speaking of Henry Rollins...

...I recently watched one of his standup clips on YouTube that a friend had sent me. He was ranting on the currently bloodless, mass-produced, neutered state of most modern music, and he asked, "Where's the balls?! Are these people born without testosterone?...Aren't there people around who just want to put on a record and just wreck everything in sight?!" He still wants to, even into his forties.
And so do I.
About the only difference between us is that I want to do it for, and with, God. Most scene veterans dismiss the idea as incompatible with the nature of the music. Many Christians blow gaskets and pillory the very thought as an affront to the nature of God.
Well, what's compatible and non-affronting? I'll focus on compatibility with the will and nature of God, because I don't mind cashing in some scene points to gain eternity and help others do the same.
Is it the - let's face it - bloodless, mass-produced, neutered "praise & worship" that has infected the vast majority of Evangelicalism? Dear God, I hope not. One more limpwristed, breathy-voiced, keyboard-caressing troubadour panting out some flatlining paean to a caricature of Jesus that sounds like it's evenly divided between shrink and sex partner may well push me RIGHT OVER THE GODDAMN EDGE. Or I could really kick up my heels and start the very thing that this world needs most of all - yet another pop-punk band who take a standard Mk. 1, Mod. 0, Blink-182 ripoff tune, clean out the naughty words and sing about our church's way-cool youth pastor so everyone knows we're down with the big J.C. and we can call ourselves a ministry.
Gag me with a jackhammer (thank you Siobhan).
Hey, ya know what? If that's well and truly your gift, if it's honestly what God put on your heart to offer the Body so we can reconcile people to Him, then run with it. If I could bring myself to believe that more of what I just described was coming from peoples' hearts, I wouldn't be so acerbic about it. What grates on me has damn little to do with style. It's about jumping on an assembly line and cranking out only what is expected and accepted because no one wants to be seen doing anything different. How the hell does that reflect Christ's image? Remember, the One whose fearless exposure of the rulers' hypocrisy and callousness got Him stapled to a tree?
I wish that I could claim to be fearless. I ain't. But I'm angry. If the reasons for that are the right ones, fear won't last long. I don't want to jump ahead of God. But I think that the people and things that inspire me, as well as those that piss me off, do so for a reason. And I believe He will lead me into that. I don't know what form that will take, only that if it's really from Him, it will be good, though it may not be safe.
I've heard brutal music that bores the teats off me, and I've heard tranquil, uber-melodic worship that puts me on the floor. Like I said, it ain't about style. We sure as hell don't need more artists clamouring to shoehorn themselves into prefabricated genre moulds. I want to be real. Enough to let God use what He's got in me to entice others to do the same.

who the hell let us in?

The more I think about it, the more church horror stories I hear from Christians everywhere, the more puzzled I am at how fortunate God's allowed me to call myself. I go to a tiny church that meets in the basement of an appliance repair shop in a little seaside tourist-trap town in southeastern Connecticut. We are some of the oddest, loudest, most unchurchified people this side of Jackass. On any given Sunday you can hear the ways and doings of God explored and the nuances of Scripture unpacked - by a bewildering array of movie quotes, comic-book references, paramilitary metaphors, snatches of lyrics by everyone from Keith Green to the Dropkick Murphys, toddler-parent war stories, and accounts of high school politics. All delivered at breakneck speed coursing down an ever-widening web of rabbit trails by predominately Scots-Irish and Sicilian New England Gen-Xers who talk over, around and through each other. Naughty words have been known to slip out. No topic is off limits if a case can be made that someone there absolutely needs to discuss it. We have heard each other's stories time and again, and it still hasn't gotten old, because every one's story is being written by God.
We would scandalise many churchgoers. Maybe that's as it should be, but if God is displeased with what happens when we come together, why does He show up every week? Why do the goings-on carry over throughout the following days, lifting spirits, fomenting heartfelt worship even at one's job, reminding us of Who's running our lives and renewing our trust in Him?
Even I find the loose structure a bit unsettling at times, but I'll take it if the voice and touch of God comes with it. And it does. I'm ruined for what so many western Christians call church as usual. Show up for your weekly dose, sit down and shut up. One-way traffic. No outlet for what God's gifted you with if it can't fit in a predigested slot. And for God's sake, don't get real. God doesn't want humans in His image reflecting His glory from new and pure hearts, He wants Scripture parrots who put more stock in their own depravity than His ability to transform it. Bullshit.
Part of me wants to carve a wide swath through churches like that. If God turned me loose on them, I would probably look like Henry Rollins method-acting John the Baptist. But I don't think He will. I wasn't bullied out of my flirtations with Churchianity. I was loved out of them by Christ working in and through real, honest, flawed people who let Him love me through them. When someone in bondage sees someone living free, the contrast kills the illusion on which the bondage depends.
Get used to us, because God's nowhere near finished with us, and we're only getting louder, weirder, and bolder. If you can't square with that, your first thousand years in heaven are going to suck like a porn star in a Hoover factory. If you get there at all. Remember, the only reason any of us get there is because He's a good leader, not because we're such good followers. He - not we - will perfect that which concerns us. That doesn't negate the pursuit of holiness, but it sure-to-God keeps it from being futile.

semper verto sursum

Donasgillin gu Brath is Scots Gaelic for "Bad Penny Forever." A good friend told me some years ago, when I was convinced that I was at damned near my worst, that she and my other friends were like a bad penny - they would keep turning up. They have. God has. My wife has. I want to. I intend to. I will. That's what I was made for.

I want to keep turning up on the side of truth and love, even if it hurts, even if it costs. I want to resist the impulse to save what can't be saved, so that I can gain what can't be lost or stolen. Not just to be secure for myself, but because I'm no damn good for anyone else without it. None of us are, and if you doubt me, I fear for you.

I'm not a Christian because I got dunked or checked off a box on a card or repeated a prayer after someone or faceplanted on the floor of a church, though I've done all of those. I'm not a Christian because someone argued, bullied, brainwashed, manipulated, coerced, or scared me into it. That's all been tried, and all of it fell off and rotted when God stepped in. I'm sure as hell not here because I'm perfect in holiness and virtue, nor because I'm so stupid and bereft of value that there's nothing else left for me. I love Christ because He first loved me. That's all. That's why I want to keep turning up. That's my only hope of being able to.

As a movie portrayal of Doc Holliday said, "I'm not an easy man to be friends with, but I'll be there when you need me." Apart from Christ I can do nothing, but I'm not apart from Him any more. He's always proven Himself to me, and He'll do the same for anyone willing to risk believing in Him. And it is a risk, because if you don't believe in Him as the God He claimed outright to be, you don't believe in Him, but a caricature of Him. It's scary to trade autonomy for dependence on a Being you can't even see. It takes every cell of brains you have, and the rest of you as well. You first believe, then you get to see.

Sounds narrow-minded, and it is. Truth is like that. It smarts and chafes, perhaps, but don't judge it from the outside. Try it on.