” which looks like a cry from the soul but is actually Woody Allen : “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.” But then, perhaps Woody Allen himself quoting something he knew of old?  It’s also been pointed out that this is pretty much what Psalms 33:10 says in the bible: מאן טראַוך, גאָט לאַוך.
This translates as Mann traoch, Gott läuch, or Man plans, God laughs (and plays merry hell with the direction of your browser text, but never mind).

Religion’s a tricky one in pop music. 
Music has a way of making you respond – that why we’ve always had hymns in the church and why there’s such an explosion of worship music (for non-church goers that’s the happy clappy or slow and repetitive stuff that often does seem to have such stonking tunes to belt out as the older stuff). 
The film Sister Act actually shows what close proximity there is between the love expressed in the words of 1960s Motown music and the language we use to talk about our relatonship with God. 
But I generally think of pop music as secular and about human relationship with each other more than about our relationship with God. 
References to God, Jesus or indeed other faiths that pop up when you’re listening to pop music can jar a bit and leave you wondering about the purpose of the music rather than just being a fab song to dance to etc. I guess The Script’s song “Break even” is a good example for me, with its line “just prayed to a God that I don’t believe in” a key component of the rhyme of its chorus.  Or any of Madonna’s stuff post both before and after finding her own faith, Kabbalah. 
But then Madonna – whether confusing sexual highs and religious ecstacy in “Like a Prayer” or strapped to a giant mirrored cross on her Confessions tour to sing “Live to Tell” – is no stranger to the power of the publicity that you can get by getting Christian groups angry.

So what is Robbie getting at?
It’s the end of the song in particular that intrigues me.  Here it is courtesy of www.wannabepriest.com (yes really):

Praying for the rapture,
‘Cause it’s stranger getting stranger
And everything’s contagious
It’s the modern middle ages
All day every day
And if Jesus really died for me
Then Jesus really tried for me
Jesus didn’t die for you, what do you want?
(I want perfection)
Jesus didn’t die for you, what are you on?
Oh Lord
(Jesus really died for you) Ohh
(Jesus really died for you)
(Jesus really died for you) Ohh

I think there’s three possibilities here.
1) Robbie is confused about what he believes is out there – he thinks it is possible that there’s something in Christianity’s message, but can’t get passed the one, ultimate truth point (if Christianity is the only way to God then what about all the other religions?  What happens to their believers?)  As he can’t get beyond that, or the attractiveness of there being more truths out there (for example, aliens), he is trying to lump together as many accessible phrases as he can in one song whilst pointing out that the majority are only obsessed with what they look like (something they need to be saved from) and that’s pointless as bodies just end up in the cemetery. 
What about the Jesus didn’t die for you? Robbie himself has intimated that he stuffed this in at the end to generate contraversy and headlines, but it doesn’t half sound like this is an insight into a debate round and round in his head.  Somewhere else it’s been said that it was a comment towards President Bush and his war policy.  Hmm.  Nice theory, but I just can’t see it that way in the context of the rest of the song;

2) Robbie is cynical and nihilistic about faith- it’s all just words, and all we ever really wanted was to look good naked.  Pointless, all of it, as we’re just bodies that end up in the cemetery.  And as for Jesus didn’t die for you, if that didn’t happen then what do you want life to be about and what are you – Christians- on to think so? Or what are you non-Christians on to cope with the fact that there is no meaning?
Seriously, how could you even get out of bed in the morning if this was your outlook?

3) Robbie as found faith in Christian America as a way of getting of the prescription drugs.  Realising the UK and worldwide mainstream record markets outside the US don’t go a bundle on evangelical tracks, he’s tucked this into something more mixed to ensure airplay…

I could go on about the reference to the rapture (best tweet I’ve seen on this “atheists to look after Christians pets after the rapture”…) or the constant references to perfection, but I’m not going to.  You get my point about the imagery.

Realistically, I think that if Robbie had actually become a Christian he’d be uncompromising.  As I tried to explain when commenting on the website tagline that said “Jesus died for someone’s sins but not mine” (which I’m now told is not just a punk slogan as I said – having seen it in “The Rotters Club” – but the first line of Patti Smith’s seminal album “Horses”), no Christian, knowing themself to be a sinner, but forgiven, could really honestly say to someone else that Jesus didn’t die for their sins – to give judgement in that way, to declare the other person to be without hope when we’re not in the position to see as God sees… to me it’s unthinkable.
But nor do I see in Robbie a hardline atheist.  He may say that he’s read Dawkins, but so what?  So have I and if anything it strengthened my faith because I saw that a strawman, a parody of what I believe, could easily be knocked down.  But not the resurrection.  And if that’s historical fact, then everyone needs to take a position on it.

So I rather suspect that Robbie’s still muddling on, trying to think it all through while getting on with the trappings of a popstar’s life and the baggage of everyday life.
As are the majority of people in the western world.  Well, maybe not the popstar bit (though look at the number of X Factor auditionees and guess how many want to…) 

It would be a shame, would it not, if life did turn out to be about bleaching our hair, getting a St Tropez and partying til we puke?

But as I say, don’t you just want to give him a hug and tell him it’ll all be ok?

How sure are you? Pascal and “Bad Conscience”

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clouds sun(image from http://www.freeimages.co.uk/)

I was just playing on Twitter, retweeting the occasional thing I found interesting, typing in bad French with no accents on my letters in response to some, the usual. I found a Tweet that caught my interest and followed the link through to a blog.
It was called “Bad Conscience“, and linked on the sidebar to “Bad Science”, the Ben Goldacre site that picks apart the media’s lazy approach to science reporting. So that’s good. Presumably inspired the name.
It’s the 201st most read political blog in the UK, apparently.
The first article looked like it might be worth reading, so I was about to add it to my RSS feed to read every so often at my leisure.
Then I spotted the strapline.
Straplines are important. I know mine’s not perfect yet: “Politics, Europe, Parenting, Faith, Life… because the most interesting things need deep thought and high heels“… I’m working on it still – after all I’ve only had this site a month.

So what’s the big deal? Well, the Bad Conscience website strapline was that old punk slogan “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine“. That’s fairly definite. Can’t get clearer rejection of the Christian faith than that.

For me, there’s a key point in history on which everything rests.
If Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead then that is the most important thing that has ever, ever happened. If he was who he said he was, did what I think – based on all the available evidence – that he did, then it matters.
Everything else – exactly which creation myth you believe in, what your priorities need to be in life, all that sort of thing suddenly becomes clear, and you are free.

If you’re unsure that Jesus was who Christians think he is, then fine.
You could always try an Alpha course if you don’t know enough to make a decision, but if courses are not your thing, I’d urge you to do some reading. Particularly if you are someone that thrives on intellectual persuasion. Try Tim Keller’s “The Reason for God” as a much better starting point than the perhaps over-simplistic Alpha course.

If you think Christians have got it wrong because you if you think Jesus was just a historical figure, or a myth that never existed, that’s ok, it’s your choice… well, that’s ok if you’ve bothered to look at the evidence and you’ve found nothing to convince you that he was more than he was just another rabbinical teacher.
I personally find it hard to come to that conclusion based on what the gospels say that he said (as CS Lewis put it “either he was mad or he was God”) but if you approached the history with an open mind, knew that there were some non-gospel sources too (not just Jospehus whose work may have been amended later) recognising the limitations of first and second century historical records and the purposes of writings at that time and the way that rabbinical teaching worked, then there’s little more that I can say.

If you think he was the prophet that Islam identifies, or the not-quite-what-a-Messiah-should-be-error of Judaism, then I guess you’ve done the kind of thinking that I’ve done and come to a different conclusion.

But to put a line up in public that says in effect that you know that Jesus died for someone’s sins, but that you reject the idea that it was for you? Why would you do that?
i) you’ve reviewed the evidence that’s available and you’ve come to the conclusion that Jesus was real and believed that he was dying for people’s sins, but of course he didn’t rise from the dead;
ii) you don’t really know much about any of this and just think it’s a witty thing to write;
iii) you don’t like the idea that God holds people to account and would rather be held responsible for the consequences of your sins than have anyone pay that debt for you, or for those who sin against you;
iv) you really don’t care whether Jesus was real, a myth, what he said or didn’t say. It’s all a long time ago and we’re very sophisticated now and have digital watches and the internet. Pretty good for fish that grew legs, huh?
v) You really do think that Jesus died for someone’s sins, but this simply doesn’t and won’t apply to you…

But how sure are you?
Probably the most sensible comment that can be made- if you can even conceive that once, in the whole of history, a man died and came back to life having said he would do so and why- was by Blaise Pascal. 

“ Endeavour then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, bless yourself with holy water, have Masses said, and so on; by a simple and natural process this will make you believe, and will dull you—will quiet your proudly critical intellect…Now, what harm will befall you in taking this side? You will be faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you will not have those poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury; but will you not have others? I will tell you that you will thereby gain in this life, and that, at each step you take on this road, you will see so great certainty of gain, so much nothingness in what you risk, that you will at last recognize that you have wagered for something certain and infinite, for which you have given nothing. ”

Essentially, if you’re not sure, you’ve less to lose by choosing to believe (Mother theresa is clear in her letters that that’s a choice she made when she could no longer feel God talking to her so I don’t feel that’s living a lie or in any way to be sneered at). 
But Pascal explains it much better and you can read the key paragraphs on Wikipedia. 
(NB every so often people try to come up with a “knock down” argument against Pascal’s wager.  sometimes they misunderstand: he’s not trying to “prove” God. Dawkins argument is overcome by Pascal himself and Richard Carrier’s argument assumes it’s the doing good and seeking out truth elements that would bring pleasure to the god he mentions – which is not the justification by faith salvation that Christians believe in and so I wouldn’t be making his wager!)

According to Wikipedia:

“Historically, Pascal’s Wager was groundbreaking as it had charted new territory in probability theory, was one of the first attempts to make use of the concept of infinity, marked the first formal use of decision theory, and anticipated the future philosophies of pragmatism and voluntarism”

but if you are finding all that a bit heavy going, Terry Pratchett does a brilliant comic version in his book “Hogfather” (ISBN 0-552-14542-4 please do buy it!)…

“This is very similar to the suggestion put forward by the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, “Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it’s all true you’ll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn’t then you’ve lost nothing, right?” When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, “We’re going to show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts…”

The key point is that, as Pascal points out, there is no “I’m not playing” option.  In deciding our position on faith, and on Jesus, we are all in effect placing a wager on who he was and what he did. 
If God demands perfection, is the source of all that it good and pleasurable and sin separates us from him, and if Jesus was God paying the price of that sin for us then it’s the most important decision you’ll ever make. 
And it’s not just a case of betting your life.  
Choosing that separation will never make you happy and filfilled.
I don’t think that having a faith automatically makes you a credulous fool.  Sometimes, if you’ve reviewed the evidence, thought freely and come to the conclusion that the evidence shows X to be fact as far as it is possible to accertain, then to disbelieve would be the position that was not that of a freethinker.
So if Jesus died for someone’s sins, why not yours? 
If you’re aware now that there is a wager that is part of this life, how sure are you?