I’ve listened to Derek Webb for about a decade. He’s a Christian musician, and I’ve enjoyed his honesty and skillful songwriting. We share some similar history in theology and disillusionment, but he ended up moving towards a more liberal/social Christianity whereas I got out altogether.
Though I’m not overly fond of his recent music style, I appreciate what he’s trying to do. Webb recorded a song on his latest album Stockholm Syndrome called “What Matters More,” aimed at Christians who obsess over hating homosexuality. His label refused to put it on the album, though, because of its subject & language. Here’s the video for it:
It’s causing a little controversy among fundamentalists. For instance, Phillip Johnson, a popular Christian blogger, said on twitter that “the artist formerly known as Derek Webb is an angry, crude-mouthed bobble-head.” He only had 140 characters, otherwise he would have added “and a big fat stupid head, so there!”
Here are the lyrics:
You say you always treat people like you like to be
I guess you love being hated for your sexuality
You love when people put words in your mouth
‘Bout what you believe, make you sound like a freak‘Cause if you really believe what you say you believe
You wouldn’t be so damn reckless with the words you speak
Wouldn’t silently conceal when the liars speak
Denyin’ all the dyin’ of the remedyTell me, brother, what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister, what matters more to you?If I can tell what’s in your heart by what comes out of your mouth
Then it sure looks to me like being straight is all it’s about
It looks like being hated for all the wrong things
Like chasin’ the wind while the pendulum swings‘Cause we can talk and debate until we’re blue in the face
About the language and tradition that he’s comin’ to save
Meanwhile we sit just like we don’t give a shit
About 50,000 people who are dyin’ todayTell me, brother, what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister, what matters more to you?You say you always treat people like you like to be
I guess you love being hated for your sexuality
You love when people put words in your mouth
‘Bout what you believe, make you sound like a freak‘Cause if you really believe what you say you believe
You wouldn’t be so damn reckless with the words you speak
Wouldn’t silently conceal when the liars speak
Denyin’ all the dyin’ of the remedyTell me, brother, what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister, what matters more to you?If I can tell what’s in your heart by what comes out of your mouth
Then it sure looks to me like being straight is all it’s about
It looks like being hated for all the wrong things
Like chasin’ the wind while the pendulum swings‘Cause we can talk and debate until we’re blue in the face
About the language and tradition that he’s comin’ to save
Meanwhile we sit just like we don’t give a shit
About 50,000 people who are dyin’ todayTell me, brother, what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister, what matters more to you?
The song can be downloaded free from DerekWebb.com.
I like the song! I even tried to buy it from Amazon as an MP3. No luck. It is not listed at Amazon as being on the CD album “Stockholm Syndrome.” One of the albumn’s reviewers did mention that the song was on the “unedited version.’ Guess us atheists (not surprisingly) are “edited” out-of-luck.
You can go to http://www.derekwebb.com/ and download the song for free.
Win!
Wow, what a crude and offensive song!
*eyes roll out of head*
Typical. Never question anything that has to do with your faith. I applaud him for not simply cashing in on gullible religious types and trying to challenge his audience.
“the artist formerly known as Derek Webb is an angry, crude-mouthed bobble-head.”
I guess that’s easier than addressing what song is about.
I received a song today from a friend (http://www.andiesisle.com/GoD_and_DoG.html).
I guess it means that God and Dog are just as good as each other. Except that Dog isn’t planning to throw me into a lake of fire to burn for all eternity if I don’t follow him, whereas God is.
Actually, Dog is better.
Better link (I hope): http://www.andiesisle.com/GoD_and_DoG.html
“You’re a BAD god!”
Just out of curiosity, what record label is he on?
He is on INO Records
Moving song. The “Meanwhile we sit just like we don’t give a shit/About 50,000 people who are dyin’ today” lines reminds me of a Tony Campolo quote:
A person who defines their philosophy and theology by their actions always deserves respect, especially when those actions are motivated towards the betterment of humanity as a whole (as opposed to the betterment of some witless segment, or the other!).
It’s unfortunate that the Sky Fairy’s mantra can be so eloquently expressed by this artist, yet so twisted by others. Do secular rationalists have a creed/theology that defines their World views in a way that can’t be misinterpreted? If such an expression exists then I haven’t yet had the ‘revelation’ of exposure and if it doesn’t then maybe we should look at crafting one?
It seems that the one thing that we all agree is that a complicated and nationalised legal system is a hopeless seat for morality, yet I am not aware of anything that is more suitable – or shall I say Universal?
How should we choose right from wrong?
Everyone SHOULD be taught to analyse, deconstruct, consider and reply to evidence and arguments, however:
The ability to choose from a set of options for oneself does not necessarily mean that choices are made wisely (either due to ignorance, misunderstanding or self interest), so it does not necessarily follow that the right choice will be made, in spite of people having the ability to do so.
I am sure that others have looked at this with more clarity than I have, can we have a Universal, agreed morality – what are the options?
If you’re serious about studying this topic in some depth, my writings under the category “Philosophical Ethics”, listed here http://camelswithhammers.com/category/philosophy/ethics/philosophical-ethics/ should be informative and thought provoking. If you read the posts with “Philosophical Ethics” specifically in the title you will find that all of them are designed as introductory explanations of major ideas in ethical theory. I am writing them to complement my lectures for my students this semester and then I am also using them for the blog.
Also under the broad category of “Philosophical Ethics” I have some stabs of my own at the topics you raise plus the highlights of helpful online writing from others. But there is much, much more to come as well both as I write up material for 2 and a half more months worth of course material and as I get around to writing up my own ideas, both from my dissertation and independent of it.
I would love your feedback on any of the posts, including specific questions around which I can base future posts.
Don’t you people understand?! It’s the gays that have cuased all of the ills in our world. You know all the wars? Gays caused them. Mass starvation? Gays caused it. Earthquakes, floods and Tsunamis? Yup, the gays.
What it is that’s so hard for you people to understand? God created all of these as a warning and punishment to humans because the gays decided to offen God’s laws. They brough all these suffering upon us.
Agentsmith, I hope you’re just bad at sarcasm.
Marley, I actually thought that was fairly decent sarcasm. This is pretty much what some conservative Christians claim. It trailed off a bit at the end, though.
What? Bad sarasm? I said the same thing to my fundie cow-orker, he almost went up the wall because I openly mocked him and his god.
AND I heard “they” cause global warming too. Boy, if christians would get that little tidbit of info….
If Jesus were on Earth today, I have no doubt that the he would sound more like Derek Webb than John Hagee.
Jesus would be a socialist hippie and the conservatives would hate him.
no, he’d probably be the apocalyptic, megalomaniacal religious lunatic he actually was (if he was at all, that is). There were philosophers before Jesus existed (if he existed). He wasn’t one of them. Giving him more credit as being some secular hero when he’s a religious hero is nonsense. Even to imagine a “Jesus today” (which is sheer ridiculousness since no one is separable from their own time) would be to imagine a religious fanatic who claimed he was God.
Even to imagine a “Jesus today” (which is sheer ridiculousness since no one is separable from their own time) would be to imagine a religious fanatic who claimed he was God.
That’s ridiculous, Camels. People do that all the time … look to the past at an inspirational figure of history and extrapolate how that person might react to contemporary issues — that’s “sheer ridiculousness”?
If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, he’d be happy by the progress our country has made but would still be for the cause of Civil Rights because injustice still exists.
Jesus would have opposed religious fearmongers who are the “whitewashed tombs” of the day.
Neither claim is “sheer ridiculousness,” Camels.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a 20th Century American. It is relatively reasonable to project what some of his values and priorities and judgments would be in the present only because he comes from a very similar era to our own and the same culture which we are expecting he would talk about.
But to take Jesus out of the context of a 1st Century Palestinian itinerant preacher with a messianic complex and plop him down into the 21st Century and ask him about secular politics is an extraordinary leap. Assuming he was real and anything like depicted in the Gospels, he’d be telling people to blow off the government, hate their mother and father for the sake of his cult, sell all they had and give it to his ministry, and believe he was the Son of God. He would also advocate communal living and that his cult members give to the poor.
That’s the closest we can extrapolate what Jesus would do. Because that’s what the character did. Why would he be concerned about religious freedom? He was a lunatic who claimed he was the Son of God and that only people willing to hate their families for his sake were good enough for him. What would be his concern with taxes? He’d just say, pay the government what belongs to the government, its currency, and give what belongs to God (presumably your entire self) to God. Oh, and who is God? Jesus! Jesus is God. Give everything to Jesus except those green bits of paper that belong to the government. They don’t matter anyway.
Jesus is not a 20th Century hippie. He’s not a communist, a Marxist, a post-modernist, a liberal, a conservative, a Republican, a Democrat, a freethinker, an atheist, a humanist, a revolutionary, a politician, a normal religious teacher. He is a megalomaniacal messianic cult leader who demands you put subservience to him above all else. There ARE people like him around today and we rightfully dismiss them as crazy at minimum and dangerous at the most.
Camel, we disagree at such a fundamental level about about who Jesus (possibly) was that any further conversation about this specific issue would be futile.
I’m talking about what the text of the Gospels actually say, not the hagiography and projection that normally accompany treatment of the texts.
As far as I’m concerned, I’m in the camp with those who think finding a “historical Jesus” is simply hopeless. The BEST we can do is say, was he secular? No, he was decidedly not. The closest equivalents to secularism of the day would have been if he counseled his fellow Jews to integrate with the Romans. He didn’t. Was he politically active? No. Did he have delusions of grandeur? Absolutely. Did he ask things of his followers that only a cult leader would? Absolutely. Did he have a disproportionate sense of punishment? He freaking invented the Christian idea of hell.
Whitewash him all you want, assume the pharisees were the villains and whitewashed tombs simply because Jesus and/or his followers paint them that way, etc. But he was NOT a 21st Century liberal no matter how much you want to project onto him and want to enlist his reputation for your contemporary cause
Like I said, we disagree at such a fundamental level that we won’t get anywhere with each other on this topic.
But he was NOT a 21st Century liberal no matter how much you want to project onto him and want to enlist his reputation for your contemporary cause
Take a breath, sheesh. I don’t have a cause. Ty’s the one who said he’d be a hippie, not me. The Jesus of the Gospels rails against the religious establishment of the day. The religious establishment in our day shares a lot in common with what we know about the religious establishment of his day. It is more likely than not, in my opinion, that a person who railed against the former would also rail against the latter.
As to me projecting all of this onto Jesus, well, that’s just not the case. I’m sure I won’t convince you otherwise, so you can either take my word or not.
And Daniel, props for posting a link to a good Christian artist :)
Next thing you know we’ll be hearing DC Talk songs from the archives …
*shudder*
Don’t joke like that, brgulker. I went through a DC Talk phase at one point, for reasons I cannot explain. It’s … what’s the phrase … “a past that comes back in my darkest of dreams.”
They were much worse as solo artists…
Toby Mac is just too white for his own good.
I’m not ashamed to admit I still like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4Nd7lZgp4o
It’s no less cheesy than, say, the Fresh Prince they were aping. And their “Free At Last” and “Jesus Freak” albums show a lot of musical talent if I remember correctly. They could even write a decent lyric as long as you can get past the whole Christian nonsense thing.
This song “Luv is a Verb” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je-SIrGRi5Y is entirely worthwhile in its sentiment (if you just take out the Jesus verse). Though it’s kind of humorous love being a verb is supposed to be news to anyone. I’m still waiting for them to finish the whole dictionary with songs like “Chair is a noun” and “Happy is an adjective” or “Eaten is a past participle”
Have no fear, no DC Talk song will be posted, unless it’s for amusement. ;)
I still have a soft spot in my heart for some of the Christian music I grew up with. It was the only CDs my parents would buy (I’m old, MP3s and file sharing wasn’t around until after I was out of high school). So listening to it enough, it grew on me. Plus I was not quite so atheist back them. :) I recently broke out a few discs for old times sake and actually liked them. Prayer Chain, Poor Old Lu, Starflyer 59, etc.
Yeah, Starflyer 59 were for me the revelatory experience that My Bloody Valentine was for normal kids (though I was completely oblivious to the existence of My Bloody Valentine and their influence on Starflyer until this year). Now I love them both :)
And Prayer Chain’s Mercury was the most experimental thing I’d ever ever been exposed to. I still love it. I had left my copy at a long lost friend’s house some years ago and so re-bought it earlier this year.
For Christmas one year, I was given “Jesus Freak” and a Sony Playstation. I listed to that album on repeat for hours while playing ESPN Extreme Games. Now, anytime I hear that album, I get the urge to dig out the PS One ….
I thought they had some good songs here and there. Hardway, Colored People, and how can you not like Luv is a verb?
first Christian song i can remember liking.
Really? I like Elvis’s How Great Thou Art, and Johnny Cash’s Bridge Over Trouble Water, and I considered those christian songs. Or at least very religious.
I wasn’t aware Johnny Cash covered “Bridge over Troubled Water,” but I can’t imagine him making it any more Christian than Simon and Garfunkel. It’s a song about compassion and self-sacrifice, not religion.
Obviously “How Great Thou Art” is a Christian Hymn, but most people refer to that genre as “gospel” rather than “Christian.” Either way, I have a hard time liking it . . . even the Elvis version. Or maybe especially the Elvis version.
Overall, I have to agree with this anon. Christian music is just generally uninteresting, with rare exceptions.
Derek has not moved to liberal/social Christianity. In fact, he dislikes that kind of Christianity just the same. He has just reacted more towards fundamentalist.