The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Thursday, November 9, 2017 — 3B

ASTHMATIC KITTY

Sufjan Stevens is a srange, beautiful man
The compelling faith of 
musician Sufjan Stevens

How the artist managed to deliver religion to those who reject it

Sufjan Stevens has never hid 

his faith. Throughout his work, 
he borrows extensively from 
Christian imagery. I always had 
viewed his frequent religious 
allusions as just another one 
of his characteristic oddities, 
akin to his absurd song titles 
and state-themed albums. It’s 
not as though Christianity 
is 
universally 
present 
in 

his works: Sure, if you only 
listened to Seven Swans, you 
might assume Sufjan to be an 
aspiring member of the clergy, 
but if you had only heard The 
Age of Adz you would never 
know he was religious at all. 
However, my views changed 
when I read his blog post that 
compared artistic creation to 
the Christian concept of the 
Eucharist — Sufjan views the 
artist as transforming their 
spirit into a tangible creation 
as an act of generosity. His 
blog made me realize that 
Sufjan’s 
views 
on 
religion 

were 
much 
more 
complex 

and idiosyncratic than I had 
initially viewed them.

I, being irreligious, have 

never had a positive impression 
of “Christian music,” always 
viewing it as exclusive or 
pandering. 
Stevens 
inverts 

those 
stereotypes. 
His 

religious 
inclinations 
feel 

wholly genuine and inclusive, 
a reflection of his personal 
experience without artifice. 
It 
is 
what 
separates 
him 

from the music labelled as 
“Christian,” that he himself 
described in a 2006 interview 
with Delucions of Adequacy 
as 
existing 
“exclusively 

within 
the 
few 
insulated 

floors (cubicles and computers 
included) of some corporate 
construction 
in 
Nashville, 

Tenn.” Rather than being stiff 
and preachy, Sufjan’s faith is 
malleable and subjective; it is 
open for interpretation. The 
way that Sufjan incorporates 

Christianity into his work 
proves that artists don’t have to 
label themselves as “Christian 
music” or beat the listener 
over the head with a neon bible 
to do so. His hymns are not 
agents of proselytization or 
ecclesiastical drones, but the 
earnest products of an attempt 
to 
create 
beauty 
through 

expression.

Sufjan’s 
most 
overtly 

religious 
work 
is 
Seven 

Swans, 
an 
acoustic-folk 

album he released in 2005. 
The album is littered with 
Christian 
allusions 
and 

spiritual overtones, including 
two songs (“Abraham” and 
“The Transfiguration”) that 
are actual Biblical tales. Yet, 
Sufjan made his position clear 

with DOA: “I don’t make faith-
based music,” he said. This 
is a confusing statement at 
first — this guy just made a 
song consisting of the story of 
the Transfiguration of Christ 
with a banjo playing in the 
background, 
and 
now 
he’s 

saying that he doesn’t make 
faith-based music? The key 
word here is “based”: while 
Sufjan 
often 
infuses 
faith 

into his music, his religion is 
never the basis of his creation. 
In that same interview, he 
provides further clarification: 
“It’s not so much that faith 
influences us as it lives in us. 

In every circumstance (giving 
a speech or tying my shoes), 
I am living and moving and 
being. This absolves me from 
ever making the embarrassing 
effort to gratify God (and the 
church) by imposing religious 
content on anything I do,” he 
said. To view certain songs 
as “Christian music” implies 
that there is some distinction 
between the religion of the 
artist and the rest of their 
existence.

Part of what makes Sufjan’s 

faith compelling is that he isn’t 
afraid to publicly wrestle with 
it — in the elegiac “Casimir 
Pulaski Day,” Sufjan tells the 
story of a female friend who 
was 
diagnosed 
with 
bone 

cancer. “Tuesday night at the 
Bible study, we lift our hands 
and pray over your body but 
nothing ever happens,” he 
sings. The creeping doubt, 
the “nothing ever happens,” 
is the subtle thread that runs 
through the narrative of the 
track. In the final line, after 
Sufjan’s friend passes away, 
the religious conflict comes 
to the forefront: “All the glory 
when He took our place, but 
He took my shoulders and He 
shook my face, and He takes 
and He takes and He takes.” 
Sufjan offers questions but 
no answers — his doubt is not 
assuaged, and he is just left 
with his confusion: he doesn’t 
understand why the glorious 
God who sacrificed his son in 
the place of humanity continues 
to take with no recompense. 
There is no answer. The song 
is over. Sufjan isn’t the type 
to conclude with a moralizing 
statement, or some life lesson. 
He tells his story, and he tells 
it as well as he can. This lack of 
an ulterior motive, be it piety 
or proselytization, is what 
sets Sufjan apart from other 
Christian musicians. In the 
DOA interview, he concurs: 
“On an aesthetic level, faith 
and art are a dangerous match. 
Today, they can quickly lead to 
devotional artifice or didactic 

JONAH MENDELSON

Daily Arts Writer

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

ASTHMATIC KITTY

So strange, so beautiful he even has wings

crap. This would summarize 
the 
Christian 
publishing 

world or the Christian music 
industry.”

Another point of curiosity 

in 
Sufjan’s 
music 
is 
the 

relationship 
between 
his 

Christian 
beliefs 
and 
his 

slightly-less-than-ambiguous 
sexuality, with songs such as 
“Futile Devices,” “The Owl 
and the Tanager” and “All for 
Myself” all depicting a love 
interest of Sufjan’s as male. In 
both “To Be Alone With You” 
and “John My Beloved,” the 
narrator addresses a “you” in 
an intimate manner who can 
be interpreted as either Jesus 
or a male lover. While many 
Christians would view these 
two identities as conflicting, 
Sufjan seems to be asserting 
that they can coexist. The 
only hint he gives of conflict 
between his faith and the 
homosexual 
undertones 
in 

his music can be found in 
the 
song 
“The 
Predatory 

Wasp of the Palisades Is Out 
to Get Us!” in which Sufjan 
narrates 
an 
experience 
he 

had at a Methodist summer 
camp: The lyrics imply an 
intimate love between Sufjan 

and his male friend, with 
an ominous wasp hovering 
overhead as Sufjan’s feelings 
progress. This ominous wasp 
can be interpreted as Sufjan’s 
reservations about this same-
sex 
attraction 
brought 
on 

by his religious upbringing, 
a 
disquieting 
presence 

threatening its harsh sting.

Also worth mentioning are 

the two Christmas albums. A 
seamless mixture of the sacred 
and the secular; the 52-track 
long Silver & Gold contains 
both a faithful rendition of 
“Break Forth O Beauteous 

Heavenly Light” and a twelve 
minute long original work 
entitled “Christmas Unicorn” 
that itself includes a lengthy 
interpolation of Joy Division. 
Somehow, these two songs feel 
as though they belong together, 
united 
by 
Sufjan’s 
earnest 

nature and vision of beauty 
in spite of their ostensibly 
different tones.

Sufjan’s Christianity, in its 

honesty and unashamed doubt, 
succeeds in doing what the 
best efforts of the neon Bible-
thumpers in Nashville could 
not — providing a wholesome 
form of music that discusses 
faith 
while 
still 
appealing 

to non-believers. Of course, 
Sufjan was only able to achieve 
this because he is not trying to. 
“Christian music,” as a genre, 
will always feel duplicitous to 
nonbelievers — they know that 
they are trying to be convinced 
of something; the whole genre 
is a tool of conversion (a clumsy 
one, at that) rather than art. 
Sufjan, in total contrast, only 
includes faith when it adds to 
the final artistic product; it is 
never the goal, only the means. 
Sufjan is not a Christian artist. 
He is an artist who is Christian.

I, being 

irreligious, 
have never 

had a positive 
impression of 

“Christian music”

that, I feel overjoyed and 

accomplished.”

Citing Peggy James’s “Bring 

in Your Glory,” as her favorite 
song 
to 
perform, 
Hamilton 

spoke to the value of tradition 
within the Chorale:

“This is a song that has been 

sung each year, and every MGC 
member, past and present, has 
known or will know this song. It 

is one that brings us all together 
as one big family.”

Exuding nothing but warmth, 

MGC 
is 
effervescent 
and 

inspired and filled to the brim 
with pure, unfettered joy. A 
loving bunch, its members are 
bound together by their shared 
convictions and a collective 
goal. KHK, albeit stemming 
from another religion, is no 
different in this regard.

“No matter the level of 

observance, Judaism is another 
aspect of our group, in addition 
to us all loving music and 

singing, that we all have in 
common,” Bruder wrote. “Of 
course, UofM has a prevalent 
Jewish population, and KHK is 
one niche-group that can make 
Michigan’s Jewish community 
even smaller for people who 
want to become involved but 
don’t know where to start.”

Integrating its members own 

personalities into its collective 
range, KHK sings American pop 
songs, in addition to Hebrew 
and Jewish pop songs.

“Right now, our repertoire 

includes some Idan Raichel (a 

GOSPEL
From Page 2B

COURTESY OF ??????

This is where we put a humorous cutline of our own devising.

popular Israeli artist) songs, 
as well as ‘Drop the Game’ by 
Flume and Chet Faker, ‘Sunday 
Candy’ by Chance the Rapper, 
and ‘Electric Love’ by Børns,” 
Bruder wrote. “I love that each 
semester is different in terms of 
songs we learn, and the positive 
messages in all of them reflect 
who we are as a group.”

KHK 
is 
a 
multifaceted 

team, including students in 
engineering; pre-law; the School 
of Music, Theatre & Dance; pre-
med; and pre-social work.

“Each semester brings in 

new members with completely 
different backgrounds, and I 
have enjoyed becoming best 
friends with a group of people 
who have various passions but 
can come together to make 
good music,” Bruder wrote. “I 
have always loved a cappella, 

even before ‘Pitch Perfect,’ 
and knowing I have a space 
on campus for a performance 
outlet has made my Michigan 
experience so much better.”

Both groups have regular 

shows, the next one being in 
December for KHK. It will also 
be performing this February at 
the game between the Detroit 
Pistons 
and 
the 
Portland 

Trailblazers. 
MGC 
regularly 

holds a benefit concert, a fall 
concert and a spring concert, 
all free of charge. Its chief event 
each year is a Spring Break 
tour, during which its members 
minister at various churches 
and colleges across the nation.

I think a lot of what I found 

charming about collegiate a 
cappella — back in those ill-
fated, Vicodin-hazed days of 
senior year — was that everyone 

involved had an incredible trust 
in one another. Grounded by 
their principles, MGC and KHK 
comprise individuals who have 
faith — faith in their religions, 
faith in their talents and faith in 
one another.

It’s 
nice 
to 
believe 
in 

something, 
whatever 
or 

whoever that “something” may 
be. These religiously driven 
a cappella groups on campus 
are such a beautiful example 
of the overwhelming bliss that 
comes from simply believing 
in 
something. 
Using 
their 

principles to inform their art, 
the Michigan Gospel Chorale 
and Kol HaKavod are two — 
of many — University outlets 
through which students can 
stand firm in their convictions 
while furthering their artistry 
and deepening their friendships.

Of course, Sufjan 

was only able 
to achieve this 
because he is not 

trying to

IF THE MET BALL CAN TAKE ON 
CATHOLICISM, WE CAN TAKE ON 

ANYTHING.

EVEN YOU.

E-mail arts@michigandaily.com for 

information on applying.

