Losing my religion: an interview with David Bazan
What’s it like to feel your faith slipping away? Christianity Today published an interview with David Bazan, a well-known musician and the former frontman for the indie rock band Pedro the Lion. Bazan is a former evangelical Christian who no longer counts himself as a believer, but he continues to speak (and sing) about God and the doubts that led him away from the Christian flock.
Bazan’s departure from Christianity was a sad and reluctant one, and his former faith continues to haunt him, as this quote illustrates:
Christian spirituality has played a huge part in your music. Will it continue to play a role?
In some ways, I hope not. But I can’t imagine that it won’t. It’s still the central question of my life. I read a lot about theology and church history. I’ll never get a vacation from this. I’m not kidding when I say that this is the central question of my life.
Bazan is certainly not the only person to abandon the Christian faith; but the circumstances of his departure make for an edifying read. Bazan didn’t reject his faith to become an angry, bitter atheist; nor did he simply drift away from Christianity due to apathy or a lack of commitment. Rather, his departure was prompted by, among other things, a sense that the Christianity he practiced was actually interfering with the ethics he wanted to pursue.
The interview doesn’t get too specific about those obstacles, but one obvious question that occurs to me is whether the hurdles that drove Bazan from the faith truly were fundamental elements of the Christian faith, or if they were human “additions” to the faith. It’s also interesting (and a little disturbing) to see the powerful role that fear played (and continues to play) in his spiritual life.
What’s your reaction to the interview? What might you ask or say to Bazan if you had the chance to talk to him about Christianity?
David, David, David,
You think you might circle back to a relationship with God. How is it possible to circle back to something you have never had? Christianity is not a religion. It is a relationship with the living God. You do know that He exists. Otherwise why do you offer prayers expressing gratitude for the beauth of the world and the joy of relationships? To whom are you grateful? You know God is real. You know He loves you. You don’t want to love Him because that involves being accountable to Him and you want to be the captain of your own soul. You are right to be afraid because you are the captain of a sinking ship.
Dear David,
I do not know the circumstances that lead you down, this road, but I once read that only God picks the fruit, not I, but I feel as though and this is only my view, that somehow you have tried to place God on the back burner in that (you have something to do in your life) which would be something that God would not approve of. Please remember my God, is a God who is Loving and foregiving and that he throws our sins into the sea of foregetfulness. I often wonder about the many people who tell themselves that God has no place for them, because what they may have done, they feel God, will not foregive them. I must tell you as I would them that the devil is a liar. God is waiting on your return, come back to him he Loves you, yearns as a father does for your return.
Come home darlin’, come home quickly. All is forgiven, so come home quickly.