I’m not intentional about curating playlists for different occasions. Instead, I just go with what the algorithms send my way. I have begun to rethink that practice, however, in light of two books I have read recently.
One is Christian Smith’s Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America. The other is James Davison Hunter’s Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America’s Political Crisis.
Despite the differing subjects they address, they converge in several ways, but here I focus on one. Both authors conclude with sobering observations.
Smith speculates that “perhaps a season has come for traditional religion’s remaining seeds to fall to the ground and appear to die so that some much more fruitful life might be born.” Hunter ends with the hope that “what might seem like the imminent end of the story of liberal democracy may yet presage a new beginning.”
In their conclusions, I hear echoes of Ecclesiastes 3:2: “There is a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted.” Is it time for some cherished things to die? I wish I knew.
Of course, I can’t read Ecclesiastes 3 without hearing the Byrds’ hit “Turn! Turn! Turn!” They don’t seem to be too bothered by the opposing times, however, as they sing joyfully through all the seasons. I like the song, but I struggle to be that nonchalant.
Revisiting Ecclesiastes, I see that after the author confidently asserts that everything has a season, he’s not so sure about his ability to tell what time it really is. The author says, at least as I read Ecclesiastes 3:11, “God may have a plan, but we poor humans can’t figure it out no matter how hard we try.”
That statement makes me start humming Chicago’s “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” Later in the song, they ask, “Does anybody really care?” As much as I like the song, I’m not entirely satisfied with it. Unlike that band, I genuinely care and want to know.
If Chicago and Ecclesiastes seem too bleak and the Byrds too cheery, what else is there? I might add “Hymn of Promise.”
This song affirms that in the bulb, in the seed, in the cold and snow of winter is something “unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.” I don’t disagree, but am I a bit too impatient to wait that long?
Still, I don’t want to exclude these songs from my playlist, because I do neither myself nor others any good by denying my conflicting emotions or the realities behind this quest for a fitting playlist. So, I began looking for music that might connect these songs or anchor them despite their different moods.
What I came up with is God of Grace and God of Glory. In doing so, I place special emphasis on the prayer that is its chorus: “Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the facing of this hour/for the living of these days/that we fail not [neighbors] nor Thee.”
That will do, at least for now.
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Professor of religion in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. He is the author of Wisdom Calls: The Moral Story of the Hebrew Bible (Nurturing Faith Books, 2017) and Faithful Innovation: The Rule of God and a Christian Practical Wisdom.
