My recent series on Johnny Cash may have gotten some of you interested in exploring the music of Johnny Cash.

Where to start?

Though opinions will differ, here are my suggestions in exploring and buying the music of Johnny Cash.

Compilations
First Cut: The Legend of Johnny Cash
Probably the best single CD to sample Cash's entire career. Has the early hits like "I Walk the Line" and "Folsom Prison Blues," mid-career hits like "Ring of Fire" and selections from the Rick Rubin years like "Rusty Cage," "Hurt," and "When the Man Comes Around."

Deeper Cut: Love God Murder
A three CD set hand-picked by Cash spanning his career. Liner notes from June Carter on Love, from Bono on God and Quentin Tarantino on, you guessed it, Murder.

The Concept Albums
First Cut: Ride This Train
Cash's first concept album, the one many consider to be his best. Songs of America with Cash narrating between musical "stops" on a cross-country train ride.

Deeper Cuts: Bitter Tears and Sings Ballads of the True West

The Prison Concerts
First Cut: At Folsom Prison
The legendary concert. If you have only one Johnny Cash album this should be it.

Deeper Cut: At San Quentin
The concert that brought the world "A Boy Named Sue."

The Sun Years
First Cut: With His Hot Blue Guitar!
Johnny Cash's very first album. This is Cash's early Rock & Roll sound as he recorded at Sun with Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Deeper Cut: Sings the Songs that Made Him Famous

The Columbia Years
First Cut: The Fabulous Johnny Cash
Cash's first Columbia album.

Deeper Cut: Orange Blossom Special
Bob Dylan gave Cash three songs for Orange Blossom Special, a time when Cash was trying to connect with the folk music movement. Beyond that there are so many albums from the Columbia years that's it is hard to pick.

The Rick Rubin Years
First Cut: American IV: The Man Comes Around
The last album released by Cash before his death. Has "Hurt" and "The Man Comes Around."

Deeper Cuts: Any of the American albums: American Recordings, Unchained, American 3: Solitary Man.

I'll now turn it over to Johnny Cash fans. What are your favorite Johnny Cash albums?

This will be the last post in this series on the theology of Johnny Cash. And we conclude with what Cash considered to be his greatest song. His legacy song. A song he wrote just before his death.

"The Man Comes Around."

"The Man Comes Around" was the standout song in the final album--American IV--Cash recorded with Rick Rubin just before Cash's death. Cash was so weak he almost couldn't finish the album. For some songs Rubin had Cash sing a single line and then stop to rest and catch his breath. Later Rubin spliced the lines together, building the song piece by piece.

Most of American IV are covers, songs like "Hurt" and "Personal Jesus," along with older Cash songs like "Give My Love to Rose." But Cash brought to the recording sessions one last original song, a song he had been feverishly working on for months and months. "The Man Comes Around" is Johnny Cash's last great song.

The central lyric of the song came from an odd dream. Cash had a dream after having recorded the song "The Wanderer" with U2 for their album Zooropa. "The Wanderer" is an apocalyptic song inspired by the book of Ecclesiastes. (An early title of the song was "The Preacher" taken from  Qohelet, the Preacher/Teacher of Ecclesiastes.) Apparently, the apocalyptic imagery of "The Wanderer" had gotten into Cash's dreams. In this particular dream Cash finds himself speaking to, of all people, the Queen of England. In the dream the Queen laughs, looks at Cash and says, "Johnny Cash, you're just like a thorn tree in a whirlwind." Robert Hilburn, from his Cash biography, about how the image expanded into the song:

The image stuck with Cash, though he had no idea where it was from until, he claimed, he came across a reference in the Old Testament. Soon after, he began thinking of using the line in a story--a poem perhaps--and he continued to seek out accompanying images in scriptures. He eventually changed his plan from a story to a song...

Though the lyrics didn't mention Jesus's name or the words "judgment day," it was about Jesus's second coming and the final judgment, the fundamental tenet of his faith. In the series of verses, Cash cited other images from the Bible, including the "whirlwind in the thorn tree" and "the virgins are all trimming their wicks." [The song] was more overtly spiritual than U2's "The Wanderer," but just as majestic and bold.

Interestingly, the song "The Man Comes Around" also strikes a universal note. As recounted by Hilburn, Cash came to his son asking for some help with the lyrics:

John Carter remembers his father asking him one day as he was working on the song: "So, the word for 'shalom' is Hebrew for peace. What is the word in Arabic?"

John Carter told him "shalam."

"He wanted the song to be universal," his son says.

As I've mentioned, Johnny Cash read the bible just about every day. Even during the years of heavy drug use. And you can see this reflected in the lyrics of "The Man Comes Around." It is a song that could only have been written by a person steeped in biblical imagery:

Spoken:
"And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder. One of the four beasts saying, 'Come and see.' and I saw, and behold a white horse"

Sung:
There's a man goin' 'round takin' names.
And he decides who to free and who to blame.
Everybody won't be treated all the same.
There'll be a golden ladder reachin' down.
When the man comes around.

The hairs on your arm will stand up,
At the terror in each sip and in each sup.
Will you partake of that last offered cup,
Or disappear into the potter's ground?
When the man comes around.

Chorus:
Hear the trumpets hear the pipers.
One hundred million angels singin'.
Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettledrum.
Voices callin', voices cryin'.
Some are born and some are dyin'.
It's Alpha and Omega's kingdom come.
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree.
The virgins are all trimming their wicks.
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree.
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

Till Armageddon no shalam, no shalom.
Then the father hen will call his chickens home.
The wise man will bow down before the throne.
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns.
When the man comes around.

Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still.
Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still.
Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still.
Listen to the words long written down.
When the man comes around.

Chorus:
Hear the trumpets hear the pipers.
One hundred million angels singin'.
Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettledrum.
Voices callin', voices cryin'.
Some are born and some are dyin'.
It's Alpha and Omega's kingdom come.
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree.
The virgins are all trimming their wicks.
The whirlwind is in the thorn trees.
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
In measured hundredweight and penny pound.
When the man comes around.

Spoken:
"And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts. And I looked, and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and hell followed with him." 

A listening note. There are two versions of this song. The original version that Cash sent to Rubin is a country take on the song. The version Rubin released on American IV has more of a rock flavor. You can listen to both and see which one you prefer.

There is a part of me that would like to just end this series with the lyrics of this song. The song is theology, through and through. I don't need to insert any.

But the apocalyptic imagery of judgment is so strong in the song that I'll end with some final reflections.

I think religious liberals have really liked most of this series with its themes of "the Man in Black" solidarity with sinners along with the downtrodden. Those are themes religious liberals enjoy.

But Johnny Cash is hard to classify. Cash is not so easily placed in the liberal or the conservative box. Up against the song "The Man in Black" you have this song "The Man Comes Around," a song religious conservatives and fundamentalists would resonate with more than liberals and progressives. Liberals and progressives generally don't like the image of the Last Judgment.

So there are these two theological themes in Johnny Cash that are difficult to reconcile.

On the one hand you have the tolerance and solidarity of "the Man in Black" for the sinners of the world. Even the very worst sinners. The Man in Black was a man who loved and entrained murderers and rapists in prisons across the country. This is the man of At Folsom Prison and At San Quentin.

But on the other hand you have the words of judgement from "The Man Comes Around."

How to fit the two pieces together?

I don't think you do fit them together. At least not neatly and cleanly.

Personally, if I had to, I'd reconcile the pieces by pointing to the prophets and the Psalms, where the language of judgment is reserved for those exploiting and harming the anawim, the vulnerable ones. That's how I'd make the pieces fit if you forced me to do so. But I'm hesitant to do that here so quickly and easily.

Because what I think most interesting about the song "The Man Comes Around" is how, as I mentioned above, it is so steeped in the biblical imagination. And the biblical imagination, I'd argue, is always going to explode the boxes of conservative and liberal theology. The biblical imagination, like the God it is trying to describe, is like that whirlwind in a thorn tree. The biblical imagination cannot be codified or systematized. The biblical imagination is going to be wild and untamed.

And because the theology of Johnny Cash was so shaped by the Scriptures, due to Cash's daily and lifelong reading of the bible, I think it's fitting to note here at the end that Johnny Cash's theology, being a biblical theology, will also be difficult to pin down and put into a box.

And that, I think, is what makes the theology of Johnny Cash so complex and intriguing, all the currents and crosscurrents.

The mix of fidelity and unfaithfulness in trying and failing to "walk the line." The dance of light and darkness in the moral juxtapositions of gospel music and murder ballads. And, finally, the man in black standing in solidarity with sinners and the man coming around in apocalyptic judgment.

It is a compelling and potent mix. A wild and unsystematic theology.

Like the man himself, a whirlwind in a thorn tree.

It is the theology of Johnny Cash. 

Today is Johnny Cash's birthday.

In the last few posts we've been tracing the "Man in Black" theme of solidarity through the music of Johnny Cash. Having articulated the "Man in Black" theme we explored it in a three different social locations, from the suffering of Native Americans to the hopelessness of prison to the darkness of addiction.

One more post before leaving this theme.

In the Old Testament the anawim are the poor, afflicted and oppressed people of the land. The anawim are the vulnerable ones who God cares for and will bless.

Psalm 37.11
But the anawim will inherit the land
and enjoy peace and prosperity.

Isaiah 61.1
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the anawim. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.

These are the same texts--expressing God's care for the anawim--that Jesus invokes in the Sermon the Mount and his Nazareth Manifesto. The anawim were very much on the heart of Jesus.

And like Jesus, if Johnny Cash was anything he was a troubadour for the anawim. When you think of Johnny Cash songs you think about the anawim, songs about the downtrodden and beaten down.

I think the song that illustrates this best is a song that Cash wrote early in his career, a song he recorded with Sun Records. It is, perhaps then, the primordial Johnny Cash song if we think of "a Johnny Cash song" as being a song about the anawim.

You can tell it was a song that was important to Cash. He returned to it again and again. The song shows up on the At Folsom Prison album and on the last album Cash recorded with Rick Rubin before his death, American IV (the same album that has "Hurt" and "When the Man Comes Around").

Recall, in Cash's early career at Sun he was working alongside other Sun artists like Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis establishing the early sound of Rock and Roll. Consequently, Cash's early work with Sun tended to focus on the sock hop crowd, singing songs about teenage love and heartbreak. The tunes were fast-paced and catchy. The lyrics lighthearted.

And to be honest, I really like the Sun recordings of Johnny Cash. For fun and listenability I go for the Sun recordings when popping in some Johnny Cash.

(Also, Cash's voice was at its very best during the Sun years. If you want to hear how Cash's drug addiction affected his voice compare Cash's voice on early Sun recordings like "I Walk the Line" with his voice on the song "Orange Blossom Special" from the album Orange Blossom Special when Cash was heavily using drugs. I love the album Orange Blossom Special, but it's tragic that Cash's voice wasn't better for the album.)

At Sun teenage pop songs were the sorts of songs that Sam Phillips wanted from Cash. So Cash was increasingly pulled in that artistic direction. Pop music that would get played on the radio or punched in at the jukebox. But that isn't the sort of music we think of when we think of Johnny Cash "the Man in Black."

So when did that guy show up?

To be sure, we caught a glimpse of him in one of Cash's first hits with Sun, "Folsom Prison Blues." But it had been awhile since Cash had recorded a song like that. Even so, "Folsom Prison Blues" was an up-tempo song.

So today, on Johnny Cash's birthday, we ask when was "the Man in Black" officially born? When did Johnny Cash start singing the songs of the anawim?

I think you could make an argument that "the Man in Black" was born, that the archetypal "Johnny Cash song" was written, when Cash sat down and wrote the song "Give My Love to Rose." Robert Hilburn, in his recent biography of Cash, tells the origin of the song:

On the long car rides [to and from concerts], Cash thought hard about his writing, trying to figure out what was different between some of his best early songs and the ones he'd been writing recently. He realized he had drifted away from writing from his personal experience. Wanting to get back to that approach, Cash recalled the time a stranger came up to him backstage during his first trip to California. The man had just been released from prison and was looking forward to going home to Shreveport to see his wife. But he didn't know how or when he could get there because he was broke and jobless. He knew that Cash was a regular on the Louisiana Hayride and asked him to say hello to his wife if he got to Shreveport first.

The story reminded Cash of his own bouts with loneliness, and he liked the idea of telling a different kind of prisoner story...

[The song] wasn't just a [teenage] weeper for [Sam] Phillips or a generic song for the jukebox. This was a song Cash felt deeply...He like the idea of casting a prisoner in a tender light because it meshed with is Baptist values of forgiveness. He liked the song so much, he used his older daughter's nickname in it.

When Cash got back to Memphis in late June, he played the song for Clement [Cash's producer], who shared Cash's fondness for the song, though he privately wondered whether DJs would find it too slow-paced...

The lyrics of "Give My Love to Rose":

I found him by the railroad track this morning
I could see that he was nearly dead
I knelt down beside him and I listened
Just to hear the words the dying fellow said

He said they let me out of prison down in Frisco
For ten long years I've paid for what I've done
I was trying to get back to Louisiana
To see my Rose and get to know my son

Chorus:
Give my love to Rose please won't you mister
Take her all my money, tell her to buy some pretty clothes
Tell my boy his daddy's so proud of him
And don't forget to give my love to Rose

Tell them I said thanks for waiting for me
Tell my boy to help his mom at home
Tell my Rose to try to find another
For it ain't right that she should live alone

Mister here's a bag with all my money
It won't last them long the way it goes
God bless you for finding me this morning
And don't forget to give my love to Rose

Chorus:
Give my love to Rose please won't you mister
Take her all my money, tell her to buy some pretty clothes
Tell my boy his daddy's so proud of him
And don't forget to give my love to Rose 

I think with this song, recorded in 1957, "the Man in Black" was born.

Artistically, Cash had figured out--in the midst of all those jukebox and pop songs--who he was going to be and who he was going to sing for.

He was going to sing for the man dying alone by the railroad tracks. And for all the rest.

Johnny Cash was going to sing for the anawim.

Part 8: A Whirlwind in a Thorn Tree

We continue our reflections on themes of solidarity in the music of Johnny Cash. In this post we turn to drug use and addiction.

Recall the lyric from the song "The Man in Black":

[I wear the black] for the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold

As I've mentioned in these posts, Johnny Cash struggled with drug use and addiction for decades. The drug use began in the late '50s, taking amphetamines to keep awake driving between stops on tour and for energy during concerts. The drug use worsened through the early and mid-60s with band and family members increasingly expecting an overdose that would end Cash's life. And Cash had many close calls.

Things got to such a point that Cash wanted to kill himself. In Cash's autobiography he describes going into a cave in 1968 intending to commit suicide (by getting lost in the cave). But something else happened. Laying in the dark of the cave Cash had a spiritual experience, an encounter with God. Cash found his way back out of the cave and claimed that his encounter with God allowed him to quit drugs right then and there.

But as Robert Hilburn recounts in his recent biography, Cash's story isn't true. Cash still took drugs after 1968, if somewhat less frequently. The biggest event that reduced Cash's drug use, according to Hilburn, wasn't the cave experience but the birth of Cash's son--John Carter Cash--in 1970. Still, even after his son's birth Cash continued to struggle with drugs and had to eventually seek inpatient care at the Betty Ford Center in 1983.

Bono, the lead singer of U2, tells the story of visiting Cash and eating dinner at Cash's house in Nashville. As Bono recounts, “Johnny said the most beautiful, most poetic grace you’ve ever heard. Then he leaned over to me with this devilish look in his eye and said, ‘But I sure miss the drugs.’”

All that to say, Johnny Cash was a man who could speak to those in the darkness of addiction, those who know the cycles of dependence, cleaning up, relapse, and moving through these seasons of light and darkness throughout a lifespan.

Two songs--one early and one late career--come to mind in thinking about how Cash gave voice to those struggling with drug use and addiction.

The first song is "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down." The song was written by Kris Kristofferson and was covered by both Ray Stevens and Kristofferson. But Cash's version in 1970 topped the country charts.

The lyrics of "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" tell the story of a man waking up on a Sunday morning with a hangover. To help with the headache he drinks two beers for breakfast. Disheveled, the man stumbles out of the house to take a walk.

On the walk the man lights up a cigarette. He passes by a home where he smells "the Sunday smell of someone fryin' chicken." The smell takes him back to a painful memory, "back to somethin' / that I'd lost somewhere, somehow along the way." The man passes by a full church. And a park with a Dad pushing his daughter on a swing. All these sights, smells and sounds bring the ache of alienation. The life of drug use has caused the man to be solitary and alone. And so he sings a lament, the chorus of the song:

On a Sunday morning sidewalk
I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned
'Cause there's something in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone

And there ain't nothin' short of dyin'
As half as lonesome as the sound
Of a sleepin' city sidewalk
And Sunday mornings coming down

Johnny Cash knew that feeling. Waking up from the drugs on a Sunday morning and feeling adrift, cut off from family from faith from life itself.

The second song to note here is the song "Hurt," the Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails) song Cash covered on the Rick Rubin produced album American IV: The Man Comes Around.

In 1993 Cash felt his music career was over. But the successful hip-hop and rock producer Rick Rubin wanted to work with a legend. So Rubin approached Cash. Initially, Cash was skeptical. Mainly from self-doubt. But the two men hit it off and eventually produced six albums. Rubin and Cash recorded songs together right up to Cash's death in 2003. The albums Cash and Rubin did together were both critical and popular successes and made Johnny Cash relevant to a whole new generation.

One of Rubin's ideas was to have Cash cover material outside of Cash's genre, songs from punk, metal and alternative rock bands. The idea was genius. The lyrics of angst-filled youth when paired with Cash's older, faltering and gritty voice pulled out of the songs unseen depths of meaning and pathos. The most famous example of this is Cash's version of "Hurt."

"Hurt" was written by Reznor in the midst of his heroin addiction. But sung by Cash the song takes on a retrospective feel, a old man looking back on a lifetime of pain, loss and hurt. And much of that hurt, we know, was due to Cash's own personal struggles with drug addiction. Sung by a man looking back on a lifetime of pain and regret Cash's "Hurt" is haunting and heart-breaking:

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

Chorus:
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here

Chorus:
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

The award-winning music video done by Cash for "Hurt" is widely considered to be one of the best music videos of all time.



Part 7: The Birth of the Man in Black

Any theology of Johnny Cash is going to spend time with the theme of solidarity expressed in his iconic song "The Man in Black." In the last post we focused on the solidarity Cash expressed for Native Americans in his album Bitter Tears. For other examples of that particular theme see also the openings of the albums Ride This Train and Sings the Ballads of the Old West.

In this post we turn to look at how Johnny Cash expressed solidarity with those in prison.

After switching from Sun Records to Columbia in 1958 Cash struggled to maintain the early success he had experienced with Sun. Columbia was starting to wonder if it should renew Cash's contract. In 1963 Cash found another hit single with "Ring of Fire" which temporarily buoyed his prospects with Columbia, but Cash was struggling to find a hit album with the Columbia label. Much of Cash's artistic struggles during this time were due to his deepening drug addiction.

For years Cash had been doing concerts in prisons. And the reception he received from those audiences and the energy created in those venues made Cash interested in doing a live album recording of one of these concerts. But Cash couldn't get the record label or his producer to take a chance on such a project.

But when Bob Johnson took over producing Cash's work for Columbia in 1967 Cash had finally found someone interested in the idea of recording a live prison concert.

And so it was on January 13, 1968 that Cash and his band recorded a concert in the Folsom State Prison in California. The recording of the concert became the album At Folsom Prison.

At Folsom Prison was a popular and critical success. The album threw Cash back into the national spotlight, revitalizing Cash's sagging career. Today At Folsom Prison is widely considered to be Cash's finest album.

Listening to At Folsom Prison you are struck by Cash's ease and rapport with the men in the prison. And while he never served a prison sentence, some of this rapport was due to the fact that Cash had himself been in jail many times. Cash's most publicized arrest occurred in 1965 when he was arrested by a narcotics squad in El Paso, TX. The picture of the handcuffed Johnny Cash, wearing dark sunglasses, made national headlines. His mug shot is pictured here.

The theme of solidarity for those in prison is vividly captured in the liner notes of the re-release of At Folsom Prison which contain a handwritten note from Johnny Cash written a few years before his death. It reads:

Folsom Prison Blues

The culture of a thousand years is shattered with the clanging of the cell door behind you. Life outside, behind you immediately becomes unreal. You begin to not care that it exists. All you have with you in the cell is your bare animal instincts.

I speak partly from experience. I have been behind bars a few times. Sometimes of my own volition sometimes involuntarily. Each time, I felt the same feeling of kinship with my fellow prisoners.

Behind the bars, locked out from “society,” you’re being re-habilitated, corrected, re-briefed, re-educated on life itself, without you having the opportunity of really reliving it. You’re the object of a widely planned program combining isolation, punishment, taming, briefing, etc., designed to make you sorry for your mistakes, to re-enlighten you on what you should and shouldn’t do outside, so that when you’re released, if you ever are, you can come out clean, to a world that’s supposed to welcome you and forgive you.

Can it work??? “Hell NO.” you say. How could this torment possibly do anybody any good…..But then, why else are you locked in?

You sit on your cold, steel mattressless bunk and watch a cockroach crawl out from under the filthy commode, and you don’t kill it. You envy the roach as you watch it crawl out under the cell door.

Down the cell block you hear a steel door open, then close. Like every other man that hears it, your first unconscious thought reaction is that it’s someone coming to let you out, but you know it isn’t.

You count the steel bars on the door so many times that you hate yourself for it. Your big accomplishment for the day is a mathematical deduction. You are positive of this, and only this: There are nine vertical, and sixteen horizontal bars on your door.

Down the hall another door opens and closes, then a guard walks by without looking at you, and on out another door.

“The son of a ….”

You’d like to say that you are waiting for something, but nothing ever happens. There is nothing to look forward to.

You make friends in the prison. You become one in a “clique,” whose purpose is nothing. Nobody is richer or poorer than the other. The only way wealth is measured is by the amount of tobacco a man has, or “Duffy’s Hay” as tobacco is called.

All of you have had the same things snuffed out of your lives. Every thing it seems that makes a man a man. A woman, money, a family, a job, the open road, the city, the country, ambition, power, success, failure – a million things.

Outside your cellblock is a wall. Outside that wall is another wall. It’s twenty feet high, and its granite blocks go down another eight feet in the ground. You know you’re here to stay, and for some reason you’d like to stay alive--and not rot.

So for the fourth time I have done so in California, I brought my show to Folsom. Prisoners are the greatest audience that an entertainer can perform for. We bring them a ray of sunshine in their dungeon and they’re not ashamed to respond, and show their appreciation. And after six years of talking I finally found the man who would listen at Columbia Records. Bob Johnston believed me when I told him that a prison would be the place to record an album live.

Here’s the proof. Listen closely to this album and you hear in the background the clanging of the doors, the shrill of the whistle, the shout of the men…even laughter from men who had forgotten how to laugh.

But mostly you’ll feel the electricity, and hear the single pulsation of two thousand heartbeats in men who have had their hearts torn out, as well as their minds, their nervous systems, and their souls.

Hear the sounds of the men, the convicts all brothers of mine with the Folsom Prison Blues.

--Johnny Cash

In the afterglow of the success of At Folsom Prison Cash followed up in 1969 with a second live prison concert album At San Quentin. At San Quentin was also a success and is mainly known for its breakout single "A Boy Named Sue."

But in keeping with our focus on the theme of solidarity I'd like to draw your attention to the song "San Quentin" from the album.

If you look at the track listing of At San Quentin you'll note that the song "San Quentin" appears twice. And the reason this song appears twice is a wonderful example of Cash's ability to speak for the men in prison, to give voice to their sorrow, anger and hopelessness.

Cash wrote the song "San Quentin" in the days before the concert. He'd never preformed it before a live audience. Before singing it Cash looked out over the men in the prison and told them about the origin of the song:

“I was thinking about you guys here yesterday. I’ve been here three times before and...I think I understand a little bit about how you feel about some things. It’s none of my business about how you feel about some other things. And I don’t give a damn about how you feel about some other things. But anyway, I tried to put myself in your place, and I believe this is how I would feel about San Quentin.”

And then the song starts. The lyrics:

San Quentin, you've been livin' hell to me.
You've hosted me since nineteen sixty three.
I've seen 'em come and go and I've seen them die.
And long ago I stopped askin' why.

San Quentin, I hate every inch of you.
You've cut me and have scarred me thru an' thru.
And I'll walk out a wiser weaker man;
Mister Congressman why can't you understand?

San Quentin, what good do you think you do?
Do you think I'll be different when you're through?
You bent my heart and mind and you warped my soul,
And your stone walls turn my blood a little cold.

San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell.
May your walls fall and may I live to tell.
May all the world forget you ever stood.
And may all the world regret you did no good.

San Quentin, you've been livin' hell to me.

The prisoners of San Quentin went wild. So wild they demanded Cash sing the song again. Immediately. So Cash does. And that's why the song "San Quentin" appears twice, back to back, on the album.

Cash had, once again, found a way to speak for those on the margins. He had found the words that expressed the lament of the inmates of San Quentin.

San Quentin, you've been livin' hell to me.

When you listen to the album you can hear the men cheer and cheer.

Part 6: I Will Let You Down, I Will Make You Hurt

Recently, the following search terms brought someone to the blog:

jesus crucified over adam's grave

Were you aware that Jesus was crucified over Adam's grave?

In 2008 I got really interested in Orthodox iconography. Which eventually drew me into Orthodox theology, some of which ended up in my recent book The Slavery of Death. 

Flowing out of this interest, in 2008 a wrote a bit about the iconography of the crucifixion.

To start, some fairly obvious features found in these icons.

First, we tend to see Mary and the women to the left of the cross. Mary is sometimes distinguished as the only woman with a halo around her head. On the other side of the cross is John, also with a halo, and the Centurion who confesses that “Surely this was the Son of God.”

In the background we see the city walls and gates of Jerusalem. This depicts Jesus being crucified “outside the gate,” a reference to the scapegoat ritual during the Day of Atonement where the scapegoat carries the sins of the people “outside the camp.”

In some icons we also see the sun and moon. The sun is generally darkened. The moon is colored red. These symbols echo the passage in Scripture:

Revelation 6.12-13
I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind.

This passage in Revelation is believed to refer to the earthquake associated with the death of Jesus:

Matthew 27.50-51
And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split.

This brings us to the more interesting and subtle features of the crucifixion icons, the subject of our search terms.

Specifically, if you look at the base of the cross in some icons you'll see a skull and perhaps even some bones.

The gospels report that Jesus was crucified at a place called Golgotha, the place of the skull. And according to church tradition the place of the skull was the burial site of Adam. Symbolically, then, Jesus is being crucified directly over Adam’s grave. In the icons we can see Adam's grave being cracked open exposing Adam’s skull and bones.

This image symbolizes a couple of different things.

First, there is in this the symbolism that Jesus is now replacing Adam as the New Adam. A new humanity is being established over the death of the old.

Second, we see in Adam’s skull the Orthodox notion that what was defeated at the cross was death. This is the same emphasis that has the Orthodox to focusing on the Harrowing of Hell at Easter.

Finally, beyond victory over death, victory over sin is symbolized as the blood of Jesus runs down off of the cross to cover and purify the skull and bones of Adam, representing all of sinful humanity. This particular motif is best seen in the last icon which is bloodier and, thus, clearly shows the blood of Jesus flowing down and over the skull.

Forget the well-known songs on Greatest Hits compilations, some of the best music of Johnny Cash is found on his concept albums. The first concept album, and considered one of Cash's best, was Ride This Train (1960). A few years later in 1964 Cash followed up with another concept album Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian.

When we talk about Cash's music standing in solidarity with oppressed or marginalized groups I think the best place to start is with Bitter Tears and the tragedy of Native Americans in the United States.

Cash was troubled by the experience of the Native American. So he recorded Bitter Tears to give voice to this tragedy and to throw a light on how our history books have conveniently swept the genocide of Native Americans under the rug.

Given the content of the album Bitter Tears wasn't going to set any sales records. Cash struggled to get anyone to play the songs on the radio. Cash attributed the lack of airplay to moral cowardice and racism.

The album does contain strong stuff. Bitter Tears sounds like it came straight out of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the Untied States. On the album Cash revisits American history, only this time reading history from the perspective of the Native American rather than that of the White man.

For example, Bitter Tears starts off with the song "As Long as the Grass Shall Grow." The song recounts the loss of Seneca nation land in Pennsylvania due to the construction of the Kinzua Dam in the early 1960s. The song begins with the treaty and promises made by the US government giving that land to the Seneca nation. The treaty signed by George Washington gave the land to the Seneca nation forever: "for as long as the grass shall grow and the moon shall rise." But forever really wasn't forever. The treaty was broken, like so many of the treaties signed by the US government with the various Native American nations.

The most shocking song on Bitter Tears is "Custer," a Native American recounting of the death of General Custer at Little Bighorn. The refrain of the song delights in the death of Custer by gloating "the General he don't ride well anymore." The song speaks to how the victors are the ones write the history books: "It's not called an Indian victory but a bloody massacre." And the song ends by taking delight in how Custer's flowing blond hair got scalped:

General George A. Custer, oh his yellow hair had lustre
But the General he don't ride well anymore
For now the General's silent, he got barbered violent
And the General he don't ride well anymore

And you'll have to listen to the song to hear how Cash chortles with delight when singing about Custer getting scalped. In this song is Cash giving voice to Native American rage. "Custer" is an imprecatory psalm, like Psalm 137:

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.

How can we sing the songs of the Lord
while in a foreign land?

Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you
according to what you have done to us.

Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

The lament and rage continue in the song "Apache Tears," a song recounting the horrors of the US government forcibly removing Native Americans from their land and marching them to reservations. Thousands died on these "trails of tears." One verse from "Apache Tears" recounts an Indian woman raped to death by drunken soldiers:

Dead grass, dry roots, hunger crying in the night
Ghost of broken hearts and laws are here
And who saw the young squaw, they judged by their whiskey law
Tortured till she died of pain and fear
Where the soldiers lay her back, are the black Apache tears

I bet you are starting to see why Bitter Tears didn't get much radio airplay.

The most famous song of Bitter Tears is "The Ballad of Ira Hayes." Ira Hayes, a Native American, was one of the five Marines who raised the American flag at Iwo Jima, captured in the iconic photograph. But like so many Native American men, Ira Hayes succumbed to alcoholism upon his return to the States. Ira Hayes, veteran and American hero, died lying in a ditch from exposure and alcohol poisoning.

Finally, the song "White Girl" tells an intimate story about how racism is tied up with sex, romance and marriage. A "white girl" toys around with a Native American man, treating him like an exotic plaything and showpiece. But he really falls in love and proposes marriage. She rejects him on racial grounds. It was fun while it lasted, but it never was in the cards. What was he thinking? A "white girl" would never marry an Indian:

She took me to her parties
She carried me around
And I was a proud one
The tallest man in town
...

Well, when she came to leave me
She took me by the arm
And she said, she loved me
And would not do me harm

But she would not marry
Not an Indian she said
She thanked me for my offer
And I wished that I was dead

Such are the songs on Bitter Tears, one of Johnny Cash's most courageous albums. Bitter Tears was never going to sell a lot of records, but it stands out for its conviction and conscience. Bitter Tears is an album that speaks about tragedy, suffering and injustice across the spectrum of the Native American experience. This was Johnny Cash trying to give voice to that suffering and prick the conscience of his nation.

Through these songs Johnny Cash tried to draw our hearts and minds toward the bitter tears we had caused, ignored and forgotten.

Part 5: San Quentin You've Been Living Hell to Me

Beyond how Johnny Cash's music speaks to both saints and sinners--more specifically to the saint and the sinner in each of us--the other prominent theme in Johnny Cash's music is that of solidarity.

Cash's music always tried to speak with and for the marginalized, forgotten, oppressed, broken and criminal. Cash's music often came from the margins. Cash tried to speak for people who had no voice.

And as a sign of this solidarity with those on the margins in the early '70s Cash took to wearing all black clothing during his concerts, in sharp contrast to the flashy fringes and rhinestones of his Nashville contemporaries. Johnny Cash dressed like he was going to a funeral. Dressing in black was a sign of grief and mourning, especially during Vietnam as the war wore on and the death toll ticked up.

Cash summarized the symbolism of his clothing in his famous song "The Man in Black":

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen' that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believen' that we all were on their side.

Well, there's things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin' everywhere you go,
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You'll never see me wear a suit of white.

Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black. 

Personally, "The Man in Black" isn't my favorite song that expresses Cash's solidary with the downtrodden. I love the theology of the song. I don't like the rhyme or music all that much.

My personal favorite song expressing this theme is a song Cash wrote for his album Orange Blossom Special entitled "All God's People Ain't Free." When you hear "All God's People Ain't Free" you'd think it was a traditional Negro Spiritual. But it was a Johnny Cash original:

I'd sing more about more of this land
But all God's children ain't free
I'd open up every door I can
'Cause all God's children ain't free

I met a beaten broken man
He shovels dirt but got no land
And he held out his hand to me
All God's children ain't free

I'd sing along to a silly song
But all God's children ain't free
I'm gonna sing a blues for the men they done wrong
'Cause all God's children ain't free

Mister, how about the man you condemn to die
By taking everything that he's livin' by?
And reject him from society
All God's children ain't free
No, reject him from society
All God's children ain't free

I'd be happy walking any street
But all God's children ain't free
I'd have a smile for all I meet
But all God's children ain't free

I'd whistle down the road but I wouldn't feel right
I'd hear somebody cryin' out at night
From a sharecropper's shack or penitentiary
All God's children ain't free

From a sharecropper's shack or penitentiary
All God's children ain't free

Now that's a freedom song.

This theme of solidarity--grieving alongside and for the hungry, the addicted, the criminal, the poor, the old, the beaten down, the dead--is the other great theological theme in Cash's music. And there's not much more to add, theologically, beyond Cash's own lyrics in "The Man in Black."

So rather than simply repeat the theme what I'd like to do is illustrate the theme in the next four posts by looking closely at four specific populations and how Cash expressed solidarity with each. How Cash tried to be "the man in black" for each.

We'll start in the next post with the Native American Indians.

Part 4: Bitter Tears

My good friend Mark Love, who is the Director of the Resource Center for Missional Leadership at Rochester College and who directs the only graduate program I teach in, reminded me about some of his theological reflections regarding the saint and sinner themes in the music and life of Johnny Cash.

In my post on this subject today my observations were mainly descriptive, simply noting the stark moral juxtapositions in the music of Johnny Cash and in the man himself. Johnny Cash was both sinner and saint. And his music reflected that.

Mark's reflections go deeper. Specifically, Mark notes that in light of our dual nature--that we are, in Martin Luther's formulation, simultaneously both sinner and saint--it's often hard to forge a coherent identity. For Johnny Cash the task was how to reconcile his outlaw image with the saint.

In Mark's view, Cash achieved this reconciliation when his outlaw image was replaced with suffering, best exemplified in Cash's late recordings with Rick Rubin. As Mark argues it, Cash eventually found a coherent identity when he shifted away from outlaw/saint to sufferer/saint. And in this trajectory Mark sees the shape of the gospel.

You can read Mark's reflections here: Johnny Cash, Outlaw, Sufferer and the Gospel.

Martin Luther's famous formulation was simul justus et peccator. We are simultaneously both sinner and saint. We are sinners but we are also righteous in that we are saved by grace.

And while I might be stretching the idea beyond what Luther intended, I think simul justus et peccator is a great summary of the theology of Johnny Cash.

In 2000 Cash put out a 3-album compilation of hand-picked songs looking back over his career. The compilation was entitled Love God Murder. (A fourth album Life as added later.)

Few recording artists could have produced such stark juxtapositions looking back over their career.

For the Love album Cash picked love songs like his big hits "I Walk the Line" and "Ring of Fire."  But I want to focus on the other two albums, God and Murder.

From the beginning Johnny Cash recorded gospel songs. The first one was "Belshazzar" recorded in 1957 with Sun Records, the only gospel song Sam Phillips allowed Cash to record. Once Cash left Sun to join Columbia Records he had more liberty to record gospels songs and albums. He quickly exercised that artistic freedom in 1959 to record an entire album of gospel music Hymns By Johnny Cash. For the rest of his career Cash included gospels songs on his albums as well as recording many more gospel albums. Noteworthy among these is The Gospel Road (1973), the soundtrack to the movie The Gospel Road. The Gospel Road was a musical documentary of the life of Jesus that was produced and narrated by Cash and shot on location in Israel.

All that to say, Cash's body of work features a great deal of gospel material, even a movie, all of which is very devout and earnest. The God album of Love God Murder features many of these songs.

And the Murder album features, well, all the songs Cash sang about murder.

As with Cash's gospel songs, this dark impulse was there from the very beginning. The second big hit recorded by Cash with Sun Records (the first was "Hey, Porter") in 1955 was "Folsom Prison Blues." The second verse of the song contains the chilling, sociopathic lines:

When I was just a baby my mama told me. Son,
Always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns.
But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.  

I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. When they recorded the song in 1955 Cash and Sam Phillips weren't sure if radio stations would play the song because of that line. But the song did get played and became one of Cash's biggest hits.

Such are the songs on the Murder album. Songs like the traditional murder ballad "Delia's Gone," a song Cash originally recorded in 1962 but one he revisited late in his career in 1994 on the first album he did with Rick Rubin, American Recordings. "Delia's Gone" tells the story of a man shooting his girlfriend and later being haunted by her ghost in prison:

Delia, oh, Delia Delia all my life
If I hadn't have shot poor
Delia I'd have had her for my wife
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

I went up to Memphis
And I met Delia there Found her in her parlor
And I tied to her chair
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

She was low down and trifling
And she was cold and mean
Kind of evil make me want to Grab my sub machine
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

First time I shot her I shot her in the side
Hard to watch her suffer
But with the second shot she died
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

But jailer, oh, jailer Jailer,
I can't sleep 'Cause all around my bedside
I hear the patter of Delia's feet
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

So if you woman's devilish
You can let her run
Or you can bring her down and do her
Like Delia got done
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

That's a dark, dark song.

All told, these are the sorts of songs on the God and Murder albums, and they help illustrate a juxtaposition that I'd like the draw out about Cash's music. This is the startling moral juxtaposition of God and Murder, the juxtaposition of all those dark, sociopathic songs with all those gospel songs.

Saints and sinners held simultaneously in the same artistic vision. And embodied by the artist himself.

Consider, for example, the moral contrast found in Cash's concert performances. Listen to At San Quentin, the live concert album recorded in San Quentin prison. (I'll talk more about this album and the epic At Folsom Prison album later in this series.)

Early in the San Quentin concert Cash is cussing and joking about his own stints in jail and his own drug use. This is the "bass ass" Johnny Cash. This is the concert where Cash gave the finger to a photographer and was captured in an iconic photo.

This is Johnny Cash the sinner.

But halfway through the concert (if you listen to the 2000 release of the full concert) Cash changes and shifts into gospel mode. In the second half of the concert Cash sings three gospel songs "There Will Be Peace in the Valley," "He Turned Water Into Wine," and "The Old Account Was Settled Long Ago." Before singing "He Turned Water Into Wine" Cash shares with the inmates about how he composed the song in the town of Cana while he was in Israel preparing for The Gospel Road album and movie.

This is Johnny Cash the saint.

Which brings us back to Martin Luther's simul justus et peccator.

I think one of the most interesting things about the music and life of Johnny Cash, something very unique about him, is this mixture of light and darkness. There's a lot of dark, murderous music out there. And there's a lot of devout, earnest Christian music out there. And most artists sing one sort of music or the other.

But Johnny Cash sang both.

Johnny would sing about sociopathic killers and Jesus in almost the same breath. And Cash himself exhibited this mixture of light and darkness. Cash was a devout Christian who read his bible daily. Even in the midst of deep drug addiction.

Saint and sinner.

And this is, I think, a huge part of the appeal of Johnny Cash, his life and his music. Cash's music and his life, very much like the Psalms, speak to both the light and the darkness in each of us in equal measure.

Simul justus et peccator. 

We are, simultaneously, both sinner and saint.

Part 3: The Man In Black

A few months ago I read Robert Hilburn's excellent new biography Johnny Cash: The Life. Highly recommended. Hilburn's biography got me so into Johnny Cash that I've been listening to him almost constantly.

So I thought I'd devote posts this week and next to the theology of Johnny Cash.

Cash got his big break in 1954 when he walked into Sam Phillips's Sun Records in Memphis, TN. Phillips was just starting out and his big client at the time was the young Elvis Presley. Cash would eventually be the second great star of Sun Records, followed by the signings of Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison, helping Sam Phillips carve out and shape the sound of early Rock 'N Roll.

"I Walk the Line" was one of Johnny Cash's earliest Sun Records hits. The song was recorded in 1956.

Cash grew up loving gospel music but Sam Phillips insisted there was no market for it. Phillips pushed Cash for pop songs along the lines of what Elvis was putting out.

In fact, when he heard the song Phillips didn't like the the tempo of Cash's preferred version of "I Walk the Line." Cash wanted the song to be a ballad. But Phillips asked Cash, at the end of the recording session, to do one uptempo version of the song. Just for fun. Cash reluctantly agreed.

Soon after Cash was shocked when he heard "I Walk the Line" on the radio. Phillips had sneakily released the uptempo version. But Cash couldn't object too much. The song became a hit.

The song was inspired by Vivian Cash's worries about her husband being faithful to her on the road. Cash wrote the song to reassure her of his love. "I Walk the Line" is a song of love and fidelity.

"I Walk the Line"
I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time
I keep the ends out for the tie that binds
Because you're mine, I walk the line

I find it very, very easy to be true
I find myself alone when each day is through
Yes, I'll admit that I'm a fool for you
Because you're mine, I walk the line

As sure as night is dark and day is light
I keep you on my mind both day and night
And happiness I've known proves that it's right
Because you're mine, I walk the line

You've got a way to keep me on your side
You give me cause for love that I can't hide
For you I know I'd even try to turn the tide
Because you're mine, I walk the line

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time
I keep the ends out for the tie that binds
Because you're mine, I walk the line 

Interestingly, Cash got the last laugh over Sam Phillips. While Phillips didn't publish Cash's preferred version of "I Walk the Line" Johnny Cash figured out a way to smuggle a gospel song past the record producer.

From Robert Hilburn's biography:

While ["I Walk the Line"] is undeniably inspired by his love for Vivian, Cash sometimes spoke of a second meaning. Though he never confronted Phillips about it, Cash missed his gospel side, and he designed "I Walk the Line" as an expression of spiritual as well as romantic allegiance...During an interview just months before his death, he smiled and told me, "Sam never knew it, but 'I Walk the Line' was my first gospel hit."

I thought we'd start this series with Cash's first big hit along with its twin meanings and how those meanings played out in Cash's life.

"I Walk the Line" is a song of both marital and spiritual fidelity. And in both cases Cash struggled mightily. Again, "I Walk the Line" was written for Vivian Cash, Johnny's first wife. Vivian and Johnny eventually divorced and Cash later married June Carter. And their relationship, while difficult at times, did end up being a wonderful marriage and partnership. Still, it's hard to look back on "I Walk the Line" and not think of the broken promises to Vivian in light of the lyrics of the song.

Which brings us to the spiritual side of the song. If "I Walk the Line" was a covert expression of spiritual fidelity to God Cash struggled here as well. Cash's decades long struggles with addiction are well-documented and in his biography Hilburn pulls no punches describing the darkness of Cash's addiction and the toll it took on his family and friends.

Consequently, in my estimation "I Walk the Line," with its dual pledge of loyalty and the way Cash struggled to live up to those pledges, is the perfect crucible for coming to grips with the theology of Johnny Cash. Here was a person and an artist who tried to stay faithful but failed over and over.

And yet, Cash never gave up trying to "walk the line." He reconciled with his children from his first marriage. And he kept coming back to God, over and over, even in the darkest days of his addiction.

Cash wasn't able to walk the line. But he never gave up trying, never gave up struggling to live up to those promises.

And in this Cash's life and the song "I Walk the Line" express the spiritual journey that many of us have walked.

Falling, stumbling. But getting back up. Confessing. Repenting. Fighting on.

Singing the song.

Trying, over and over again, to walk the line.

Part 2: Sinner & Saint

Search terms that brought someone to the blog:

axe body spray

Yes, I've blogged about Axe Body Spray. In fact I used Axe Body Spray to make a point about René Girard, scapegoating and our contemporary culture of victim-hood. And how that culture of victim-hood is actually being used to cover up victims and perpetuate acts of scapegoating.

From my 2012 post "Why Scapegoating is Like Axe Body Spray":

How is Axe Body Spray similar to scapegoating?

René Girard has argued that prior to the gospels religious myth--the sacred--obscured the mechanism of scapegoating. That is, rather than seeing victims being murdered the ancients saw sacralized violence, violence backed by the decree, plan, and will of the gods. According to Girard, over against that sacred myth the gospels desacralized violence, exposing scapegoating for what it is: murder. As Mark Heim describes it, the gospels function as an anti-myth.

The gospels accomplish this by reading the scapegoating story from the inside out, from the perspective of the victim. As readers of the gospels follow Jesus through the Passion narrative they see that he is innocent. And yet, Jesus is killed so that powerful constituencies can maintain the status quo. The violent mechanism propping up the principalities and powers has been unmasked.

So telling the story from the victim's perspective desacralizes violence, it exposes the powerplays and violence at work when we scapegoat to keep institutional, national, social, political and economic arrangements as they are. And because the gospels do this, because they provide us with an anti-myth, we've come to see scapegoating as a bad thing.

And yet we continue to engage in scapegoating. Even though we know it's wrong.

Why?

Well, because scapegoating is like Axe Body Spray.

How so?

You're familiar with Axe Body Spray, right? Axe Body Spray is famous because it is the product behind one of the most successful marketing campaigns in advertisement history. Its commercials are both iconic and infamous. The basic plotline is always the same. A geeky and skinny guy sprays Axe on and the scent becomes a pheromone for hot women who begin to aggressively and lustful throw themselves at the guy.

Because of the success of the campaign Axe quickly became the top selling male antiperspirant/deodorant brand. Axe outsold its closest rival by tens of millions.

And then it all began to go wrong.

I'll let Martin Lindstrom tell what happened:

[T]he brand's early success soon began to backfire. The problem was, the ads had worked too well in persuading the Insecure Novices and Enthusiastic Novices to buy the product. Geeks and dorks everywhere were now buying Axe by the caseload, and it was hurting the brand's image. Eventually (in the United States, at least), to most high-school and college-age males, Axe had essentially become the brand for pathetic losers and, not surprisingly, sales took a huge hit.

The Axe marketing campaign worked too well. It targeted a certain demographic--insecure men--and moved a lot of product. But Axe became too closely associated with the target demographic causing many other men to avoid the product. Only dorks and pimply kids were believed to use Axe.

Axe was hurt by its own success. And something similar has happened to the unmasking of scapegoating violence.

Specifically, once scapegoating became widely recognized as a bad thing, once we started to place the moral power on the side of the victim, it soon became natural to identify oneself as the scapegoat, as the victim. Everyone, it seems, now wants to be the victim. Everyone wants to be the scapegoat.

Why? Because in the wake of the gospels we see a moral power residing with the scapegoat, we want to side with the victim and the underdog. Thus, if you can be identified as the victim you can win people to your cause. It's like what happened with Axe spray. The gospels so thoroughly unmasked scapegoating that everyone now wants to be the victim. Everyone wants to be at the center of the story as the innocent martyr. Nowadays being the scapegoat is the quickest way to demonize your enemies.

This is the argument made by James Davison Hunter in his book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. According to Hunter political discourse in American today is characterized by "narratives of injury" where people on both the Left and the Right rush to characterize themselves as victims. Each group feels harmed by the other. And the great irony here is that this sense of injury creates the justification to scapegoat the other group.

The psychological reversal here is quite startling: Claiming to be the scapegoat so that you can scapegoat others: Claiming to be harmed so that you can harm others: Claiming to be injured so that you can injure others: Claiming to be the victim of violence so that you can inflict violence upon others.

Here is Hunter describing all this, the psychology of victimhood that now describes American political discourse:

The sense of injury is the key. Over time, the perceived injustice becomes central to the person's and the group's identity. Understanding themselves to be victimized is not a passive acknowledgement but a belief that can be cultivated. Accounts of atrocity become a crucial subplot of the narrative, evidence that reinforces the sense that they have been or will be wronged or victimized. Cultivating the fear of further injury becomes a strategy for generating solidarity within the group and mobilizing the group to action. It is often useful at such times to exaggerate or magnify the threat. The injury or threat thereof is so central to the identity and dynamics of the group that to give it up is to give up a critical part of whom they understand themselves to be. Thus, instead of letting go, the sense of injury continues to get deeper.

In this logic, it is only natural that wrongs need to be righted. And so it is, then, that the injury--real or perceived--leads the aggrieved to accuse, blame, vilify, and then seek revenge on those whom they see as responsible. The adversary has to be shown for who they are, exposed for their corruption, and put in their place. [This] ressentiment, then, is expressed as a discourse of negation; the condemnation and denigration of enemies in the effort to subjugate and dominate those who are culpable.

And that's why the unmasking of scapegoating is like Axe Body Spray. Scapegoating has been so successfully exposed that everyone now wants to be the scapegoat to justify their efforts to injure and harm others.

Jesus said to look out for wolves in sheep's clothing.

He was right. In more ways than one.

Enemy-occupied territory--that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I really like this quote from C.S. Lewis as it captures my vision of "spiritual warfare." This is the vision that I tried to articulate in my "Warfare and Weakness" series, a vision of what spiritual warfare looks like for progressive Christians. (See the sidebar.)

Specifically, as I tried to articulate in that series, the "weapon" of spiritual warfare was Jesus's weapon: his cross, his self-giving love. Jesus's self-giving love is how he "defeated" the principalities and powers. The cross is how we "fight" evil.

The paradox, of course, the foolishness of the cross, is that love is weakness. That is what I like about Lewis's quote. Spiritual warfare isn't top-down domination. For it's the "satan" who is actually the "ruler of the world," the one engaged in top-down domination. Spiritual warfare, rather, comes up from the bottom, from the location of weakness. Spiritual warfare isn't the winning of the powerful but the sabotage of the weak.

Spiritual warfare is Love's "great campaign of sabotage."

Or what I like to call the subversion of doing beautiful things.

While discussing faith with my friend Jonathan McRay awhile back he sent me this quote from Wendell Berry:

[T]here are an enormous number of people--and I am one of them--whose native religion, for better or worse, is Christianity. We were born to it; we began to learn about it before we became conscious; it is, whatever we think of it, an intimate belonging of our being; it informs our consciousness, our language, and our dreams. We can turn away from it or against it, but that will only bind us tightly to a reduced version of it. A better possibility is that this, our native religion, should survive and renew itself so that it may become as largely and truly instructive as we need it to be. 

I shared with Jonathan that I've only just begun to understand what Berry is talking about here, this embrace and renewal of Christianity, my native religion that informs my consciousness, language and dreams.

I think many of us are in an in between place with Christianity. Something needs to give. Should we stay or go? Obviously, everyone has to make their own choices. For my part, I've found wisdom in what Berry is saying here.

A lot of people who have decided to leave the faith are still, for lack of a better word, shadow Christians, still haunted by God. In the words of Flannery O'Connor, Jesus remains for many this wild, ragged figure moving from tree to tree in the back their minds.

But for others the "better possibility" has been for us to intentionally step out of the liminal space, away from the cognitive dissonance, to invest in, cultivate, and renew our native religion.

As I argue it in The Authenticity of Faith I think the cultivation of doubt is ethically important. Doubt creates an openness of heart which is a prerequisite of love. But that openness only creates a potentiality, it is not enough to pull you forward into greater love, mercy, gentleness, grace, peace and joy.

From doubt you either move away from the faith or toward renewal. This is the choice facing many progressive Christians today.

For they who fashion songs must live too close to pain,
Acquaint themselves too well with grief and tears:
Must make the slow, deep, throbbing pulse of years
And their own heartbeats one; watch the slow train
Of passing autumns paint their scarlet stain
Upon the hills, and learn that beauty sears.
The whole world’s woe and heartbreak must be theirs,
And theirs each vision smashed, each new dream slain.

But sing again, oh you who have the heart,
Sweet songs as fragile as a passing breath,
Although your broken heartstrings make your lyre,
And each pure strain must rend the soul apart;
For it was ever thus: to sing is death;
And in your spirit flames your body’s pyre.

--"Weltschmerz" by Frank Yerby

I've continued to think some more about power, specifically about how to approach the question Jeff raised in the comments to my recent post regarding Andy Crouch's book Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power

You'll recall that in that post I suggested that Andy's book would have been improved if it had included a clearer analysis of power. That definitional ambiguity in the book makes it difficult to answer Jeff's question: Is power redeemable?

As I mentioned to Jeff, it all depends what you mean by power.

So thinking some more about this, let me try to analyze some terminology, in a tentative and provisional way. I'm sure there are theologians who have done a lot of work in this area, so apologies if there is a book out there that I need to read. What follows are just some thoughts off the top of my head.

As I noted in my previous post, the working definition of power in Playing God seems to be causality, the potential (created by, as I argued it, ability and opportunity) to produce effects upon the world.

Power in Playing God is often just synonymous with causality. And if that's the definition of power--the potential to produce effects upon the world--then the answer to the question "Is power redeemable?" seems clear: Yes, power is redeemable. If the effects we produce enhance human flourishing or, to use a biblical term, the Kingdom of God, then power seems redeemable.

Causality can be directed toward good and holy outcomes. That is one of the main points made in Playing God: Causality directed toward human flourishing is a good thing.

But if causality is all we mean by "power" then a lot of the drama is sucked out of the conversation. 

So let me try to flesh out some terms to see how the conversation about power might be affected.

Again, by power we mean causality, the potential to produce effects upon the world.

Is causality redeemable?

Yes, it appears so. See Playing God. If directed toward human flourishing causality is redeemable. Causality can be holy.

Next term: force.

By force we mean the application of power in overcoming some resistance.

This is still pretty vague but it gets closer to the more interesting questions. The key issue in force, I'm suggesting, is the presence and overcoming of resistance.

For example, if you "force a door open" you have to apply power to overcome some resistance to the door not opening, perhaps because the door is locked. If we "force a square peg into a round hole" we are applying power to overcome the physical resistance of the peg not conforming to the shape of the hole. Finally, when we "force a person to do something" we apply power (or the threat of power) to overcome a person's physical or mental resistance.

Okay, now we reach an interesting question: Is force redeemable?

The situation is more difficult here. The presence of resistance brings in some ethical questions. I think most of the examples of force in our world would suggest that force isn't redeemable. Force in these cases are instances of coercion, using power to make people do things they don't want to do.

But are there any instances where force is redeemable?

I think so. A few examples.

Is persuasion a form of force? We speak of the "force of an argument" or a "forceful plea." In these cases resistance is being overcome--prior dissent or disagreement--and the persuasive rhetoric overcomes this resistance.

Consider also how I might restrain a person from attacking another person. I might hold the attacker in a bear hug. I'm using force--I'm overcoming the attacker's resistance--to protect everyone involved from harm.

There are also instances where parents might use forms of force to get children to behave, acquire good habits or act responsibility.

Finally, what about Gandhi's satyagraha, sometimes translated as "soul force" or "truth force"? What about the force of love in Martin Luther King Jr.'s philosophy of nonviolence? In these instances the oppressed person is trying to overcome the resistance of the oppressor. Thus the use of force. But the location of both the resistance and application force is spiritual rather than physical. Force is being applied to hearts and minds in the effort to convert the oppressor.  

In short, the most interesting questions regarding power are less about causality than about the application of force. What is force? Is it ever appropriate to use force? If so, when and how?

And beyond these ethical issues related to force, an analysis of force bears upon soteriological and eschatological questions. Specifically, in the face of human resistance (sin, evil) will God use force to set the world to rights? And if so, what sort of force?

Force is also in play in questions of theodicy. Specifically, should a loving and all-powerful God use force to protect us from harm in this world? Or should God allow causality to run its course?

All in all, it seems like a deep theological account of force is worth pursuing.

Which brings us to a third term, violence.

By violence we mean force that causes harm or damage.

Violence is generally associated with force, forcibly causing harm. But harm isn't always caused by force. Harm can be done through inaction, acts of omission rather than commission. Violence due to neglect or abandonment would be examples

Is violence redeemable? Or, phrased in the language of Playing God, can violence be used to protect or create human flourishing?

Again, there are a host of ethical issues in play here. The just war and pacifism debate is one example. And there are also the theological questions about if God resorts to or will resort to violence to set the world to rights. We see this issue--the relationship to God and violence--emerge in debates about the Old Testament, atonement and final judgment.

In conclusion, I think the question "Is power redeemable?" is too vague to answer. Or too banal. If by power we mean causality the question isn't all that interesting.

But questions about force and violence get us closer to our ethical and theological concerns about power.   

We all exert power in the world, generically speaking. We produce effects upon the world. And we should attend to those affects. All things being equal, we should use what power and influence we have to "play God" in promoting human flourishing.

But should we "play God" in using force? Should we "play God" in using violence?

Because before we can "play God" we need to have a vision of God, a model of the One we are to emulate. Thus, how our "powerful" God relates to force and violence becomes a critical ethical and theological issue.

Before anyone starts "playing God" these questions need to get answered.

Because when force and violence enter the picture play time is over.