The God that Failed. How Evangelical Art turns God into a Genie and Metallica does it Better. (Part 3)
- Phil Kallberg
- 9 hours ago
- 30 min read
Broken is the promise, betrayal / The healing hand held back by the deepened nail / Follow the god that failed -Metallica
(I strongly recommend that you listen to all the music that I link to here, it will make it far easier to grasp the points I’m making.)
I suspect that most people who are not rock fans have no idea that Metallica wrote a song about the Exodus. The story is that their original bassist saw the death of the firstborn in The 10 Commandments, said something like, “Whoa it’s like creeping death,” and the song was born.
It’s one of their most popular songs, and they often open concerts with it. Despite being a Metallica fan for years, it was never one of my favorites . . . until I heard them play it live. It just sounds better, and the audience adds to it. (To help you get it, I mashed together scenes form The Prince of Egypt with a live performance of Creeping Death. https://youtu.be/SVHjOhE2I4I)
The studio version doesn’t open and end with those four guttural, existential, screams. And even though it’s not on the studio version, the music itself practically cries out for someone to scream at those points.
Exodus says that when the Israelites were enslaved for 430 years, they cried out to God to deliver them, and He heard their cries and did so.[1] It’s likely that some of those cries were wordless existential cries of anguish akin to what the fans yell during Creeping Death. I really doubt that Metallica intended this connection when they wrote the song, but the music just cries out for a scream and being enslaved for generations certainly calls for some screaming as well.
So even if the number isn’t completely literal, it still follows that whole generations, perhaps as many as ten, were enslaved. There were numerous generations where the grandparents, parents, and children all cried out to God and did not see deliverance. God did send Moses to deliver their descendants, and it’s natural that we focus on that as the text of Exodus does as well, but many people never saw it.
As my family and I have been dealing with Eden’s cancer and my wife’s chronic medical conditions, I noticed something odd. A significant amount of well-meaning people sent us Christian songs, poems, and similar things to try and encourage us. That’s not odd. What’s odd is that I found all those things profoundly unhelpful. At best they were waste of time that missed the mark compactly, and often they struck me as dishonest and inauthentic.[2]
I’m not disparaging any of the people who sent us these things. I’d rather 1,000 people send me things that I find unhelpful than the alternative.[3] But the more I’ve thought about it the more unusual this seems. Here are (mostly) fellow Christians sending me Christian art, and the bulk of which had been specifically written for the purpose of speaking to and comforting people who are suffering. But not only was it not comforting, a lot of it just made things seem worse. Why was all of it missing the mark so badly?[4] Give that Christianity is true, this is the opposite of what I would expect. Songs like Creeping Death, Halo on Fire, The Unforgiven(s), and The Day That Never Comes were connecting with me in ways that the specifically Christian art was not and further these songs seemed real and authentic (I hate that I have to use this term) in ways that the Christian art and music felt fake and often just . . . dumb.[5]
I’ve liked rock and hard rock music for my entire adult life, but there was something more going on here. I felt and knew in a sense that I couldn’t quite articulate and explain that these songs “got it” while the explicitly Christian ones missed the mark, and missed the mark badly.
I’ve spent a long time puzzling over this. I started and abandoned many attempts at writing something like this. Feelings are less trustworthy than rational thought, but the feelings haven’t gone away and without exception every single person I’ve talked to about this has given me no push back at all. I don’t mean the entirety of what I’m arguing, rather I mean the fact that I found all the Christian art useless. No one disputed that. And when I told them that I’ve found some of Metallica’s songs much better at expressing and dealing with the angst and temptation to despair that seemingly pointless suffering (SPS) produces, no one gave me any push back there either.[6] The typical response was something like, “Well yes of course.”
If this sounds absurd to you, go read any of Psalms 3 to 7, 9 to 14, 17, or any of the other Psalms of lament (I’ll let you pick) and then see which of the following is more “Psalm-like;”
Mouth so full of lies / Tend to black your eyes / Just keep them closed, keep praying, just keep waiting / Waiting for the one / The day that never comes / When you stand up and feel the warmth / But the sunshine never comes No / No the sunshine never comes.[7]
And I'm fighting a battle / You've already won / No matter what comes my way / I will overcome
Don't know what you're doing / But I know what you've done / And I'm fighting a battle / You've already won.[8]
Now it’s obvious what I’m doing, but the first is Metallica’s The Day that Never Comes, the second is the popular worship song You’ve Already Won, and the first one sounds a lot more like the Psalms. I might get push back on this, but I’ll go as far as claiming that you have to interpret scripture very loosely (i.e. poorly) to pull out something like You’ve Already Won. At the most basic level the song doesn’t make sense. Why fight a battle that Christ has already won? If that is indeed the case, then I should cease fighting as that fighting is at best wasted effort, but that’s not what the song communicates. And before someone objects, the fact that it’s a Christian worship song doesn’t excuse it from not making sense. More on that below.
Now this dynamic is just bizarre. Metallica is not Christian and makes no claim to be so. You’ve Already Won is written by Christians and is intended to be a Christian worship song. I’ve heard it in more worship services than I can count. How does a secular hard rock song seem more Biblical (at least more like a Psalm of lament) than a worship song?
The breakthrough that enabled me to explain this came at a conference in March of this year (2025). My friend Austin Williams was presenting his essay, “Hold On and Let Go: Phenomenological Analysis of Tarrying in Prayer”, and what he said about tension sparked the realization in me.[9]
The songs I identified with were embracing and pushing into tension. The Christian art was not. It was doing the opposite and encouraging me to give up (I’m fighting a battle you’ve already won) and ignore the tension and/or pretend that the tension just isn’t there. The Israelites had to endure 400ish years of bondage. Job had to lose his health, wealth, and most of his family. Christ Himself had to be abandoned by His friends, experience such stress that he sweated blood, and be tortured and crucified before the resurrection. But apparently God forbid that any of our art talk about the tension and difficulty therein.[10]
John Welwood developed a term for this phenomenon called “spiritual bypassing.”[11] It’s way of avoiding the difficulty of actually dealing with tension, pain, and negative emotions by simply appealing to something spiritual or supernatural. God’s already taken care of everything so why do you feel tension? Perhaps you just haven’t accepted what God has to say or perhaps you have too little faith? If you are a Christian and feel tension there must be something wrong with you, how can Christians feel tension? This sounds an awful lot like what Job’s friends said, and God condemned them for it.[12] Of course no one said that to Sarah or I, and nothing anyone sent to us directly said those things, but it was typically implied and assumed by most of those songs. It’s implied and assumed as the Christian art focused exclusively on “God will make everything all right” and just glosses over and ignores the fact that it's often a long and extremely painful process to get there.
The Exodus was preceded by 400ish years of bondage. And once you become aware of this, you’re going to see it everywhere in Evangelical art and music. Now I suppose it would be polite of me to apologize if I just ruined a lot of art and music for you, but I’m not sorry about it. So while this is a very odd thing to say, many of Metallica's songs about suffering and struggle are more faithful to Biblical teaching than a lot of popular Evangelical songs are.[13]
I won’t give an analysis of all the songs that I’ve found meaningful and helpful here as that would take too long. Just the name of The Day That Never Comes is nearly self-explanatory. My family and I want the day of health and peace for Sarah and Eden, but the day never comes. And generally speaking all decent people want the day when there is peace, justice, and joy, but at least so far, the day has never come. I have the hope that the Day will come, but it might not be in my life.
To illustrate this more I’m going to compare Halo of Fire to When Death was Arrested. I’m not going to do complete literary criticism of both songs (though I could) as that would also take too long. I picked When Death was Arrested because it’s not an objectively bad song that makes obvious and blatant theological and philosophical mistakes (if I wanted to do that there are many examples) and I actually like it. It has good elements. So I’m not comparing the worst with the best, but rather I tried to pick two strong examples. Nonetheless ignoring the tension/spiritual bypassing is just assumed by this song.
I picked Halo on Fire because for reasons that I didn’t initially understand, it spoke to and inspired me to keep pushing on.
Some days when the angst of what’s happening to Eden and Sarah really got to me, I’d just listen to it over and over again, and I’d feel like I can go one more day. Now I’ve realized this because the song oozes tension. The intensity of the music builds and builds until the end. Adding to the tension, the lyrics contain contrary statements. The music video is about a young women going to an underground fight club and continuing to fight even though it seems that she gets beaten down over and over again.
Halo on Fire (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbxH5S9_A3M)
Obey, Obey / Come won’t you stay / Sincere, sincere / All ends in tears / Endure, endure / Thoughts most impure / Concede, concede / But both shall we bleed
Oh, Halo on Fire / The midnight knows it well / Fast is desire / Creates another hell / I fear to turn on the light / For the darkness won’t go away / Fast, is desire / Turn out the light / Halo on Fire
Allure, allure / Sweetness obscure / Abide, Abide / Secrets inside / Deprive, deprive / To feel so alive / Obey, obey / Just don’t turn away
Oh, Halo on Fire / The midnight knows it well / Fast is desire / Creates another hell / I fear to turn on the light / For the darkness won’t go away / Fast, is desire / Turn out the light / Halo on Fire
Prayers cannot get through / Return to sender / Unto which of you / Shall I surrender / Twisting in disguise / Dark resurrection / Lighting up the skies /Wicked perfection
Too dark to sleep / Can’t slip away / Open or closed / My eyes betray / Beyond the black / Come won’t you stay
Hello darkness, say goodbye / Hello darkness, say goodbye / Hello darkness, say goodbye
Typically, good art is open to some interpretation, and most of Metallica’s best songs are a bit vague. And with some exceptions they also tend to be coy and avoid saying how to interpret them. It’s pretty easy to hear Halo on Fire and think, well that’s cool, and I like the feeling of resilience the music invokes, but what is it about?
First the lyrics contain some odd elements. In the two verses each line fits both with the line before and after. So you can deprive, deprive to feel so alive or you can feel so alive by obey[ing], obey[ing], and you should also obey, obey so as to not turn away. So there is a really tight coherence to the verses.
But the chorus and the bridge bring in contrary elements. It doesn’t make sense to fear turn[ing] on the light if the darkness won’t go away . . . darkness is dispelled by light. And how can a resurrection be dark? Resurrections are good things. How can perfection be wicked? Those are contrary terms. Even the song’s name Halo on Fire alludes to a contrary. A halo is a sign of something or someone being holy (at least it was prior to the Halo video game series) and while we can plausibly find some ways to associate fire with holiness, having your halo burning seems to suggest your holiness is being damaged, destroyed, or is in some other way wrong.
Watching the music video explains a bit more. There we see a very thin young women go to an underground fight club and engage in fights of escalating difficulty until she’s paired against a muscular guy who probably has 100 pounds on her. It’s also at this point the music intensifies, and the lyrics repeat over and over again, “Hello darkness say goodbye.” Naturally, the man easily throttles her. She’s beaten so badly that she cannot get back up. Then we see her wake up (presumably the next day), cover her bruises, go back, and try again. We last see her staring at an unseen opponent while high-fiving the audience.
I think the point is that she’s staring down another opponent who she knows she cannot beat, but she’s going to try anyway, because that’s what resilience and determination is. You try, try, and try again even knowing that you will not succeed. There are lots of things in life where we do need to keep trying even if we know we will fail. You gain or demonstrate something of great value in just the attempt, even if you are certain that you cannot win. In many great stories there will be a vast army coming that the hero and his forces cannot beat. When the commander, general, or king refuses to surrender and fights anyway, we recognize this is a heroic and noble thing to be praised. And that I think is what the music video is showing us. Like her do you have the courage and resilience to fight when you cannot win?
Obviously this analogy breaks down as it’s not necessary to go back to a fight club over and over again, but it still makes the point. There are too many Biblical stories to count where all seems lost and to hope would be stupid, but God says, “Just do as I say and I’ll take care of it.” When the people in the story listen to God and try anyway things go well and when they don’t, it doesn’t.
When you are dealing with suffering, especially SPS, the seeming coherence of life is shattered by contrary elements and things that just don’t seem to fit together. i.e. God loves Eden more than it’s even possible for me to, yet if I could, I would rid Eden’s body of cancer in an instant, but God has not. And it’s the same thing with my wife’s ongoing health problems. Of course there are possible answers and reasons for this, but it seems prima facie contrary.[14] So the song starts with coherence and then introduces more and more contrary (at least seemingly contrary) elements while the intensity of the music increases.
We want life to make sense. We need things to have some sense of coherence to make sense of it. When we don’t know the whys of suffering it makes life seem incoherent. Things literally don’t make sense. Perhaps there is a grand cosmic and metaphysical sense in which they do (I certainly think so), but it certainly doesn’t seem or feel that way when you are dealing with seemingly pointless suffering.
Experiencing suffering, especially intense suffering, can make your own perceptions may fail you. At times it may distort things so much that you simply cannot trust what your own mind and eyes show you. So open or close my eyes betray. This is why we all need people around us who will pull us back to reality and anchor us when things like this happen. It’s also why you should strive to ground your life and faith on sound theology and philosophy as when the storms come the house that is built on sand will not stand.[15] And if you haven’t had storms in your life yet, get ready. I promise you, they are coming.
So the point here is that I listen to this song and/or watch the video and rather than despair, I think, “maybe I don’t have enough to go for years more, but just like that woman, I’ve got one more day/round in me.” And that’s really all we ever need to do, just go one more day. I don’t think this song would inspire me to strength and resilience if it simply papered over and bypassed the genuine tension and struggle it’s dealing with. Rather it inspires me in large part because it embraces the tension/struggle head on and says push through anyway. Even when you get knocked down and even when you know you won’t win, even when it hurts like absolute hell, treat your wounds, get up, and try again. Maybe one day you won’t be able to get up again. But that’s not today. And I think to some extent that’s what the Israelites did for 400ish years before God sent Moses to deliver them.
Now let’s compare that to When Death was Arrested.
Alone in my sorrow and dead in my sin / Lost without hope with no place to begin / Your love made a way to let mercy come in / When death was arrested and my life began
Ash was redeemed, only beauty remains / My orphan heart was given a name /My mourning grew quiet, my feet rose to dance / When death was arrested and my life began
Oh, Your grace, so free, washes over me / You have made me new, now life begins with You / It's Your endless love, pouring down on us / You have made us new, now life begins with You
Released from my chains, I'm a prisoner no more / My shame was a ransom He faithfully bore / He cancelled my debt and He called me His friend / When death was arrested and my life began
Oh, Your grace, so free, washes over me / You have made me new, now life begins with You / It's Your endless love, pouring down on us / You have made us new, now life begins with You
Our savior displayed on a criminal's cross / Darkness rejoiced as though heaven had lost / But then Jesus arose with our freedom in hand / That's when death was arrested and my life began
Oh, Your grace, so free, washes over me / You have made me new, now life begins with You / It's Your endless love, pouring down on us / You have made us new, now life begins with You
Oh, we're free, free, forever we're free / Come join the song of all the redeemed / Yes, we're free, free, forever, amen / When death was arrested and my life began / Oh, we're free, free, forever we're free / Come join the song of all the redeemed / Yes, we're free, free, forever, amen / When death was arrested and my life began / When death was arrested and my life began / That’s when death was arrested and my life began
As I said above, this is not a bad song. It’s one of the better recent worship songs. It has no immediately obvious theological and philosophical mistakes (unlike many other songs which are almost heretical) and though I like the hard rock style of Halo on Fire better, its music isn’t bad.
It’s also straightforward and clear what the song is about. It’s using the metaphor of death itself being arrested to celebrate the grace that comes through Christ’s death and resurrection. And just in case you don’t get it, the last verse explains the metaphor. So there is nothing vague and very little that is open to interpretation here.
I have two minor criticisms.
First, there’s almost nothing in the whole song that is open to interpretation. You and I don’t have to do any thinking or work to understand it. Typically good art should leave some things open to interpretation and with this song if you don’t “get it” . . . well I’m not sure what to tell you as it’s hard for me to think of a way it could be clearer.
Second, and somewhat contrary to my first point, the song doesn’t make it clear what it means for death to be arrested. There is a great deal of theology, some of it controversial, buried in Christ overcoming death through the resurrection. The song has nothing to say or point to here. For example, absent the return of Christ, I’m still going to die someday, as will everyone else. If death is arrested how is that I’m still going to die? I think it’s referring to spiritual death and/or the end of death in our sins. And this is a rich theological concept that I wish the song writers had communicated or allude to.
Someone without familiarity with Christian theology will probably be lost. Similarly with the cries about being free. I don’t know any Christian, mature or shallow, who doesn’t still struggle with being free from sin. That’s something we will all need to struggle and deal with in this life. While the song doesn’t explicitly say “You’re free, so no more struggle at all,” that’s a plausible inference to draw.
And that leads to my major criticism. This song has absolutely no tension at all. It’s so triumphant and joyous that based on this song you could forgiven for thinking that no Christian ever has any problems ever again. Of course that’s not true, and I strongly suspect the author(s) of the song would claim that’s not true too. But reread or listen to the song again with this criticism and “spiritual bypassing” in mind and it should be easy to see. Some of this might be because rock music just seems better at expressing angst than other types of music as my friend Jim Jones has alluded to.[16]
Christ didn’t say “Rejoice I’ve taken care of everything!” He said take up your cross and follow me.[17] But you’d be hard pressed to find that in When Death was Arrested. Not only there is there nothing wrong with celebrating Christ’s resurrection and victory over death and sin, it’s a good thing to do so. But if that’s all or almost entirely what you hear you’re going to be caught flat footed when it comes time to take up your cross. And you will have to take up your cross at some point. “The flood is coming.”[18] But embrace the message here and you’re going to be quite shocked when it gets here. “We have grace and we are finally free!” But that doesn’t mean that everything will be easy. I’ve found that it will often make things harder. Just like it’s easy to stay down and it’s much harder to find the courage and virtue to get up and fight again. And as I said this is, in my opinion, one of the better contemporary Christian songs. Listen to your average worship service with these problems in mind and you’ll find that they are numerous. There is little or no tension in them (and in most evangelical art in general) and most of them are so focused on being triumphant that it implies that there should be no problems in a Christian’s life.[19] Spiritual bypassing is everywhere.
The tension I’m referring to here comes from simply going through a hard time and/or experiencing suffering. A soldier in war feels tension, but this is not from holding incompatible beliefs, rather it comes from the stress of being in war. If you are in war and you do not feel stress and tension, you have problems that go beyond being in war. Experiencing suffering, especially SPS, causes stress and tension. This is as normal and human a reaction as being hungry and feeling satisfied after eating. Pretending there is no tension, or that it will all just go away shortly, is not honest or authentic. And this is implied or is a reasonable inference to draw from When Death was Arrested and a lot of other Christian art. There is no sense of learning to endure, no sense of sitting with people in their suffering as Job’s friends did, and no real sense of acknowledging just how awful SPS is. [20] The direct or indirect implication of nearly all the evangelical art on suffering is that God is really just a genie who will fix everything if you approach Him correctly, have enough faith, or if He decides you have suffered enough. You just need to perform the correct rituals, demonstrate the right level of faith (even though what this means or what it practically looks like is never defined), and God will fix everything. Learn some resilience, perseverance, and endure even if the suffering has no end in sight? Hardly, the songs (and other bad theology) tell me that God wants me to be happy so it must be that He will end the suffering and make me happy. If He’s not, it must be that I am doing something wrong . . . after all He’s already won. Let’s not even consider the very biblical idea that God might be using suffering (even SPS) to teach me some basic virtue and He’s often more interested in us being virtuous than He is in us avoiding suffering.
I know some of you will think, “Phil you are just rationalizing your own preferences because you like hard rock music,” but there is evidence beyond my observations that more and more Christians buy into the notion that God wants us to avoid suffering at all costs . . . i.e. the prosperity heresy.[21] A study from Lifeway research found that, “3 in 4 churchgoers (76%) believe God wants them to prosper financially, including 43% who strong agree. Fewer (45%) believe they have to do something for Him in order to receive material blessings.”[22] These idea are not just wrong, they are profoundly unbiblical, and the rest of the study is hardly more encouraging.
It would be foolish for me to claim that the bad and unbiblical theology our art teaches (probably mostly inadvertently) is the only reason for this rise in a heretical/borderline heretical belief. Such things are complicated and multivariate. But it would be equally foolish to claim that there is no effect at all here. Teaching the wrong thing in our art certainly does have some effect. Art does affect culture as I’ve argued before.[23]
So while this should be obvious, the Bible just doesn't teach this way of thinking about life and suffering. The problem here isn’t that modern worship songs don’t align with my taste in music. It’s that they are encouraging bad thinking and bad theology that’s unbiblical and also just stupid.[24]
The Psalms aren't like this. Ecclesiastes isn't like this. Job isn't like this. Nothing in the New Testament teaches this either. The great Christian art of the past isn't like this. The Lord of the Rings and CS Lewis' stories aren't like this. There are only a few secular stories like this, and they are mostly things like hallmark movies, vapid rom-coms, and some of the dumber and shallower action movies of the 80s and 90s. And this is because we all intrinsically know that this "deny the tension/spiritual bypassing idea" is inauthentic and stupid. It seems like the only group of people who consistently embrace this ridiculous idea are contemporary evangelical Christians in America.[25] Art and media like this is generally looked down on elsewhere because even when people can’t put their finger on why, they intrinsically know there is something deeply wrong with it. The highest standard that all art should aspire to is to produce a bittersweet feeling and also inspire inspire you. As I said before about philosophy and theology, if the art you regularly consume and engage with is worthless when your life gets hard, maybe it’s time to find some different, better art.[26] I can honestly say that I can think of very few examples of explicitly Evangelical Christian art that does this . . and the few that I can are by in large not embraced in most churches.
There seems to be a basic principle that most good things can only come through struggle and tension. This is well illustrated in resistance training (weightlifting) by the term “time under tension.” Your body betters itself with time under tension. It’s at best unpleasant. If it doesn’t hurt, you’re probably doing it wrong, but that’s the way things are. Likewise your character and virtue can be bettered to some degree only by time under tension. To be a good and virtuous person you must endure suffering. This is one of the main points of James 1. But bypass it by claiming things like “oh yeah it seems hard, but God’s already won so you need not worry,” and you’ll miss out on that and set yourself up for failure. What if you are one of the generations that doesn’t get to see Moses come?
The story behind The God that Failed is that James Hetfield’s mother was a part of the Christian Science sect, which refuses modern medicine. So when she got cancer, she refused treatment and of course died. She followed the god of Christian Science that failed because it’s a false, human made, god. Gods of human making be they political, philosophical, sociological, and even the gods of bad and shallow theology always fail. The healing hand of the real God is, I suspect, sometimes (often?) held back by the shallow, stupid, and bad theology most of our art portrays. God didn’t and doesn’t fail. The false god the bad art pointed to has. Those evangelical songs encourage the denial of reality by treating God as if He is a genie that will just fix things if we can get the ritual right. We want quick and easy answers, but SPS doesn’t have quick and easy answers. So we ignore the difficulty, spiritually bypass it, and embrace dishonest and inauthentic media/art that also pretends it’s all easy because God will just fix it. But this ignores the 400ish years of enslavement that came before deliverance. Hence the god of this bad art is the god that failed because it’s not God! And then when the actual God says you need to learn to wait and endure before deliverance comes you won’t know what to do because you’ve been taught that you’re fighting a battle/You've already won/No matter what comes my way/I will overcome.
Some things are meant to beat you and there are somethings that you simply cannot overcome. Sometime we need to be broken because there are parts of us that need to be done away with. Sometimes you need to learn the virtue and resilience that only comes with experiencing suffering and taking up your cross. And sometimes the Moses of your story is just over the horizon, and your day of deliverance is nearly here. Or maybe you are the Moses of you story and God’s going to send you to deliver a lot of people.[27] But I cannot see how anyone will ever learn any of that by repeating, No matter what comes my way/I will overcome.
So if you want to be inspired to keep “taking up your cross,” I cannot recommend much in the way of contemporary Evangelical art and music. But I will point you toward a few hard rock songs.
Conclusion. (for now)
“I fear to turn on the light, for the darkness won’t go away.”
As I write this (hopefully finally finishing a first draft of these ideas) my wife and I are waiting for Eden to finish another MRI to see if her cancer has started growing again or is stable. Of course, maybe, there will be a miracle this time and the tumor will have shrunk or disappeared.
On the face of it, the above line from Halo on First doesn’t make sense. Light makes the darkness go away, so how can I be afraid of turning on the light? But if you are in an endless fight then maybe turning on the light will just confirm that the struggle has no end. Like another Metallica song says, “My life/ the war that never ends.”[28] I can certainly imagine those generations of Israelites who never saw deliverance could have felt that way. And I can think of several times in my own life where if God had told me what was coming the younger version of myself would have said “Hell no. I’m out.” This is one of the many times where Sarah and I have been waiting for the results of an MRI or another test and the fear and angst of turning on light and getting the results is very real as “the darkness won’t go away.” Absent an actual miracle, the best we can hope for is that we have kept the darkness at bay for a little longer.[29] So maybe, like me, you fear to turn on the light because a part of you worries that if you do, it'll just confirm that the darkness will not go away.[30]
One day all of us will meet something that simply cannot be beaten. That often repeated saying “God will not give you more than you can handle,” isn’t true. Try telling that to Job. Perhaps you’ve already met this thing that you cannot beat as I have, or maybe not. You can prepare for these things by discipling and training your body, mind, and spirit so that there'll be less things that you cannot overcome (and you should do that). But contrary to that song, there are things out there that you will never be able to overcome. So what will you do?
You are going to suffer and it’s pretty likely that some if not most of it will be SPS. You can let this break you, you can rage against the God and the injustice of it all, you can attempt to ignore, suppress, and deny it (which is what most of us in America do), or you can learn to suffer nobly by seeking God and virtue. The later option is undoubtably much harder. But it’s right and it probably will go better in the long run.
Now, if you take the later option you are going to get knocked down . . . over and over again. But it's not about that. It's about having the discipline and courage to keep getting up and to try, try, and try again. Maybe God will decide to deliver you. Now maybe He won't, but if you can say in the face of that with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, “but even if He does not . . .” then you'll have set a good example for your children and their children.[31] And maybe just like the Exodus, God will deliver them. The day will come, even if it doesn't come for you. And if it doesn't you get the honor of showing your family and the people around you how to suffer heroically. And so then it won’t be pointless, even though it will be brutally hard.
Or you can just keep singing about fighting a battle that’s already been won and see how that works out for you. An awful lot of our music and art sounds a lot like Job’s friends. Conversely some of Metallica’s songs sound a lot more like Job himself. God condemned the words of Job’s friends and while it is possible to interpret God’s words to Job as a rebuke, He didn’t claim that Job had spoken falsely of Him. It’s like Dallas Willard said nearly 30 years ago. “[W]hat we are “selling” is irrelevant to our real existence and without power over daily life.”[32]
These are the initial reflections I have on this after the last two and a half years, but my family and I are still in the midst of it all. I’m sure I’ll have other, better, reflections one day when this is all over. Even now I have other, much more scattered, thoughts that I’ve cut out as I haven’t been able to make sense of them all yet.
So if you are not facing SPS right now, first be grateful. Second, start preparing your soul, mind, and body for it. It’s coming and it’s far better for you to start preparing now. To return to Creeping Death and the Exodus, at the end a flood protects the Israelites while it destroys the Egyptians (go back and watch the video if you haven’t already). And I think, in ways I still have a hard time articulating, that this is what suffering will do. If you’ve resolved yourself to walk with God then the suffering, even SPS, will actually be good for you. But if you done the opposite then it will destroy you, just like it did Pharoh and the Egyptians. And since the flood is always coming you had better pick one.
Now if after all this you can say that the songs I’ve been criticizing inspire the same feelings in you that Halo of Fire does in me, well then good. Keep listening to them and seek after God. But for now, at least when the grief and angst of the fact that my daughter has inoperable and incurable brain cancer gets to be a bit too much, I pray about, start playing the song again and think, “all right, if the darkness just won’t go away, then,
Turn out the light / Halo on Fire!
NOTES
[1] Exodus 12:40. It seems likely to me that this number is approximate as Genesis 15:13 says 400 years and the Bible and especially the Old Testament likes giving approximations instead of exact numbers. It’s likely that there are theological and cultural reasons for this but that’s a whole other tangent.
[2] I hate that I have to use the term “authentic” like this as it has been co-opted by some very bad philosophies and ideologies. In many of these philosophies and ideologies “authenticity,” or being your “real self” has just become a buzz word/excuse for enabling our own selfishness and vices. Every human being has evil/bad tendencies in us that should be curbed, contained, and fought against. The bulk of the “I’m just being authentic” claims come from a very Nietzschean/postmodern outlook that, in practical effect, denies the fact that all of us have bad tendencies. So if people tell you that you are doing evil and/or behaving immorally and your response is “I’ve got to live my authentic life” it’s likely you’ve bought into one of these bad ideologies and are justifying/ignoring your worst tendencies instead of fighting against them. So while I hate to use the term, it’s still the best term to use here.
[3] The fact that they did this shows that they care and they are trying to help us.
[4] And again I’m not at all disparaging the people who sent Sarah and I these things. I’m grateful for everyone who did this and for the people who have and still are giving us practical assistance.
[5] Also Hero of the Day, Bleeding Me, Outlaw Torn, Until it Sleeps, and All Within my Hands. And of course there are plenty of other songs for other bands and artists.
[6] Perhaps on reading this someone will give me some pushback. But as I write this no one has disputed these points which is part of what makes me think that I’m on to something.
[9] Austin Williams, “Hold On and Let Go: Phenomenological Analysis of Tarrying in Prayer,” Paper presented at the 2025 meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies at Northwest University, Kirkland, WA.
[10] Now by tension here I do not mean cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is (for the three people left in the world who are unaware) the tension that is produced by simultaneously holding two or more incompatible beliefs . . . beliefs that are contrary or contradictory. This concept gets a lot of airtime and it certainly is a problem that produces tension in people’s lives, but it’s not what I’m referring to.
[11] John Welwood, Toward a Psychology of Awakening, (Boston: Shambhala, 2002). The sources I looked at say that Welwood was a Buddhist. This suggests that this problem transcends Christianity, and perhaps spiritual bypassing is more of an American/Western problem than a Christian one. Further I find it a bit ironic that a Buddhist identified this concept as, it seems to me, the basic tenet of Buddhism is a type of spiritual bypassing. The Buddha says we suffer because we have desires that are not fulfilled, and this is true, but his solution is to just stop desiring. I suspect that this is simply impossible for human beings, but even if we could pull it off this seems to be a pretty extreme example of spiritual bypassing.
[12] Job 4-5, 8, 11, 15, 18, 20, 22, 25, 32-37, “[T]he Lord spoke to Eliphaz from Teman: “My anger is burning against you along with your two friends, since you haven’t spoken correctly about me, as did my servant Job.” Job 42:7
[13] I’m sure that some people who read this will point me toward exceptions where a contemporary Christian artist deals with suffering and tension well. Such things do exist, but I’ll submit to you that they are rare and the majority of contemporary Christian art is ridiculously shallow.
[14] See footnote 7 in the first part of this series, We Can Know How, not Why: But We really Want to Know Why.
[15] And there is nothing more fragile, whimsical, and sand-like in human experience than emotions and good feelings. If your faith is based on only or mostly good feelings and emotion it will die. Christ Himself more or less said this. Matthew 7:24-27
[16] James G. Jones, Utopia Reimagined (Herndon, VA: Mascot Books, 2023), 190. I am significantly elaborating on the point that Jim makes, but it was his book that first made me realize this point, so the idea comes from him.
[17] Matthew 10:38, 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23, 14:27.
[18] I took this idea from one of Jordan Peterson’s lectures on Genesis. Unsurprisingly he has some very unconventional interpretations of Scripture, but he does pull out some interesting and useful things, even though sometimes it’s doubtful that those interpretations are what the original author intended. His point is that one of the lessons of the flood narrative is that “the flood is always coming.” By “the flood” here he means not just natural disasters but things like suffering, illness, professional and relationship difficulties, and so on. Something is always on the verge of going wrong, maybe horribly wrong, and one day it will. So, he says, make yourself a man who walks with God (he means be a virtuous and resilient person) and then maybe you can ride the flood out like Noah did. i.e. The flood will not destroy you. The suffering will not destroy you. And while the hermeneutic he is using is suspect, Peterson is still giving very good advice.
[19] Naturally there should be at least some songs and art that is triumphant. There are Psalms like that in addition to Psalms of lament. It seems to me that we are radically out of balance here as so much is just art and songs of triumph.
[20] It was only when Job’s friends started talking that they got things wrong and spoke of God that which isn’t right. If they had just been with Job and never said a word, most of the book of Job would not exist, but that probably would have gone better. I’m not suggesting you should never say anything to people who are suffering, but I do think it’s better to focus on just being present with and to them. As with most things I’m saying here, this is a rule of thumb as it’s pretty easy to think up exceptions.
[21] This is the idea that God wants us to be happy, healthy, and wealthy so if you don’t have those three things there must be something wrong with you. This is wrong, and if not heretical, close to it.
[22] Lifeway Research, Prosperity Gospel Beliefs on the Rise Among Churchgoers, August 22, 2023.
[23] Phil Kallberg “Undoing Pilate’s Error: How the Church Washed its Hand of Culture,” in Philosophy of Religion and Art, ed. Gregory E. Trickett and John R. Gilhooley, pp. 36-58, (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021).
[24] I’ll never make these same complaints about most of the older hymns because even though I don’t care for that style of music either. They don’t encourage spiritual bypassing. Most of the old hymns like It is Well with my Soul and Amazing Grace steer right into the tension instead of avoiding it.
[25] And possibly other religious groups in America or the West. I suspect the secular/non-religious are attempting to accomplish roughly the same thing by drowning their lives in entertainment and/or distracting themselves by embracing politics to a deeply unhealthy level. I suspect this, but I haven’t done the research to back it up, so I might be wrong.
[26] Of course not all artistic endeavors have to be deep, philosophical, and profoundly meaningful. I’ll argue to the death that God of War (2018) has some deep and profound things to say about being a good father and how empty and pointless vengeance is (I’ve published these arguments in the essay I cited in footnote 23), but I also play Mario Kart. I think The Dark Knight is not just a great action and superhero movie but also shows the heroes genuinely struggling to find a way to combat the deeply nihilistic, postmodern philosophy of the Joker, but I also enjoy the John Wick movies. Somethings have no depth and are just entertaining. In and of itself that’s fine. But if all you ever engage with is art that has no depth then you have a problem.
[27] Or maybe you’ve been resisting God’s call to you as Moses did at first.
[28] Confusion.
[29] Well for another couple months until the next MRI.
[30] And once again it turns out that the cancer is still rated as stable. So later that night I told Sarah, “Here’s to another four months of keeping the darkness at bay.”
[31] Daniel 3:18.
[32] Dallas Willard The Divine Conspiracy 39
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