I’ve had the same wish for the past five years. My wish is that I’ll live forever. A lot of people don’t understand that… It’s a wish! Go big! I don’t wanna fucking die! How simple is that? I have no interest in dying… Out there? I don’t know what’s out there. It’s unknown. This is known. That’s unknown . I’m sticking with the known. “But Lewis, if you had faith,” my Christian friends say, “the angels will come and they will take you to heaven…” “Well,” I tell them, “until there are photographs, the legal system would say that’s hearsay.”

paraphrase of Lewis Black on his new album

A few weeks back, I had the distinct pleasure of getting to see David Bazan live at a house show here in Nashville. As many are well aware by this point, Bazan has made a major transformation from “leader of a Christian band” (Pedro the Lion) to “openly agnostic solo artist.” It would be easy to assume that someone who was that entrenched in the culture of western Christianity would be having quite an awkward adjustment — especially after “coming out” to the world via one of the best albums released in a long time. It was, essentially, his “breakup album with God,” for lack of a better description.

I was expecting to sit in a living room with a guy who was full of “umms” and “ahhs” that played his songs and mentally prepared himself for a barrage of questions about his departure from faith. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. Not only did my fellow listeners treat him with the utmost respect, he was confident, bold, outspoken and, dare I say it, happier and more comfortable than I’ve ever heard of him being. It was as though he had finally settled into his right place.

Especially in North America, evangelical culture persists a lot of black-and-white mentality about what is truth and what is lie, what is to be believed and what is to be rejected. In the past few years, I’ve seen a growing population of Christians who debate and argue and divide themselves over nitpicky theology, which I find more than a little bit disconcerting. Over time, I realized that this mentality is rooted in a desire to prove their beliefs in a concrete fashion which, if you think about it, is kind of ridiculous.

An idea that’s been rolling around in my head for my long absence from blogging here — originally seeded in a growing and poorly-worded curiosity about the validity of the other major religions — boils down to this: faith is just that.

Faith, in the religious sense, means believing in something that cannot be proven. If, as Lewis Black wishes, we can prove that God and heaven and angels and an afterlife exist without a shadow of doubt, it wouldn’t be faith. It would be fact. In the same way, we can’t disprove the beliefs of others, especially when they are in agreement with millions of others.

Western Christianity has made a lot of effort in the past 50 years to prove why Christianity is “it” and everything else is not. It shows a supreme lack of confidence in the unknown and in being wrong. To truly have great faith, one must submit to the fact that, at some point, he has to stop proving, accept what he believes and live accordingly. Or stop believing it.

Certainly we need people who can read and interpret the Bible and the Koran and the holy scriptures of Hinduism in order to form a foundation of beliefs, but interpretation is not something for everyone. In fact, the more that get involved in interpretation, the less unity there seems to be, which completely throw the idea of a body of believers out the window. Our culture’s Jeffersonian push on education has somehow caused us to forget that faith and education are near-polar opposites. Christian culture’s desire to have concrete answers to the eternally unanswerable and ridiculously inane questions of life is causing it to crumble in on itself.

Perhaps if most of us dropped the habit of (mis)interpreting, debating and arguing ideas, submit to the philosophy that it’s not only okay but recommended to not know everything, then focused on practicing the undeniable core of our beliefs — to love and respect and ask everything in humility — we’d all be better off.

Perhaps Bazan’s confidence is seeded in knowing that he doesn’t need to know all the answers or ask all the question to live an inspired and beautiful life.

Required reading/listening:

• The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, by David Dark
• The Religion Episode, by the Grapes of Rad
• Curse Your Branches, by David Bazan

Yes, I’m well aware that it’s February. This list of albums has been sitting in my drafts since January 8th and I’m just now doing something with it. It seems I took a break from ye olde blogge for much of January in favor of trying out Tumblr. (I can’t decide if I like it or not. It seems to steal my longer-form writing thunder).

My varying tastes in music from day to day would make it pointless to put these albums in any best-to-worst order. So I went with the time-tested alphabetical order method, which is completely arbitrary if you think about it, but that’s a thought for another day.

Read on for my favorite albums that came out in 2009 (or thereabouts; I fudged a little). If you’ve been checking out my monthly playlists (you’re forgiven if you haven’t), most of this will not be a surprise.

And if you’re patient and make it all the way to the bottom, there’s a prize for you, in the form of a few select songs from these albums that I particularly enjoyed.

WARNING: This gets a bit lengthy, so get comfy.

Read on for my album picks for 2009!

September was a month of new albums that punched me square in the face (Jay-Z, David Bazan, Fun., The Avett Brothers), seeing Joshua James live and buying all his material that I didn’t already own, and a few things I bought and/or listened to during my trip to Australia.

October has begun, and with it will surely come an onslaught of contemplative and dark albums. David Bazan and Joshua James got a jump start on that, but I think my must-have fall album for 2009 has yet to unearth itself. I am taking suggestions.

1. Jay-Z – “Jockin’” (The Blueprint 3)
2. Lily Allen – “I Could Say” (It’s Not Me, It’s You)
3. Jay-Z – “D.O.A. [Death of Auto-Tune]” (The Blueprint 3)
4. Bruce Springsteen – “Nebraska” (Nebraska)
5. Bruce Springsteen – “Highway Patrolman” (Nebraska)
6. Jay-Z – “Young Forever” (The Blueprint 3)
7. Fun. – “At Least I’m Not As Sad (As I Used to Be)” (Aim and Ignite)
8. Fun. – “The Gambler” (Aim and Ignite)
9. Joshua James – “Wilted Daisies” (Build Me This)
10. Wilco – “Via Chicago” (Summerteeth)
11. Joshua James – “Coal War” (Build Me This)
12. Clues – “You Have My Eyes Now” (Clues)
13. Joshua James – “Lawn Full of Marigolds” (Build Me This)
14. Jonsi & Alex – “Daníell In The Sea” (Riceboy Sleeps)
15. David Bazan – “Hard to Be” (Curse Your Branches)
16. David Bazan – “Bless This Mess” (Curse Your Branches)
17. David Bazan – “In Stitches” (Curse Your Branches)
18. David Bazan – “Bearing Witness” (Curse Your Branches)
19. The Avett Brothers – “I and Love and You” (I and Love and You)

Bazan’s Curse Your Branches, due September 1 on Barsuk, is a visceral accounting of what happened after that. It’s a harrowing breakup record—except he’s dumping God, Jesus, and the evangelical life. It’s his first full-length solo album and also his most autobiographical effort: its drunken narratives, spasms of spiritual dissonance, and family tensions are all scenes from the recent past.

via The Passion of David Bazan – Chicago Reader

I might be one of the only music nerds with a Christian upbringing that jumped on the Pedro/Bazan train after his faith troubles. His struggle appeals to the part of me that constantly deals with doubt and flirts with atheistic/agnostic ways.

And this?

When I talk to some of those kids in the merch tent the day after Bazan’s set, many of them seem to be trying to spin the new songs, straining to categorize them as Christian so they can justify continuing to listen to them. One fan says it’s good that Bazan is singing about the perils of sin, “particularly sexual sin.” Another interprets the songs as a witness of addiction, the testimony of the stumbling man.

Well, that just makes me sad. And pushes me to identify with Bazan all the more. So many in such great denial. Don’t they know that we have warrant to explore the scariest questions of life?