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| The Gospel According to Sinéad The most popular word in the titles, or subtitles, of theological literature is the word “toward.” In theology, we are always moving toward a destination of ideas and conclusions. Toward a theology of liberation, or radical openness, or work or education. An incomplete list of “towards” would easily fill this page. We don’t like to suggest that we’ve achieved anything other than movement toward an epistemological goal. We’ve contributed to the discussion, but that’s it. The apostle Paul was sometimes of a similar mind. Once he admitted that it was “I and not the Lord” speaking” (1 Corinthians 7:12). To the Philippians he said, “Not that I have already obtained this, or have already reached the goal” (3:12). But on other occasions, he clearly was not moving toward a theology of this or that; he had arrived, planted a flag and claimed the territory. I mention this in the aftermath of my meditation on Sinéad O’Connor’s latest album, Theology, released last June. If the word “aftermath” makes the experience sound like I’m sitting in the rubble of theological confusion and debris, it’s intentional. For me, the album is a tornado of theological mayhem. Listen to her stuff and you feel like the straw shot through the fence post. Yet I applaud Sinéad for producing it. Sinéad and I have a bit of a history — although she knows nothing about it. I enjoyed her early music, and “Nothing Compares 2 U” was creative, the melody memorable and the thought was touching (although the song was written by Prince). The voice was airy, breathy and light. This album is none of those things. Not particularly creative, no memorable melodies, no touching thoughts, and her voice — 17 years later, is heavier, the range is lower, and it sounds as though she’s been smoking a pack a day. But back in the day, she hosted Saturday Night Live, and in a rant against religion, the Catholic Church and the pope, she took a picture of Pope John Paul II and ripped it to shreds in front of her SNL and national audience. I was not amused, and I was amazed that the media seemed to give her a free pass. It so happened that Rolling Stone that week had a full-sized cover photo of the Irish lass whose unkempt, metro-sexual, puckish look was fresh and edgy at the time. I took it with me to the pulpit in the church I was currently serving. It was one of those high pulpits that tower over a congregation. I don’t remember what my text was, or even the point of the sermon, but I shredded the RS cover and flung the pieces out into sacred space. Fortunately, I try to keep such public tantrums to a minimum, and it’s not a homiletical moment I’m proud of. But I was incensed. Over the years, I have watched Sinéad struggle and suffer, and my attitude has softened, so that now, when I heard that she was going to produce Theology, I was quite interested. I would like to say that I enjoyed her music. But I didn’t. It’s ponderous, dark and uninspiring. I didn’t find “The Glory of Jah” very glorious. As for the theology, she’s obviously moving “toward” something, but I’m not sure what. Like “Nothing Compares 2 U,” most of her material is borrowed — from the Old Testament. Some from the prophets, some from the psalms. And a piece from Webber and Rice. Her promoters are hoping that the album can move into the Christian market. But there’s little hope of that. Family Christian Stores and Lifeway Christian Stores have no plans to carry it. O’Connor is just too controversial. She spent time in reform school. Her problems with the Catholic Church are legend, she’s divorced, she’s raising kids fathered by different men, she said she was a lesbian and then said she wasn’t. Still, the public has expressed interest in other entertainers whose interests have turned religious. Bob Dylan’s Slow Train Coming in the late ’70s comes to mind. Then there’s Barry McQuire (remember Eve of Destruction?) who produced a number of “Christian” albums, and Bono and U2 have been vocal about their appreciation for theological themes — witness their U2charist. Yet, for many in the Christian world, Theology is going to be a hard sell, except in emergent church circles where Christians have a theology that is considerably more “generous,” to borrow an expression from Brian McClaren. On this score I can cut her some slack. The biblical psalmist himself was no paragon of virtue; he had more skeletons in his closet than all the Republicans and Democrats in Congress combined. But he could write, and he knew how to pick a lick on that lyre of his. We need to remember that while her material can be judged musically, one shouldn’t try to understand Theology as an attempt to lay down propositions, make declarations or do anything systematic. This is art. She’s the psalmist in these songs. Or, think of them like pictures in a gallery. They are her art, her attempt to make suggestions, impressions, to provide brush strokes on the canvas of her troubled life as to where she locates herself and the world she lives in and where God is in all of this. In “Something Beautiful,” she speaks of God’s “journey toward me” and she’s grateful and wants to make “something beautiful/ For you and from you/ To show you/ To show you/ I adore you.” She’s “building a mystery,” as Sarah McLachlan puts it. I applaud her for that. How many of us have attempted the same thing? We live in a culture in which the favorite footwear is flip-flops. The word might be descriptive of more than what we’re wearing on the soles of our feet; it might also be suggestive of what we’re wearing in our soul of our faith. I suspect that many Christians have a flip-flop theology: easy to slip in to, easy to throw off, available in many varieties, cheap and disposable. If we were to challenge our congregation to produce an album called Theology, what would they come up with? Is it something they’d even be able to attempt? I’m just wondering. Sinéad O’Connor isn’t trying to give us answers, only some art that shows us where she is on her journey. I love that she did that, even if I can’t appreciate the music itself.
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