Ten important theological country albums
Thanks to Dave Fillingim for his Ten Songs. Here’s my top list of albums that I feel perfectly illustrate theologia crucis and theologia relationis. Here’s a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer that gets at what I see in these albums:
I discovered later, and I’m still discovering right up to this moment, that it
is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith . . . . By
this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In doing so we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world—watching with Christ in Gethsemane. That, I think, is faith; that is metanoia (repentance); and that is how one becomes a [human being] and a Christian.
1. Steve Earle, I Feel Alright
2. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Will the Circle Be Unbroken
3. Billy Joe Shaver, Victory
4. Uncle Tupelo, No Depression
5. Michelle Shocked, Arkansas Traveler
6. Johnny Cash, At Folsom Prison
7. Johnny Cash, At San Quentin
8. Lucinda Williams, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
9. Loretta Lynn, Van Lear Rose
10. Wanted: The Outlaws
cowpoetdave said,
February 5, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Great album list! The Bonhoeffer quote makes me think of an interesting connection. The slave spirituals are in the roots of all American popular music, including country music. During his time at Union Theological Seminary in New York (1930–31),
Bonhoeffer experienced the power of “Negro spirituals” while worshipping at Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, and carried recordings of the spirituals back to Germany where he played them for his students at Finkenwalde.
So, when Hank Williams moaned the blues, and when Bonhoeffer struggled with the meaning of the cross, they drew in part from the same well of inspiration.
Chris said,
February 5, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Thanks Dave,
Great Point! BTW, I’m blogging my way through Eberhard Bethge’s “Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography” on my Blogspot site.
http://chrisrice.blogspot.com.
Its amazing that a native German theologian could so profoundly connect with African American spirituals that he would bring them home and teach them to his seminary students!