god I was a mess #

I’m rediscovering a band I used to listen to nearly 20 years ago, Moderat.

This music came at such a strange time in my life. I struggled with allowing myself to listen to anything other than Christian or worship music. It’s sad because Christian music fails to produce anything making you feel anything of substance; the dichotomy of “I’m a sinner heal me,” “I’m in love with you,” and “I’m going to heaven and everything is great,” with very little in between. Or worse, “the world is bad” or “let’s pray for the sinners.” Musically, Christian music is, at most, a surface level copy of non-Christian music, but in major chords and rebranded content about the (self-imposed) struggle of a Christian’s life in a broken, fallen, world.

stuck in control #

I remember listening to Moderat’s self-titled album and skipping the songs with words because they made me feel things and that was “bad” (according to heavily indoctrinated and controlled me back then). I’m so glad I’m not who I used to be.

Oh, to be free from the “freedom” that Christianity provides. If eternal damnation is the cost of being free now, I’ll take freedom (I don’t really believe in eternal damnation anyway, just to be clear).

inadvertent TNG parallel #

An old mentor used to say to me, “so and so musician would make such a great worship leader because they have such a presence to lead people.” If you’re reading this, and maybe this is a novel idea, so and so being non-Christian is just fine, and you don’t need to co-opt things into Christianity to make it better.

Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like the Borg; on its own, they produce very little of actual substance, but have to steal everything original from everything else to evolve [1]. Are you plugged into the collective? Is resistance futile?

but of course #

I needed the stability my mentors provided me back then. I saw what a healthy marriage looked like. I saw a couple who loved each other, who were financially responsible, who communicated with each other and raised well-rounded, stable children. For those things, I’m grateful. I see the effect of the time they spent with me in my own marriage now. Of course, none of that is exclusive to Christianity, but it served at the right time in my life to change my trajectory in more good ways than bad. They helped me find myself and my direction in life.

I feel angry thinking about all of the indoctination they’ve spread to so many people. I would love to know if they’ve grown past their heavy control based religion. Given the last time we spoke, we were discussing the approaching eclipse and Jesus coming back, they probably haven’t. But that was a long time ago, and I’ve changed a lot since then, so maybe they have too.

thanks be to Moderat #

Moderat, thank you for making great music that made me feel things 20 years ago, even when I wasn’t ready to allow myself to fully enjoy it. Your music endures unlike so many Christian albums I can’t listening to now without feeling a pit in my stomach.

Like the image of the Moderat album at the top of this post, I feel like, after all of these years, I’m taking off the mask and becoming myself.

[1] … every Christian holiday, and even the Christ narrative itself, isn’t original.