“Holy Water” by The Classic Crime, Saturday, April 17, 2021
EVERY DROP OF HOLY WATER COMES FROM THE OCEAN. The evolution of The Classic Crime is quite fascinating, as told on the Labeled podcast. Signed just before the crash of the music industry, they were one of the bands that Tooth & Nail was promoting for the general market. They weren't supposed to be a Christian band; however, as Matt McDonald explains, someone messed up. When their debut album Albatross was released, iTunes classified the album as Christian Rock. That was the beginning of the end for the band's hope for general market success. Eventually, McDonald embraced his voice in the Christian Rock community, but the band, in the sense of a five-person unit, ended with their final Tooth & Nail release, Vagabonds. How to Be Human, The Classic Crime's sixth studio album explores a lot of controversial ground--if you consider it a Christian record. Two songs, including this one, use profanity. This song also suggests a kind of theistic evolution, and it calls into question what is sacred?
EVERY ATOM IN MY BODY COMES FROM EXPLODING STAR BILLIONS OF YEARS AGO. I grew up reading Genesis as historical fact. I was taught about Adam naming all of the animals, Noah building an Ark, people living for 900 years, and God's promise never to flood the earth again with the promise of a rainbow. This was basic Adventist teachings, and it was further reinforced by my Baptist education. For Adventists, it also helped that Ellen White's prophetic commentaries on the Bible denounced Darwin's theory of evolution and confirmed that yes, God created the earth, and yes, it was about 6,000 years ago. I thought all Christians believed this and were in some sort of cultural war against secularism. However, later I learned about other theories of Creationism, and more importantly, why they were wrong. I had heard about what David Bazan was saying, doubting the historicity of the Bible, but it wasn't until I read an interview (now I can't find it) where it seems that someone is trying to provoke Anberlin's Stephen Christian, wondering how he can be a Christian and believe in young earth creationism. Christian responds to the interviewer that he actually tends to believe in theistic evolution. Then around that time, there was a huge controversy that several Adventist colleges were teaching evolution. My college was one of the most conservative ones, so they pushed back on it and made sure that ALL graduates understood the importance of a six-day creation narrative. If the six-day creation story was false or myth, what does that say about the rest of the Bible? What does that say about Christ's death and resurrection? What does that say about the Sabbath? What does that say about what we are devoting our lives to? If you unravel one thread in the fabric of faith, it will all come apart and leave you with atheism or nihilism. The funny thing is, the more I play around with these questions of faith, interpretation of scripture/history/myth, the more nuanced I see the world. And that's far from being nihilistic. To be continued.
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