Curtis A. Bronzan

David Bazan’s forthcoming record, Curse Your Branches, continuously explicates his current theological outlook. Through the years Bazan revealed his personal doubts through the lenses of a cast of characters, in largely existentialist terms. Curse Your Branches, on the other hand, is entirely in the first person, including a track entitled “Bearing Witness.”

I clung to miracles I have not seen
from ancient signatures I cannot read
Though I’ve repented I’m still tempted I admit
but it’s not what bearing witness is
Too full of fear and prophecy to see
the revelation right in front of me
So sick and tired of trying to make the pieces fit
’cause it’s not what bearing witness is
When the gap between what I hoped would be
and what is makes me weep for my kids
I take a cleansing breath and make a positive confession
But is that what bearing witness is?
Though it may alienate your family
and blur the lines of your identity
Let go of what you know and honor what exists
Son, that’s what bearing witness is
Daughter, that’s what bearing witness is

Of all the tracks, it feels one of the most hopeful, both musically and lyrically. Note especially the line “I take a cleansing breath and make a positive confession.” Lines like this, among others, prompted my previous post attempting to short circuit Bazan with Slavoj Žižek. This is due not only due to the theological questions they ask, but also what they affirm, what could be referred to as a “materialist theology.” Thus the admonition, “Let go of what you know and honor what exists.”

While I cannot go as far as Žižek and Bazan, affirming only a materialist theology (thus negating any form of Transcendance), there is, of course, a wholly materialist element to the Kingdom of God, which the church desperately needs to recover – especially in the demise of modernity. May we recognize our “materialist” calling found throughout the Scriptures. As the Son of Man proclaims:

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

There seems to be, then, at the conclusion of Matthew’s gospel, the command to honor the Invisible in caring for the Material. This is no new concept, but has existed throughout the Hebrew Scriptures with the command to care for “the widow, the orphan and the stranger,” as a response to God’s liberation from the hands of the Egyptians.