Live at Radio City by Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, Part 2 [Theological Liner Notes]
August 24, 2011
Read Part 1
“Don’t Drink the Water,” a song which evokes images of both the South African apartheid and the persecution of Native Americans, is Matthews’ moving indictment of oppression and empire. The song is narrated by the oppressor who possesses the other’s land with confidence:
“I have no time to justify to you/ fool you’re blind / move aside for me.”
Toward the end, Matthews breaks into the first verse of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land,” and then ends the song, still singing as the oppressor, who now explains how it really is with a disturbing clarity that deserves to be quoted at length:
“This land was made/ And I’ll build heaven and call it home/ And I’ll live with my justice, and I’ll live with my greed in me/ live with no mercy/ and I live with my friends at feet/ and I live with my hatred/ and live with my jealousy/ oh I live with the notion I don’t need anyone but me/ Don’t drink the water / There’s blood in the water”
These lyrics expose the poverty of the oppressor himself, who drives away, and crushes, and burns all others, so that he is finally consigned to a kind of hell—living with himself alone.
Implicitly, this song critiques wide swathes of Christianity that are historically responsible for going along with, and in many cases providing the ideological backbone for, oppression, and imperialism. The condemnation is complete whether we are talking about the Dutch Reformed church of apartheid, the pietistic Protestants behind American expansionism, Catholic “missionary” activity among the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, or Anglicanism which “held the coat” for the British rape of several continents. It is a crushing indictment of all those who believe they can build heaven on the backs of the poor and the dispossessed.
But the song is not without a subtle note of hope. “Don’t the water/ There’s blood in the water” is surely a reference to the terrible slaughter of innocents that was the result of South African and North American apartheid. These lyrics also make the historically accurate point that through brutality, the oppressor poisons the resources he fights so hard to take. However, I believe there is a biblical allusion in these lyrics. Blood in the water references the Exodus narrative when God plagues Egypt for refusing to end the oppression of the Israelites. So, Matthews evokes—perhaps inadvertently—that great story of liberation, how God freed the Israelites from slavery, how through Christ God “brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly” [Luke 1:52] and how, in the final shakedown, God will vindicate the oppressed and the downtrodden.
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As a self-identifying agnostic who writes lyrics replete with Christian and biblical themes, you would expect Matthews to insert a healthy dose of skepticism to his songs, and he indeed does. In “Eh Hee,” in addition to that faith in love mentioned in part 1, we a find a deep suspicion of religious leaders and teachers:
“Be wary of those who want to try to convince you/ that they know answer no matter the question / Be wary of those who believe in a neat little world/ Cause’ it’s just fucking crazy, you know that it is.”
Could you ask for a more succinct and devastating critique of the Truth Project? These lyrics comprise the warning label that every postmodern would put on the products of modernity, especially the Christian products of modernity. These are the lyrics that keep Dinesh D’Souza up at night.
Of course, Christianity does not have to be that way. Making truth claims, as the Church most certainly does, doesn’t mean you have to be an ass about it as some in the Church most certainly are. It doesn’t mean we have truth completely figured out, nor does it mean that we’re the only ones who posses truth in our faith tradition.
“Praise God who has many names…”
There is such a thing as absolute truth, but there are also truths that bend, truths that are not always true for everyone at all times (There, Baby Boomer generation of Christians, that wasn’t so hard, was it?). Matthews lyrics call us, the Church, to stop focusing on being right and start focusing on overcoming evil with good (love).
Continuing with songs where Matthews directly engages with Christianity, we come to the “Save Me.” In an imaginative retelling of Christ’s temptation in the desert, Matthews casts himself as encountering a man in the desert (Jesus), and becomes his “tempter;” he offers Jesus food and drink—a perfectly humanitarian thing to do, but he refuses:
“No, my faith is all I need.”
To which Matthews replies,
“Then save me/ Mr. walking man/ If you can.”
As the song progresses, Matthews role as the Adversary who dares Christ to save him morphs to a humble person who wants to believe, who wants to be saved, but can’t figure out how, and wonders if it even still possible:
“You don’t need to prove a thing to me/ Just give me faith, make me believe/…Save me, Save me/ Stranger if you please/ Or am I too far gone/ to get back on?”
Expressed in these lyrics is a real sense of longing, of wanting to find faith in God, but coming up short. In the video recording of the Live at Town Hall concert, a totally hammered Matthews introduces the song in an interesting way: ”This song is a comedy…song. Maybe, no, maybe it’s tongue in cheek. I don’t know, maybe it’s a plea for help from the heavens. I don’t know. You decide.”
By the end of the song a third voice enters,
“You might try saving yourself.”
In this fractured soteriology, then, we have a God who doesn’t have time for sinners such as Matthews, we have a satan who cries to God for faith, and we have a Pelagian who tells the penitent to save himself.
There is a danger in the Church to write off such people as the narrator of this song. Sometimes the attitude is that if you don’t simply have faith in God, if it doesn’t come easy, then there is no room for you in the Church. But faith doesn’t always come easy. Who hasn’t felt abandoned by God? It’s not that Matthews didn’t have faith before. He asks if it’s too late to get back on. Matthews the agnostic and many like him are having an extended (permanent?) Dark Night of the Soul. The Church should not only welcome these folks, and encourage them, but we should also welcome their voices and opinions, and let them challenge our own over-confidence, our own self-assuredness. Maybe we are afraid of them because they threaten to expose our own doubts and frailties to the members of our community and to ourselves.
Part 3 (coming soon, including some notes on the song, “Bartender”)
Anglican Identities: Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu
September 4, 2010
In the tasty casserole that is theology there are many layers. Some layers tend to be more important than others, but to forget any one layer always lessens the whole. In theology, there are at least three layers: study, prayer, and action. I think all three are vitally important for theology to really be theology. But is one more important than the others?
The Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, Desmond Mpilo Tutu, while clearly a participant in the first two layers of theology as a profound thinker and educator and as a man of prayer, is perhaps best known as a theologian of action. Beginning in the late 1970s, he non-violently fought an unrelenting war on the injustice of apartheid, preaching peace and justice ex cathedra (as bishop of Johannesburg, Lesotho and finally Archbishop of Cape Town), and preaching from the streets, amongst the protesters, risking his life on nearly a daily basis for two decades until he saw apartheid fall. Immediately, he began working for reconciliation and forgiveness. He chaired what is arguably the most extraordinary committee every convened by a government, The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is credited for preventing a race-war that would have destroyed South Africa and would have had devastating consequences for the entire continent. That work completed he moved on to champion the causes of eradicating HIV/AIDs and poverty in Africa, as well as continuing to call all people of the world to peace, forgiveness and reconciliation. How beautiful the feet of them who preach the Gospel of Peace.
His theological action, as well as his career as bishop was preceded by a successful academic career, but still much of his theological writing has grown out of his lifetime of theological activism. His themes are relatively simple, forgiveness, unconditional love, justice, peace and non-violence and yet these Sunday School ideas are lent a deep profundity by the power of Desmond Tutu’s witness. It is his right theological action that gives him authority to speak. Furthermore, these mainly ethical concerns of his are radically rooted in the theology of creation, anthropology, and Incarnation; all good Christian ethics is really theology, and all good theology leads to good Christian ethics.
One central and influential theological concept that Archbishop Tutu is credited with bringing to the attention of the Church is the African theological concept of Ubuntu. As Tutu puts it, Ubuntu means that “my humanity is inextricably bound up with yours, so that we can only be humans together.” There is a no more elegant theology of the Other than Ubuntu theology.
I fear–partly due to recent controversy–the idea of Ubuntu has been written off by some as a liberal theological fad that has no root in orthodoxy, but before one makes hasty judgements one should consult Archbishop Tutu on the subject both in books like No Future without Forgiveness and in some of his recorded interviews (ignore the ridiculous guy in the beginning), speeches, sermons (like one linked to the word “liberal” below), and lectures.
Archbishop Tutu is one of the main reasons I began to look into the Episcopal Church. He is, I believe, one of the finest examples of a Christian anywhere in the Church universal, and certainly in the Anglican communion. While many in the Anglican communion, especially many of his brothers in the global south, feel that he is entirely too liberal, and while many in the Episcopal church may even feel that he is a bit too traditional, and while many others think he is just plain silly, I feel that he is quintessentially Anglican. Aren’t we too liberal for some, and too traditional for others? Aren’t we the “laughing-stocks” of Christianity (praise be to God)?
His life and example point to one of the things that fascinates me very much about this church: how does the Anglican church–which for much of its history was an imperial church, spreading the imperial gospel of English domination–how does such a church produce remarkable men like Desmond Tutu? How did it turn itself around like that, from being a force of oppression and injustice to being one the most stalwart and proven means of their dismantling? The Anglican communion may not always have the recipe just right, but one must admit that those three elements of study, prayer and action are vividly present in this weird, troubled, and hopeful church. One should also admit that in Desmond Tutu the Anglican church has an incredible witness of God’s coming reign of peace and justice.
Well, I was waiting to throw this out until I worked up a polished essay on it, but the deeper I go the more I realize that that is going to take about 2 years (at least) of me reading continental philosophy(a task which I’ve only begun, which means I haven’t found a “bottom” ; I haven’t figured out just how deep I have to go), so, instead, I’m going to just list some of my ideas thus far, and see what you think.
Oh, and if you’re planning on seeing District 9, but haven’t, you may not want to read some or all of this post.
I few weeks ago I watched District 9, by the white South African director, Neill Blomkamp. It is a powerful movie, and has dominated my thoughts ever since. Below is a quick synopsis of the pertinent parts, but be warned that my description hardly does the movie justice.
Spoiler begins
An alien ship mysteriously parked itself above Johannesburg, SA. Millions of aliens were found on the ship aimlessly living in their own filth. A camp, called District 9 was created for them below the ship and all of the aliens were moved to it. Over the course of 20 years, the camp became a slum, and numerous violent incidents gave rise to serious hatred on the part of Johannesburg residents toward the aliens whom they refer to as ”prawns.” As one character notes, the aliens do have undeniable shrimp-like characteristics. A super-corporation called Multi-National United is tasked with managing the prawns and the action of the movie begins with the MNU’s decision to move the entire prawn population to a new camp outside of Johannesburg. A geeky beaurocrat, who happens to be the CEO’s son-in-law, is put in charge of handing out eviction notices to the entire alien population of Disctrict 9. While carrying out the task our protagonist beaurocrat comes into contact with an alien substance which begins changing him into an alien. When the transformation starts, he is promptly kidnapped by his own corporation, where he is forced to participate in disturbing experiments. It turns out, MNU’s real interest in the “prawns” is their weapons technology which the company seeks to duplicate and market. Their only setback is that the alien technology can only be utilized by the aliens. MCU’s evil scientists soon discover, however, that the protagonist can use the weapons because his DNA is in the process of becoming alien. Just before they begin harvesting his organs in the interest of harnessing his weapon-operating power, he escapes and seeks refuge in District 9. For most of the movie the protagonist has the same bigoted attitude toward the aliens that everyone else both within MNU and without have. But, as he becomes a prawn, and develops a friendship of sorts with one of them, his attitude slowly changes, until, in the climax of the movie, he is defends his alien friend against extermination at the hands of his father-in-law’s heartless company.
Spoiler Ends
Here are some of the ideas that this movie has inspired:
1. For the purposes of ethical conversation, all aliens in Science Fiction and specifically in District 9=the Other.
2. In order for the protagonist of the movie to “love” the Other, he had to become the Other. He was incapable of understanding or loving the Other as himSelf.
3. The movie can obviously be “read” as commentary on the South African struggle with apartheid. However, the alien ship could have been parked over 1939-era Germany, or over present-day Gaza Strip and the same symbolic power would have been achieved.
4. In a way, the protagonist’s transformation could represent the Incarnation. Christ put himSelf aside to become the Other (humanity), in order to redeem the Other. Redemption could not have taken place outside of the act of “becoming the Other” on Christ’s part.
5. In terms of Christian morality, the concept of the Other is equivalent to the Neighbor, especially in a globalized world in which one is forced (blessed?) to rub up against, to pay attention to people and cultures radically different than one’s Self so that everyone is one’s Neighbor. How can we truly understand and love our Neighbor, then, without becoming her/him? Globalism brings us together but we are still so far apart. I expect Zizek’s book on the Neighbor to be particularly enlightening/challenging on this point, hopefully it will be mine next week.
6. Following Cavanaugh, in the Eucharist I consume Christ, but in turn, I am consumed; I become more and more a part of Christ’s body. Through Christ’s act of becoming us (the Incarnation), He installed the way for us to become more like Him (the Eucharist). Since we share the Eucharist with the Universal Church which spans nations, continents and cultures, the Eucharist is the way in which each individual Self becomes the Other. If you’ll allow a little analogical liberty, the alien substance which changes the human protagonist of District 9 into an alien can represent the Eucharist which changes each of us into body of Christ, thus uniting us (whether we like it or not) with each Other.
What do you think? I’ve got about 30,000 pages of Levinas, Lacan, Bidiou, Zizek, Derrida, Critchley, Foucault and maybe some Milbank (and many more who I haven’t yet thought about or discovered) to read before I can bring this all together into some sort of cogency. Any suggestions?
Tony Hunt
jstambaugh
Shawn Wamsley
