In and Out of Grace

Last summer, a billboard appeared at the base of Capitol Hill
imploring its readers, in Old English script, to “Imagine No Religion.”
Wince-inducing paraphrase of John Lennon aside, the sign was a welcome
sight for at least this atheist—it’s always nice to know you’re
not alone in the feeling that, fundamentally speaking, we are all
alone. And while that sign might not have seemed too controversial in
secularly tolerant Seattle, as part of a larger nationwide campaign, it
was a reminder that the vast majority of America—some 78 percent
according to recent polls—still believes in a Christian God.

Singer-songwriters John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats and local
David Bazan of Pedro the Lion have both counted themselves among that
78 percent at times. They’ve both also dealt in their lives and in
their songs with varying degrees of doubt and disillusionment,
agnosticism and atheism. Recently, both artists released new albums,
and while neither is exactly a billboard of apostasy, both offer a
revealing look at complex, often rocky relationships with religion.

Bazan’s Barsuk release Curse Your Branches is his first
solo full-length since the dissolution of Pedro the Lion in 2005, and
it’s a first in other ways as well. Whereas Pedro the Lion frequently
used fiction to explore the corners of faith and the human condition,
Bazan has said that the new record is largely autobiographical. And it
covers some pretty dark personal territory, exploring Bazan’s falling
out with his former evangelical Christianity and his subsequent
attempts to drown out his newfound agnosticism with alcohol. The songs
were reportedly well received at this year’s Cornerstone Christian
music festival (from which Bazan was cast out in 2005 for
drunkenness).

The Mountain Goats’ latest, The Life of the World to Come,
appears at first to be more pious. Each of its 12 tracks is named after
a Bible verse, and Darnielle has framed it as “12 hard lessons the
Bible taught me”—for instance, “Genesis 3:23” (“So the Lord God
banished him from the Garden of Eden…”) is a song about him visiting
his old place in Portland and about how you can’t go home again. But
Darnielle’s spiritual path has been convoluted—he was raised
Catholic (and remembers it fondly), became a strident atheist in high
school, then returned to the church, and now attends Hare Krishna
services as enthusiastically as he does Mass—and his current
stance is ambiguous. In a recent Pitchfork interview, he said, “The
story of my religiousness is a long thing… I mean, I go to church,
but I don’t have the faith of the people there.” His previous album was
called Heretic Pride; one of his early breakthrough songs,
“The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton” ends with a rousing refrain
of “hail Satan!” On the new record, his interest in the Bible comes
across as more literary and theological than devotional. He recasts its
archetypal narratives to modern troubles and even incorporates more
poetic bits of scripture directly into his own lyrics.

Both songwriters detail messy, wayward lives, but they do so for
distinctly cross-­purposes. Bazan seems largely concerned with
ethics, with the struggle to be good, moral, and righteous, and his
songs palpably sag with the guilt of inevitably falling short of such
high, holy standards. His songs are alternately repentant and
flagellant, acknowledging his own shortcomings (the line on “Bless This
Mess” about kissing his baby’s forehead with booze on his breath is
especially brutal) as much as he lashes out at the hypocrisy and
wickedness of politicians or (ahem) the nastiness of critics.

Darnielle seems more occupied with the loftier existential questions
religion tries to understand: Why must we suffer in life? What becomes
of us when we die? (Several songs on The Life of the World to
Come— “Philippians 3:20–21,” “Hebrews 11:40,” “Matthew
25:21″—deal pretty directly with the fear and uncertainty of
dying.) Even when he zooms in on some small-scale scene of earthly
misery or squalor (as on outstanding older songs “Palmcorder Yajna,”
“Dance Music,” or “This Year”), he exposes the way hope and despair
play tug-of-war with the human heart—with more eloquence and
empathy than comes across in Bazan’s bitter scolding and
self-recrimination.

Both albums are artful reminders that there’s more to America’s soul
than the cold certainty of either hardcore Christians or the “new
atheists,” that there is in fact a vast, fascinating gray area out
there between absolute faith and absolute doubt—imagine that.