Tom Beaudoin, in his book, Virtual Faith, helps us explore the emerging spirituality of a generation turned off by institutional religion. This generation inherits the Boomers’ focus on personal experience and express it in ‘edgy’ ways.
Tom uses popular music video to engage in theological reflection, considering the connection between personal experience, theological tradition and popular culture.
Madonna Like A Prayer
In this chapter the focus is primarily on Madonna’s music video, “Like A Prayer”, directed by Mary Lambert in 1989 and available on the DVD, Immaculate Collection. (also available streamed at MTV). In the video Madonna appears to have been caught up in a police chase in which an African American man is wrongfully arrested. She flees to a church and has a sensual/religious experience involving what appears to be St Martin de Pores, an Afro-Peruvian saint.
Tom picks up on the ‘sacramentals’ in the video – a term used to describe things set apart or blessed by the Catholic Church to inspire good thoughts and increase devotion. Tom describes sacramentals as miniature personal signs of God and God’s grace in the world.
Another angle taken from the video is the connection between sensuality and spirituality. There is a a fusion of the two when Madonna kisses the feet of Saint Martin. It’s the combination found in soul music, such as the music of Al Green in “Down to the river” in which a teenage sexual experience and full immersion baptism are tied together in one song. This connection is not new. It was made by many of the mystics, sucn as Bernard of Clairvaux and Teresa of Avila. Sensual/sexual language seeps into the praise and worship songs of the Boomers and GenXers.
Madonna’s video represents a challenge to the polarisation of body and spirit often found in Western and Eastern Christianity. Rather than grapple towards a healthy earthy acceptance of the body and emotions, many Christian leaders have urged their followers to lock it all away. There’s a fear that it will all go horribly wrong. GenX artists though, such as Tori Amos, are responding to the ‘horribly wrong’ expression of sexuality that is linked with repression and abuse.
U2’s songs and music videos, not considered in Beaudoin’s book, provide a similar approach to sexuality and spirituality. Bono’s lyrics expresses a longing and desire that could be related to the divine as much as the girl across the room. Tom points out that each desire may illuminate the other.
Body Fashions
Tom includes here a section body piercing and the bare midriff fashion. Tom here refers to ear piercing and associated trends as an example of the search for experience that makes a mark. “To pierce one’s body is to leave a permanent mark of intense physical experience, whether pleasurable or painful”.
I’ve enjoyed seeing Christian billboards and t-shirts with the phrase, “Body Piercing saved my life”, referring to the piercing of Jesus’ hands and feet. It challenges the prudishness often found in the church on this issue!
Tom helps us explore the meaning of Jesus’ embodiment of the human and divine during his life as much as in his death.
I’ve seen a very useful book on this issue at Practicing Our Faith. It’s Honoring the Body, by Stephanie Paulsell. Stephanie in her chapter of Practicing Our Faith takes a look at three spiritual disciplines: bathing, adornment and touching. She fearlessly engages with the sexuality issues and brings us back to an affirming approach to embodiment founded in the resurrected body of Jesus. This is welcome reprieve for a culture that uses songlines like “make my flesh life melt away”.
The following is from the Practicing Our Faith website:
“Jesus’ resurrected body teaches us that bodies matter and shows us the beauty God intends for all bodies. How might Jesus’ broken body help us to see the bodies of the sick and wounded and exploited? As we seek God and each other in our bodies, as we pay attention to ways to honor the body, we remember that every body is blessed by God, deserving of protection and care.”