Exploring the light in Bruce Cockburn’s dark music
TORONTO, ON—We honour God when we're honest with him about our emotions—even the difficult ones—says Brian Walsh.
Walsh, a theology of culture professor at the Toronto School of Theology, is also the author of Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn & the Christian Imagination. The new book uses Cockburn's music as a springboard for exploring the faith.
"This book was probably 25 years in the making," says Walsh, who is also a campus minister with the Christian Reformed Church. "There is a depth to Cockburn's lyrics that not only resonates deeply with my own life, but resonates deeply with the biblical world view."
Kicking at the Darkness launches December 5 at Hugh's Room in Toronto, as part of a benefit concert for Parkdale Neighborhood Church featuring musicians Steve Bell and Michael Janzen.
"I'm not presuming to say, 'This is the world view or the theology or Bruce Cockburn'," Walsh says. "If there is a worldview in the book it is mine, as developed in conversation and engagement on his art."
Walsh says both Cockburn's openly spiritual songs and darker political ones provide opportunities to spark the Christian imagination.
"Cockburn never accepted a kind of sacred/secular distinction in his music," he adds. "If he's going to follow Jesus, then following Jesus is going to have an impact on every part of his politics. I find his political songs, even his very abrasive political lyrics, to have very profound echoes of the prophets and the Psalms.
"The psalmist gives expression to his profound anger and his profound hurt. And what I think is great about the biblical God is that he can handle that. If you try to protect God from your emotions, you are not only being dishonest with yourself, you are being disrespectful to God, because you are saying God can't handle it."
He says he has probably seen Cockburn in concert over a hundred times, has had the opportunity to meet him, and got feedback from him on Kicking at the Darkness.
"He's really happy with the book," he says, "And that matters a lot. He says there might be some differences of interpretation of a song here and there, and that's okay, because I don't think he has the final interpretation on the meaning of a song, and neither does he."
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