Consider This
(Or How I Lost My Religion to the Alternative Nation)
Discussed: urban folk mythology, Catholic metalhead ennui, Michael Stipe as unconventional rock icon, personal salvation
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been well over fifteen years since my last Confession. I realize that’s quite a long time, but please, consider this:
To be raised Catholic in a burgis household in the late 80s went beyond just the usual internal moral wrangling, or reflexive guilt trips about swear words and jerking off. There was an entire urban folk mythology based on the iconography of the Church. And frankly, a lot of it was downright creepy: rumors about the sun becoming a giant Communion host and dancing through the sky. Or a cousin’s neighbor’s best friend in BF Homes who had a Virgin Mary statue that cried blood. It was bad enough that we had coup d’etats, and math tests, and schoolyard bullies to worry about. Did we really need to fret about Three Days of Darkness, or the End Times, too?
Look, I don’t know if other kids just switched off this Rapture mumbo jumbo like a weak episode of Thundercats, but not me. I took all of it to heart, and kept it on the edge of my psyche. For a grade schooler with an overactive imagination, it was the ultimate form of discipline. I didn’t need a WWJD bracelet; all I had to do is worry if my actions would get me a pass in the Last Judgment.
All of this was simple enough, until I discovered my love for heavy metal. Let’s flashback to 1991, shall we? We’re in the classroom of an all boys Catholic school in Singapore. That’s me in the corner. I’m telling my seatmate, Kenny Stephanus, how I listened to my older brother’s Guns N’ Roses cassette, Appetite for Destruction. All of a sudden, he gets this look of sincere concern. “Isn’t that the devil’s music?” he asks me innocently. “Think about it,” he says, “The album cover has a cross with skulls on it. And if Axl Rose doesn’t worship Satan, then why does he sing ‘Take me down to the Paradise City’?” And that’s just the normal version! We could only guess what kind of evil messages would be revealed, if you played it backwards. At that point, I had no clever response.
Skip forward a couple of months. That’s me in the spotlight. I’ve made a decision, however tentative. There’s no reason why I couldn’t be a devoted Catholic and a metalhead. Leaving aside Stryper, and the whole concept of “White Metal”, if even Papa Jesus could hang out with prostitutes and tax collectors, then damn it, surely I could rock out to heathen like Mötley Crüe, and still walk the path of righteousness. After all, they were the ones possibly committing sin, not me. I’m not the one who drew a pentagram on the cover of Theater of Pain. Besides, they were urging me to “Shout At The Devil”, not with him – they couldn’t be all that bad… Right?
Not long after that, I saw the video for “Losing My Religion” on MTV. And it blew. My. Mind. For starters, Michael Stipe didn’t come across like your typical rock star. He wasn’t hell-bent for leather. He didn’t ride a Harley, and he probably didn’t swig Jack Daniels. He didn’t even have long, scraggly hair like the dude in Nirvana. Granted, his behavior was a little fey. And he definitely had the same kind of magnetic presence as the usual fading hairspray idols on Headbanger’s Ball. The rest of his persona, however, seemed thoroughly ordinary.
But his lyrics? God damn! His words spoke to me in ways that, say, Nikki Sixx could only dream of. It told me that I wasn’t alone in my skepticism towards organized religion. I wasn’t the only misplaced soul, wandering around uncertain, like a hurt, lost, and blinded fool.
A vulgar reading of Mötley Crüe suggested that, as a good Catholic, I was playing for the “wrong team”. But R.E.M. offered a potentially more dangerous notion: that it didn’t matter which “team” anybody played for. Salvation is what you make of it.
The idea was at once liberating and scary as Hell. The Church had given me lots of interesting, crazy stories; an imagined set of rewards and punishments that would keep us on the right track. Sometimes they frightened the crap out of me, like the fate of the damned in the Book of Revelation, but at least they gave me an ethical framework to live by. But what if all these fantasies came flailing around? Habit and dogma started to collapse under the sheer force of rational thought.
I said: The Church can’t be infallible if it justified the Crusades.
I said: The Pope can’t represent God’s will if he scoffs at the choices women make about their own bodies.
I said: God can’t be omnipotent and benevolent, if He allows Saddam Hussein to rape and pillage Kuwait, then lets George Bush Sr. bomb the shit out of Iraqi civilians, in retaliation.
I said: God probably isn’t all that great, if He won’t put me into the exact circumstances to let Kim McGann know that I’d make a waaay more dedicated boyfriend than the pot smoking expat guys that she was always hanging around with, so why don’t we just make out already, damn it?
“Oh no, I’ve said too much. I set it up.”
R.E.M. had planted in me the seed of doubt. And from there, I continued to let it grow. Next came The X Files, and the Endless comics, and comparative philosophy lessons. I was pretty sure The Truth was Out There, but I was humble enough to admit that I had no effing clue what it really is. By the time I set up my Friendster profile, I was able to call myself “agnostic” without any issues.
I used to find comfort in moral duality: in good and evil, black and white, Angels and Demons. As above, so below…
“But that was just a dream. That was just a dream. A dream, dream…”
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Pao is a contributor to New Slang, lives online, and googles everything. He is a cultural studies geek, an atypical Capricorn, and is also the quizmaster for Geek Fight. SO SAY WE ALL!
