How I learned to quit worrying and love XTC (the band, not the drug)

When I was younger, my sole exposure to new music was my older brother Jeff. I had a pretty limited tape collection of, frankly, terrible music; some particularly cheesy Christian bands, Huey Lewis and The News, Steve Winwood, and, embarrassingly enough, Bruce Willis’ blues album. My brother, though, would come back from college with a lot of stuff I’d never heard before - Bands that were a revelation - like The Violent Femmes or The Dead Milkmen; bands that broadened my pallet considerably.

I remember looking through his vinyl albums one day and finding a record by a band named XTC. It had a song on it titled “Dear God.” I’m sure my first thought was that they must be a Christian band. One look at the album sleeve and the lyrics corrected that assumption. Dear God was a statement of unbelief; an open letter to the God of the Bible, detailing all the bad things he let happen on a daily basis and the writer’s conclusion, therefore, that he must not exist.

As a really religious kid growing up in a small Kentucky town, I was scandalized. Why would somebody write such a song? Why would anybody buy the album? Why did my brother have it?

Fast forward to last Monday. I’m sitting in a meeting at the church I work for, discussing content for the coming weekend’s services when my co-worker, Steve, says he wants to do a song called “Dear God” that he heard on a recent episode of Glee.

Imagine my surprise. It’s been twenty or so years since I first encountered the song. Since then I like to think I’ve developed a much deeper appreciation for music (I won’t say I have eclectic taste. Everybody says that and they almost never do) and a much sturdier spiritual constitution. After the initial deja-vu wore off, I became very excited at the notion of the church band doing the song. Yeah, it’s not exactly the kind of song you imagine hearing at church. I think that’s why I’m excited.

My church has always been really interested in acknowledging and addressing what the Christian faith must look like from the outside; and the fact is a lot of people have trouble accepting the idea of a loving God when there’s so much suffering in the world. This week we’re using a song to recognize that point of view - and then hopefully have a meaningful discussion about it. I like that. I hope that it makes people with similar doubts more willing to engage us. And I hope it makes some believers a little less likely to be traumatized by hearing song lyrics that don’t agree with their world view.

I have a friend who attends another large church here in Lexington. He teased my wife one day because Crossroads performs so many “non-Christian” songs. I’m sure that’s a stumbling block for some folks. In the thirteen years I’ve been associated with the church I’ve heard covers of songs by Radiohead, Queen, The Violent Femmes, The Avett Brothers, Jeff Buckley, the Beatles, Colin Hay, Depeche Mode, and LL Cool J (Don’t worry, it was an acoustic version, nobody rapped). I think that kind of thing is good. Not because we’re “totally not your father’s church” or some other stupid cliche, but because you almost never learn anything in an echo chamber.

UPDATE - Sara questioned the song being on Glee. I can’t find any evidence that it was. I’m not sure if I misheard Steve or what. Anyway, we’re doing the song. If Glee, indeed, wasn’t the inspiration then all the better in my opinion…