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Charlotte Naylor Davis, scholar of Metal Music Studies and the Bible, reflects on a recent controversy at York Minster
Nearly 30 years ago I sat in a small room at a Christian ministry training centre and sorted through my cassettes (yep!) and CD’s. I had been asked by the leaders to justify the music I had been playing. Although I’d been hired looking as grunge as anything – tie dyed skirts sweeping the floor, DM boots and heavy metal band T shirt at interview – the leaders were still worried. When I needed to calm my brain I played music loudly, and the music I played was one of two genres – metal or classical. What baffled me that day was not that they wanted to talk about the lyrics to Sepultura or Machine Head (the training was pretty intense and a lot of our life was scrutinised) but that they didn’t want to talk to me about Mozart, Carl Orff, or the early medieval tunes I played. My aim before this year out had been to study music and I was obsessed with all the musicians I listened to. I knew of Mozart’s debauchery, that Orff’s Carmina Burana was not only distinctly un-Christian but favoured by Nazis, and that my medieval tunes were pretty pagan. But they didn’t even ask about those, those weren’t on their radar because they looked nice.
The metaI in my collection was the music I considered to be much more Christian – I favoured bands that had social justice themes, bands who dealt with trauma, bands that discussed politics or complex emotions. These for me did not clash with my faith at all, even when they railed at God for the pain of the human condition.
This was my first encounter with the judgement of people that metal, simply by the way it looked or sounded, was unchristian or antithetical to faith. My most recent encounter with this came this week as the Guardian reported that members of the congregation at York Minster oppose and may protest a concert collaboration by the metal band Plague of Angels and the pipe organist David Pipe.
It would be wrong of me to pretend that metal and religion are easy bedfellows despite their inextricable links, (much metal is anti-authoritarian and antagonistic toward institutions such as churches) but the knee jerk assumption that metal, because of its angry tone, or its dark aesthetic, is automatically anathema to faith is a little old fashioned for me. It however constantly raises its head – just look at some of the accusations of Satanism around Gojira’s satirical performance of the French revolutionary song ‘Ah Ca Ira’ at the Olympics.
From many sides people love to pit heavy metal against the church (it’s good shock value and I have used it to my advantage a few times) and once again in this reporting the presence of the classical instrument was assumed holy. The complaints seem to centre on the idea that this band represents something more sacrilegious than other music or people, and I want to clear this up quickly before moving on. Is all organ music Christian? I doubt it. David Pipe will in fact be playing Black Sabbath and Deep Purple on the organ in the first half of the recital, this wasn’t mentioned in the reporting at all. It was set as though the band are invading the Minster to do something profane. However, they aren’t the first ‘secular’ musicians to perform in the minster, nor the first secular music content to be performed.
One issue raised was that some band members once played in another band that doesn’t need mentioning that had what has been called one of the most blasphemous t shirts of all time. I have one main issue with this complaint – the t-shirt came out in the 90’s, it is shocking and quite misogynistic so I won’t try to excuse it, but it’s over 30 years old. If we are not allowed to grow up and be forgiven for the stupid things we may have worn when we were young, I am unsure what Christianity we are following [1]. The only real reason to assume that Plague of Angels bring anything other than good will to the project and into the space of the minster is prejudice. In fact if you go and listen to their lyrics there are some excellent current theological questions raised around ideas of hope, what salvation looks like, fear and God. But I don’t want to analyse them, because I actually think it’s not the point. I have not seen the same complaints levelled at more ‘correct’ looking people. We should not scrutinise anyone over their past and say they are unsuitable to be in a sacred space. If they are what the complaint says, shouldn’t they be all the more celebrated for returning?
From my position as a biblical and metal studies scholar however I have other thoughts. In the complaint about the Plague of Angels concert and the Guardian reporting of it key elements are ignored which have historical and theological relevance. The first is that though heavy metal began as a rejection of the establishment in the 60’s and 70’s which very much did include the church, metal has always had an acceptance of spirituality both in subject matter and in the way gigs work and are experienced by the group [2] . In the last few decades that has expanded to include Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist metal bands, as well as pagan faiths you might expect to be present. Metal’s bombastic side and its darker sides welcome and encourage reflection on existential themes. Rebellion against many things is present, anger is welcome, but all these are nuanced. Yes, there will always be those who ‘blaspheme’, but most criticism of religion within metal is toward religious people who abuse, oppress and use the bible to do so. For me, this is important theological discussion not blasphemy. In my work I argue that metal sits in a space that can be very useful to the understanding of faith. Its willingness as a culture to question, to hold authority as something to be challenged not taken for granted, and to ask large spiritual questions about violence, war, darkness and destruction fall into the history of art and of theology. The Psalms of vengeance and lament for example ask similar questions, the book of Job, the book of Ecclesiastes and Jesus own wrestling with religious leaders who expected to be followed instead of questioned, all for me are expressions of the human condition that heavy metal taps into. Research by psychologists shows the therapeutic advantages of expressing our fears and darker thoughts and that metal can help with this (www.heavymetaltherapy.com has collated this work). All through Christian history there have been those who looked around them and said ‘If god is so good then why…?’ The Psalms show us that people have communally, in poetry and song, cried out to God and expressed desire for violence. Doing so helped them position their pain in a way that moved them forward. Trauma informed theology is helping us understand this [3] .
Historically the writers, thinkers, artists, translators and theologians who have critiqued and held the religious establishment to account have been those that have brought the most progress. As a protestant I find it strange that we should shy away from such criticism (if that’s even what is being served here in this concert). We exist because people were willing to question and rebel. Heavy metal, at least in part, can be a catalyst for theological exploration. In a ‘post-Christian’ world, maybe these clashes/combinations of cultures are where fruitful challenges come from that birth theological progress.
I have a wide and deep view of what is sacred or holy and what isn’t, I will admit that. But this concert isn’t claiming to be a worship service, it’s part of the minsters welcome and mission. From where I stand as both a theologian and metal scholar, a Jesus and a metal fan, Plague of Angels are not invading a sacred space: rather this concert invites fans into an age old spiritual dialogue between art and church – where the outsider art meets insider expectations; where human experience meets holy ground; cultural outcasts meet religious community. The organ will play heavy metal, the band will combine with the organ in a new form of musical expression which may only have been possible at this time, in this place – heavy metal bands being one of the few things outside of a full orchestra that can match the might and power of a cathedral organ. In a world where loudest Christian voices encourage a dangerous fundamentalism of division, this concert encourages disparate groups to join together instead of staying apart. That in itself is a sacred act. Maybe these two worlds need to collide for such a time as this.
Dr Naylor Davis is a biblical scholar with research expertise in bible translation, and biblical reception within popular culture, she is also a lay minister in Leeds.
Notes
[1] CW offensive language: The T shirt declared ‘Jesus is a Cxxx. It was made for shock value, both musicians have distanced themselves from the band in recent years and dislike the shirt. In my more sarcastic moments in the 90’s my reaction to The T shirt was to point out that it boldy declares that Jesus ‘is’, present tense, so maybe we should at least be pleased at the acknowledgement that the band believe, as all Christians, that Jesus is present and not merely a man who died a long time ago. I’ve been in this metal vs Jesus game a long time.
[2] See Owen Coggins book ‘Mysticism, Ritual and religion in Drone Metal’ for a wonderful exploration of this.
[3] Daniel P. Overton, Singing through Clenched Teeth: Psalm 137 and the Imprecatory Psalms as Traumatic Liturgy Journal of Communication and Religion Vol. 43 No. 2 Summer 2020, pp. 55-71
2 Comments
In these dark times it’s good to have a very clear explanation of the value and importance of tolerance and exploration of ‘other’ values of music and visual interaction that go beyond that which we normally accept as spiritual. Thank you for awakening deeper and wider interests in music and culture .
Iis coming out ‘protests’ at what has gone it, what many have been imbibing over decades in the way of social injustice and religious nonsense leading to prejudice and bigotry that borders on cruelty. With this in mind, what would he say to the ef you grew up in the sixties it’s hard to read this article without being torn between two sets of emotions. You came to faith listening to Jimmy Hendrix and Janice Joplin and, yes, Carmina Burana. You understand and love where that music was coming from. But you also may be deeply unsettled by the T shirt, sympathetic to the protesters outside the Minster and, it has to be said, quite ashamed of your own ignorance when it comes to the theological and spiritual merits of heavy metal and bands like Plague of Angels. You should probably know better. The problem isn’t one of age, but of ignorance. It has to be said that the problem can also, in some measure at least, be caused by some heavy metal lyrics and by the music itself. The lyrics can be hard to unravel from the music at times. But none of this is relevant to the powerful argument put forward in this piece.
One of the reasons for the article’s high impact value is that it echoes, if not the words, then certainly the spirit, of Jesus himself and what he might be thinking about what’s going on in regard to heavy metal. People of the sixties generation might have turned their backs on Hendrix and Joplin in favour of anodyne choruses and WWJD (what would Jesus do?) armbands, but by now many of them, it is to be hoped, have grown up and moved on, and are probably members of Modern Church. Some of us still listen to Hendrix and Joplin from time to time.
So it’s worth returning to that question: what would Jesus do – or say to the Minster hosting a heavy metal band with uncensored dubious lyrics? Something along the lines of ‘It’s not what goes into a person that defiles, but what comes out?’ Or, rather, might he not turn that whole idea on its head and see much of heavy metal for the protest that it often is? What mbarrassed band members of groups who now deeply regret lyrics that are indeed explicitly profane? “Go, your sins are forgiven”, he might perhaps say, adding in a whisper, so as not to embarrass them further, “and for goodness sake go and write better lyrics and do better music”. As artists, we tend to fail most miserably in compromising the quality of what we do, rather than in falling short of the mark when it comes to what is considered comely or acceptable to respectable readers, viewers or churchgoers.
Quality depends on sheer hard work, something it’s easy to assume heavy metal bands don’t really go in for, as if they just get up on stage and make a lot of noise, often for a lot of money. Quality also depends on not getting in the way of the work. As artists, we get in the way of the work with our own personal needs and agendas, derived from our insecurities, along with our personal shored-up hatreds and bitterness. So I imagine that for the heavy metal artist, not getting in the way of the work must also involve a lot of self-questioning, leading to the honing and refining of a piece of music, combined with the intent to align it with what they know to be its real purpose, which is to speak the truth with a pure heart and an unbiased mind. So they are indeed accountable when it comes to the sacred and the profane. But this accountability depends on them asking themselves questions along the line of ‘to what extent does this piece of music perniciously obstruct a person’s journey to love, light and truth, whether the person is the listener or the performer?’ Heavy metal bands deserve the same scrutiny in this area as any other art form and, like all artists, only they can answer these questions.