T-shirt cannons, rock concerts, and finding Jesus
Harvesting the good from our adolescent experience of Christianity
The sun was high and hot on a rare Alaskan summer afternoon— youth groups from all over the state gathered in a grass field behind a local Anchorage church. The black stage and metal scaffolding towered over the scattered crowd, as the speakers shook with each strum and beat. We were at Sonfest, a Christian music festival that expanded over two full days. My youth group, a rag-tag community spanning from the cheerleader (me) to the goths in black trench coats, laid out blankets and chairs as we settled in for a long day of music. The booths behind us were littered with WWJD bracelets along with bands CDs and T-shirts. There were pizza and soda stands aplenty, and even a henna booth. I read the list of artists from the Sonfest flyer and knew very little about the bands. It was that summer when I first heard Jennifer Knapp. Something about her music struck me as relatable and genuine. Perhaps it was her raspy voice that reminded me of Joni Mitchell or her words that seemed to write what my heart couldn’t at the time. Either way, her music became the soundtrack of my junior year of high school.
Looking back over my personal history of the church, there is a nostalgia for these moments. In the years spanning my adolescence, I enjoyed a blissful ignorance of the culture around me. I willingly bought the books, went to the True Love Waits rallies, and pawned my Nirvana CDs to buy the latest Jars of Clay. Yet, alongside this, my youth pastor was dismissed due to sexual misconduct and our church split over worship music. I also fell into a relationship with a “model Christian man” only to find he had significant issues which landed me in counseling years later. My unsuspecting youthfulness which allowed me to enjoy the culture was darkening at the edges. As adolescence faded into young adulthood, my cozy spot on a blanket listening to Jennifer Knapp became a greying memory.
In 2003 Jennifer Knapp took a hiatus from her booming music career as she was on the brink of burnout and needed to step back. I don’t remember a formal announcement but I certainly stopped listening to her music around that time. She reentered the music scene in 2010 as a member of the LGBTQ community and released her new album Letting Go. Her coming out was a shock for her strong evangelical following. She bore interview after interview ranging from Christianity Today to Larry King Live. Knapp shared consistently across her interviews both her genuine Christian faith and the deep love she had for her partner of almost eight at that point. Unsurprisingly, interviewers wanted to know how it worked: being gay and a Christian. Knapp humbly admitted she wasn’t up for a theological debate but one thing she said in her interview with CT stood out to me:
…I've always struggled as a Christian with various forms of external evidence that we are obligated to show that we are Christians. I've found no law that commands me in any way other than to love my neighbor as myself, and that love is the greatest commandment. At a certain point I find myself so handcuffed in my own faith by trying to get it right—to try and look like a Christian, to try to do the things that Christians should do, to be all of these things externally—to fake it until I get myself all handcuffed and tied up in knots as to what I was supposed to be doing there in the first place.
Much of my experience growing up in church was learning, well, how to get it right. I remember there was also a strong emphasis on evangelism. At one particular youth conference, we learned how to share the gospel as an elevator pitch. In three minutes or less, I learned how to share my story, my faith, and then invite someone to believe in Jesus. At the end of the conference, they gave us one hour to wander the streets of Anchorage and win people for Jesus. I remember the doors of the large church opening and a hundred awkward youths stumbled out into the sunshine with looks of anxiety as they scanned for any innocent bystander to proselytize. My group of friends simply walked around the block in rebellion. It felt less like sharing the love of Christ and more like an obligation to get Christianity right. If you’re a good Christian, you share your faith with whoever will listen.
Many of those in deconstruction may resonate with Knapp’s idea of feeling handcuffed to a faith that emphasized getting it right. I certainly did and yet, the youthful glow of my early Christian faith concealed much of it. I was there for the party, the music, and the branded Jesus paraphernalia. Getting it right never looked so good. I could look back on those years with disgust at my ignorance but honestly, there was good that came from my youthful experience of Christianity. Sans the handcuffs, I loved the music and was deeply encouraged by it. I regret pawning my Nirvana CDs but at the time, I wanted to immerse myself in God. The root of it was genuine, I wanted more of God even if that came in the form of a t-shirt and the newest Bible study.
Many of us begin deconstructing when we see more of the culture than of God. Becoming keenly aware of the handcuffs, we start to chafe against a faith that binds us to looking and acting the part. As women, this often translates as learning to be quiet, submissive and on the hunt for the model Christian man. When getting it right: listening to the right music, being friends with the right people, and attending the right church becomes too much, deconstruction is inevitable. Yet it is through allowing ourselves to deconstruct, that we learn how to translate and transfer those things we loved about our youth experiences into an adult faith. It is a harvest of sorts. Gathering the good and discarding the unnecessary bells and whistles (and toxic theologies). It is painful and confusing but deconstruction, when done alongside Jesus, can result in an expanded Christology. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus becomes more central the more brokenness is revealed. The greying edges are no longer the place of disillusionment but where we can see Jesus the most. Living cruciformed becomes a necessary reality for healing our churches and culture. We realize that Jesus, the one we initially fell in love with in the first place, had always been there underneath the glittery culture that loves to pack stadiums and launch t-shirts from cannons. Yet it can be difficult to find him buried under the weight of Christian culture. And if we keep selling Jesus, Jesus will just keep flipping tables to show us his house is not a place of consumption.
I still have my Jennifer Knapp CDs and love them. My favorite t-shirt is a She Read Truth almost worn through. We need artists and makers and creatives in the house of God, they are a part of our spiritual formation. You can have your opinion about Jennifer Knapp being gay, this is not what this piece is about. I will say this, however, it doesn’t negate the spiritual words she sang that encouraged my soul to trust in God. There is good to be harvested from the experiences of our youth, as skewed or delightful as they may be. This is a part of deconstruction: harvesting what was good. Even if it is a simple song.
All the chisels I've dulled carving idols of stone
That have crumbled like sand beneath the waves
I've recklessly built all my dreams in the sand
Just to watch them wash away
Through another day, another trial, another chance to reconcile
To One who sees past all I see
Reaching out my weary hand, I pray that You'd understand
You're the one One Who's faithful to me
Jennifer Knapp - Faithful to me
DISCUSSION
What was one of your favorite Christian bands growing up? Why did you like them?
Photo by Sam Moghadam Khamseh on Unsplash
I love this so much colette! And the work you've been doing is righteous, good and honorable work.
Your piece makes me think of Jesus telling some people at the End of Time, I never knew you. Even though all that while, they were just trying to be right.
I'm grateful that Christ's resurrection reaches back into our stories to uncover what was good.
(And yes, my favorite CCM bands were Jars of Clay, PFR, Jennifer Knapp, Rebecca St.James and Delerious)