Unringing the Bell?!

"You taught me how to love you, baby

You taught me, oh, so well
Now, I can’t go back to what was, baby
I can’t unring the bell
You took my reality
And cast it to the wind
And I ain’t never gonna be the same again"
-- Bob Dylan, "I Ain't Never Gonna Be the Same Again," from Empire Burlesque

I think this song sums up the process of deconstructing and reconstructing my beliefs and describing my faith journey. I believe Dylan used the 3 or 4 albums after his evangelical phase to try to really figure out his relationship with the church and faith itself. He often used the metaphor of a romantic relationship to make these points (just like in Song of Solomon). 

Herein is where he captures my thoughts and my heart. The church taught me love. The church taught me how to extend grace to myself and to others. The church taught me to seek peace, not conflict. The church taught me to see others as above my station (not take the seat at the head of the table). The church taught me to do unto others as I would have them do unto me. The church taught me to turn the other cheek, not to strike back, to put down the sword, to beat swords into plowshares. The church taught me to be humble in regard to my own holiness and rightness and to be loving and forgiving in regard to others. 

She "taught me, oh, so well." Because of that, "I can't go back to what was... I can't unring the bell." Understanding the love and grace of Christ "took my reality and cast it to the wind" so much so that I can't stop but to act on it in regard to others. 

Even if, especially if, I no longer understand or support contemporary evangelicalism's focus on having to be true theological right, having to be a political power that can "reclaim" our Christian nation status (that we never have been) by making all the laws reflect our theological viewpoints, and by creating enemies of those who don't believe rather than loving them with tenderness, kindness, humility, and gentleness to show them the peace (not anger and not judgment) of God in our own lives.
So yeah, in spite of my harsh words toward the church, I still believe. In spite of my disdain for the way the word "christian" can taste in my mouth someting thanks to the way we stain it, I have seen truth, and I still follow. I love the church, and I want to see it become something truly Christlike and to stop playing at restoring the power that came from being culturally beloved, community empowered, nationally protected -- we have a lot to answer for post-Constantine. I think if we were still fighting for our lifes in our faith rather than fighting for the last word in our communities, states, and nation, we'd understand far more the true nature of following. 

"Sorry if I hurt you, baby
Sorry if I did
Sorry if I touched the place
Where your secrets are hid
But you meant more than everything
And I could not pretend
I ain’t never gonna be the same again"
-- Bob Dylan, "I Ain't Never Gonna Be the Same Again," from Empire Burlesque

So, yeah, I'm sorry if my words can feel like I hate the church sometimes. I don't. But I do hate some things about it. I do hate the Christian nationalist cause it has allied itself with. But I've seen the secret depths of the faith, the things that changed hearts, including mine, and I believe we are trading those in for something lesser. We are trying to unring the bell, at least culturally. Having seen that, my passion can become anger and yes, can even sound like hate if I'm not careful. Thankfully, I have my wife to let me know when I cross that line. 

Even so, I can't help but still believe (thank you, Michael Been). I can't unring the bell once my ears have been opened. 

"What good am I if I know and don’t do
If I see and don’t say, if I look right through you
If I turn a deaf ear to the thunderin’ sky
What good am I? ..."
- Bob Dylan, "What Good Am I?", from Oh Mercy

Some of you may remember the old spiritual gift inventories that churches would take to determine where a person's gifts and talents might lie. They were really little more than a sort of religious Meyer's Briggs, but they could certainly be helpful in understanding ourselves. Well, without fail, every time I took one, I ended up high on prophecy. Now, before you think I'm psychic, that doesn't mean predicting the future. It simply means speaking to the church to deliver news that was usually bad news. God didn't tend to raise up a prophet just to say, "Hey, folks. Things are great. You're really rocking it down there. Keep it up." No. Most of the time, the message was "You've screwed up so bad I'm going to send you into another county as a conquered people so you can remember who you're supposed to be."  It's similar to when Paul called out the churches for rottenness in his letters. 

So, obviously, I've always been one to address the church, and not to shy away from talking about the shortcomings. According to those inventories, it was my gift and my calling. Remembering those things, even today makes sense of my life and my passion. There are others to sing Kumbaya and hold hands and talk about all the great things the church is doing. Not my calling. 

What good am I if I still believe and say nothing? I ain't never gonna be the same again. 

Updated and inspired by my previous post from here.

15 Most Personal Songs (a musical apologetic) -- #2 Bob Dylan, "With God on Our Side"

 As a child of the 70s and 80s, I didn't have the luxury of computer games and social media to shape my thoughts. Instead, a lot of it came from the music I listened to. 

These are the top fifteen songs that helped to make me who I am and help keep me on track as a genuine person in this human experience. #STformativesongs

#2 - "With God on Our Side" by Bob Dylan

I too was taught that the country I grew up in had God on its side. I too learned that you never ask questions when God's on your side. What I failed to learn until I was older was that, even in a historic religious understanding, God doesn't get on anyone's side. God calls people to join his/her/its (God is spirit, not human) side. 

I grew up believing that as long as I went to church and didn't do the actions that the grown-ups told me to avoid that God would be on my side. It had nothing to do with the attitudes of my heart or my actual love for others. It was all about not smoking, dancing, drinking, being gay, or hanging out with with people who did those things. 

I learned later that most everything I had learned as a child was garbage. True religion, I learned, was taking care of widows and orphans. Real Christian character came from exemplifying the fruit of the spirit. And I learned that the whole of religious law can be summed up as love God and love your fellow humans. 

And most of all, I learned that I never have God on my side. God doesn't get behind me and support my goals. Nor does God support the goals of the USA or the church or the conservative PACs or the goals of Republican or Democrats or Libertarians or anyone. God supports his/her/its own plan... period. 

The sooner I got over thinking God had my back the soon I realized I no longer had carte blanche to pursue every selfish whim I had and try to cover it in some kind of religious version of Manifest Destiny. We can ignore a lot of evils if we persist with this notion that God is on our side. 

==================

Oh my name it ain't nothin'

My age it means less

The country I come from

Is called the Midwest

I was taught and brought up there

The laws to abide

And that land that I live in

Has God on its side

Oh, the history books tell it

They tell it so well

The cavalries charged

The Indians fell

The cavalries charged

The Indians died

Oh, the country was young

With God on its side

The Spanish-American

War had its day

And the Civil War, too

Was soon laid away

And the names of the heroes

I was made to memorize

With guns in their hands

And God on their side

The First World War, boys

It came and it went

The reason for fighting

I never did get

But I learned to accept it

Accept it with pride

For you don't count the dead

When God's on your side

The Second World War

Came to an end

We forgave the Germans

And then we were friends

Though they murdered six million

In the ovens they fried

The Germans now, too

Have God on their side

I've learned to hate the Russians

All through my whole life

If another war comes

It's them we must fight

To hate them and fear them

To run and to hide

And accept it all bravely

With God on my side

But now we got weapons

Of chemical dust

If fire them, we're forced to

Then fire them, we must

One push of the button

And a shot the world wide

And you never ask questions

When God's on your side

Through many a dark hour

I've been thinkin' about this

That Jesus Christ was

Betrayed by a kiss

But I can't think for you

You'll have to decide

Whether Judas Iscariot

Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'

I'm weary as Hell

The confusion I'm feelin'

Ain't no tongue can tell

The words fill my head

And fall to the floor

That if God's on our side

He'll stop the next war

15 Most Personal Songs (a musical apologetic) -- #9 Bob Dylan, "What Good Am I"

As a child of the 70s and 80s, I didn't have the luxury of computer games and social media to shape my thoughts. Instead, a lot of it came from the music I listened to. 

These are the top fifteen songs that helped to make me who I am and help keep me on track as a genuine person in this human experience. #STformativesongs

#10 - "What Good Am I" by Bob Dylan

This is the first of two Dylan songs on this list. This one is the one that taught me to be sure that the ideals inside me match the actions on the outside. It's sort of like the idea of being a sounding gong and clanging cymbal if I'm empty of love. No matter what I say I am and believe, it doesn't mean squat until my outside actions reinforce it. 

==================

What good am I some like all the rest

If I just turn away when I see how you're dressed

If I shut myself off so I can't hear you cry

What good am I?

What good am I if I know and don't do

If I see and don't say if I look right through you

If I turn a deaf ear to the thunderin' sky

What good am I?

What good am I while you softly weep

And I hear in my head what you say in your sleep

And I freeze in the moment like the rest who don't try

What good am I?

What good am I then to others and me

If I had every chance and yet still fail to see

If my hands are tied must I not wonder within

Who tied them and why and where must I have been

What good am I if I say foolish things

And I laugh in the face of what sorrow brings

And I just turn my back while you silently die

What good am I? 

No Great Religious Poetry

There is no great religious poetry that 

does not raise -- as crucial to its enterprise

-- the question of whether it is open to the 

charge of blasphemy, even as there is no 

great erotic art that does not raise the 

question of whether it is open to the 

charge of pornography.

-- Christopher Ricks,

Bob Dylan's Vision of Sin 

The Post Evangelical Dylan on Faith and the Church -- Still a Man of Faith?

A Facebook friend asked for my take on a few of Bob Dylan's albums (Particularly INFIDELS -- my favorite and I believe the most spiritual of his releases), and as anyone who knows what a huge Dylan-phile I am would guess, I jumped at the opportunity.

However, as you read it, bear in mind this caveat:

The beauty of a Dylan album for me is that it could mean one thing, or another, or any number of things, or perhaps nothing at all. The lyrics are like the Book of Revelation. They can be interpreted and defended from many vantage points. My views are no doubt interpreted through my own experiences (like any exegete) and failure to be a non-attached third person objective listener. Music doesn't allow you that option.

Okay, enough set-up . Here's what I had to say...

===================================

Okay, you asked for my analysis, and here it is, like it or not...

"Jokerman" is about Christ, how he was misunderstood by the world and the powers that be. He was just a joker to them, standing on the water, casting his bread. He defeated the serpent (born with a snake in both his fists) while being hunted (a hurricane was blowing). He's a friend to the martyr, friend to the woman of shame, looks into the furnace and sees the rich man who wanted Lazarus to warn his family. At twilight, he rides a white horse. While he's the "fool" a woman gave birth to a prince today (Antichrist) and dressed him in scarlet, and he will have the church and political system in his pocket. Christ knows his plan, but it doesn't faze him or worry him.

"Sweetheart Like You" is a story of the church symbolized as a falling (not fallen) woman looking for love in every place she shouldn't be. Even the demons recognize her and try to woo her. Dylan's still hanging onto his theology but he's had it with the church at this point.

"Neighborhood Bully" is a song about Israel, and how the world is set against "him." Again, looking at biblical prophecy, but tying it to contemporary politics.

"Licensed To Kill" and "Sundown On The Union" are seen though a "least of these" set of lenses.

"I And I" covers the church again, as a woman sleeping around on her husband. The world is going to hell, and she's in his bed. He's still fascinated by her, but he doesn't want to talk. He's over that scene. He's got nothing left to say to her (i.e., the SAVED and SHOT OF LOVE period is over).

"Don't Fall Apart On Me Tonight" is another song about the church as a woman, only he's wistful, not wanting to see her fall or their relationship end. I'm willing to bet this was a holdover from one of the previous albums or an early song in the writing for INFIDELS.

This heartbreaking relationship with the church as a woman is something he'll cover again during EMPIRE BURLESQUE and OH MERCY. Not only that, but he's still dealing out the cards of theology in those, from the sinfulness that destroyed everything ("Everything Is Broken") to call for the least of these ("Ring Them Bells").

The wistfulness to the church (girl) is back again in "What Was It You Wanted" with lines like:

"Is the scenery changing
Am I getting it wrong
Is the whole thing going backwards
Are they playing our song?"

He's still wondering about faith at this point, still thinking about what's he's put behind him, as in "What Good Am I?":

"What good am I if I know and don’t do
If I see and don’t say, if I look right through you
If I turn a deaf ear to the thunderin’ sky
What good am I? ...

"What good am I then to others and me
If I’ve had every chance and yet still fail to see
If my hands are tied must I not wonder within
Who tied them and why and where must I have been?"

But before he can temper his attitude toward her (the church), he has to get through the bitterness of EMPIRE BURLESQUE (which could be seen as a rip at the dog and pony show the church in American had become at this point), with songs like "Tight Connection To My Heart" (while she ignores the beating of a John the Baptist type, no doubt in reference to racial tension also) and "Seeing The Real You At Last":

"Well, didn’t I risk my neck for you
Didn’t I take chances?
Didn’t I rise above it all for you
The most unfortunate circumstances? ...

"I’m hungry and I’m irritable
And I’m tired of this bag of tricks
At one time there was nothing wrong with me
That you could not fix...

"When I met you, baby
You didn’t show no visible scars...

"Well, I’m gonna quit this baby talk now
I guess I should have known
I got troubles, I think maybe you got troubles
I think maybe we’d better leave each other alone"

And perhaps my single favorite song in Dylan's love/hate relationship with faith and religion is "Never Gonna Be The Same Again." I so often find myself echoing these thoughts in regard to my own feelings about the church:

"Sorry if I hurt you, baby
Sorry if I did
Sorry if I touched the place
Where your secrets are hid
But you meant more than everything
And I could not pretend
I ain’t never gonna be the same again

"You give me something to think about, baby
Every time I see ya
Don’t worry, baby, I don’t mind leaving
I’d just like it to be my idea

"You taught me how to love you, baby
You taught me, oh, so well
Now, I can’t go back to what was, baby
I can’t unring the bell
You took my reality
And cast it to the wind
And I ain’t never gonna be the same again"

I've often thought of preparing a scholarly paper on Dylan's love/hate for faith and religion, but I never seem to find the time. It's sort of like actual scripture for me in one way anyway -- once you open your mind to the idea that it's in his work, you suddenly see evidence of it everywhere.

Great Religious Poety (and Bob Dylan)

There is no great religious poetry that does not raise-as crucial to its enterprise-the question of whether it is open to the charge of blasphemy, even as there is no great erotic art that does not raise the question of whether it is open to the charge of pornography.

--Christopher Ricks, Bob Dylan's Vision of Sin