The Wife of a Preacher Man

While the above dialogue generalizes the whole of my encounters, it’s still a fairly accurate depiction of a conversation I’ve had hundreds of times over (and the exact recreation of a conversation I had at a family gathering this past Thanksgiving). The less common alternative is perhaps more academic but no less intolerant. It equates religious scholarship with religious critique: “Your work in religion must turn a critical eye to those ridiculous notions of the Bible, yes?” Or that my work on “other” religion must involve, for example, a critique of the veil as anti-feminist or Hindu worship as idolatry. It’s hard to say which assumption is more offensive—that I am not and could not reasonably be a Christian and a religious scholar or that I must certainly be their kind of Christian and use my work to convert others, or at least critique non-Christian beliefs and practices.

I’m under no misapprehension that this kind of misunderstanding of one’s identity as it relates to their occupation is unique to religious studies scholars. I would venture that the question “What do you do?” inspires frustration for many and for a variety of reasons. For one thing, it’s an old question that smacks of my parents’ generation’s assumption, now a dying myth, that career paths are the journey of a single career that lead to the fantasy-land of retirement. As our parents’ retirements disappear and people my own age replace expensive “overly qualified” (code for over 50) individuals in offices, this becomes a frustrating and embarrassing question for both the searching and under-qualified twenty-something and for the recently “let go” sixty-something. Of course this question is all the more frustrating and embarrassing because it has come to mean, “In roughly two sentences, tell me who you are”. But that’s also why—as much as we hate being asked that question—we often ask it ourselves in instances of introduction. It’s a great (if totally careless) method to feel as if we know someone; it’s a hall pass for making two-second judgments about a person, their socio-political beliefs, their social circles, and their worth in our eyes. This is also why, as potentially universally frustrating the question of occupation may be, I’d have to argue that for those whose occupations may allude to a religious association, this question gives rise to some particularly egregious and, perhaps offensive, assumptions about one’s faith identity.

I hate being asked this question and negotiating all of the assumptions that are made about me and my faith. But I can say that my husband Travis cringes at the question even more than I, and why I’m not always so keen on sharing my husband’s occupation with all who inquire about it. Travis leads worship at a Methodist church here in Bloomington, Indiana. Of course, it can be funny to watch the changes that wash over a person’s face once they learn that he works at a (dunh dunh dunh) church, especially if this conversation ensues at a bar or party amongst similarly-aged individuals. A funny mix of confusion and concern twists across their forehead; sometimes they apologize for saying “fuck” or talking about oral sex in a previous conversation, or for drinking a beer, as they confusedly eye the beer in Trav’s hand; sometimes they just stare blankly and quickly change the subject. Nervous of the assumptions and associations that this information incites in the other person, Travis and I begin to imagine their confused inner monologue: “But I thought he/she was normal/cool/accepting/liberal/a feminist,” or, the even more offensive assumption for Travis, “But I thought he liked good music.” However, there is also the alternative potential assumption that is made in learning that Travis works at a church, which is markedly similar to the dialogue above, wherein we suddenly become more acceptable to the person we speak with because we are “in” their club with all the other “saved” Christians.

In either case, Travis and I are anxious to quickly distance ourselves from a very specific, albeit popularly accepted, kind of Christian and Christian worship with which we fear we have become associated. What often ensues is an apologetics for our kind of Christianity, for our kind of church, and for our kind of Christian music: “It’s for an alternative service,” “We play a lot of Sufjan,” “The service is in an old theater,” “The congregation is mostly people who have rejected the church,” or the ever contentious, “There’s a large gay and lesbian portion of the congregation.” (Oh, God&hellipl the politics involved in using “The Gays” to liberalize your own identity… God, forgive me… you can laugh at me now readers)

So what does that other kind of Christian, from which we hope to distinguish our Christian identity, look like? You know it. Picture bland, judgmental, sexually repressed Ann (Her? -Ed.) from Arrested Development. Or how about The Simpsons’ uber-nice but ultimately out of touch and embarrassingly sheltered and conservative Flanders family (however, in their generosity, they are probably the least troubling stereotype). Flip through the channels on Sunday morning television and watch the super-slick preachers in suits speaking to a football stadium full of people about the financial success God wants for you. Or worse yet, imagine any standard leader of the religious right who two-facedly claims to accept Jesus’ demands to love even as he damns gay people and warns against the secret fundamentalism of all Muslims. (FFA represent!) Obviously each of these stereotypical Christians has some unique distinctive facets to their identity, but they all get lumped together in our collective popular notion of The Christian.

How does The Christian worship? I’d imagine that you have some idea of it even if you haven’t been to church or grew up, like Trav and I did, in the Bible Belt. You’d just have to stop on a radio station long enough to hear that sound, that overly-produced male Christian voice singing about how “awesome” God is, how he wants to “glorify,” “lift and praise” the Lord’s name on high and follow “footprints in the sand.” It doesn’t take long to recognize a Christian worship song: just a few overly-used words, a few sentimental keyboard tones, and one whiney rendering of the word “JEEEEESUS” through a delay pedal. This sound is typically labeled the “CCLI” sound. CCLI, or Christian Copyright License, promotes a fairly heterogeneous worship sound, which is particularly popular in evangelical mega-church circles. CCLI music is like choosing between Britney Spears and Blink-182. They offer different singers and textures, but essentially they are the same hyper-produced, popular, and—well—cheesy-as-all-hell sound. The Christian‘s worship service is similarly over-produced and showy, often accompanied with the seemingly inauthentic raising of hands and the banter of that band leader. Oh, that band leader. With his perfectly disheveled choppy haircut (seriously, they all have John Rzeznik’s haircut) and his showy praise style that borders on the egomaniacal, it is often hard to tell whom audiences are worshipping.

The most troubling facet of The Christian and his worship, and the saddest part of being associated with this archetype, is that there’s a real truth to who The Christian is. While Ann and Flanders are fictional, Jerry Falwell and his judgmental hatred were all too real, as are the venomous statements that conservative Christian groups like Focus on the Family make against the “sin of homosexuality” or the “fundamentalism of all Muslims.” And let us not forget Rick Perry’s latest campaign video in which he claims that the troubles of our country are evidenced in (dot dot dot) the abolishment of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Similarly, if you drive around my homeland of North Texas on a Sunday morning and stop in at one of the many mega churches, you are very likely to find a well coiffed, far-too-rich pastor like Joel Osteen who preaches a gospel of financial abundance, conveniently ignoring Christ’s call to poverty; it’s also very possible that you will see that band leader’s equally slick worship production. So I totally understand why, once someone learns that Trav and I are Christians working at a church, they react the way they do. I would be uncomfortable and critical, too. Christians in America aren’t the victims of persecution or unfounded judgment in these scenarios (as leaders like Perry and Osteen might claim). The Christian is, sadly enough, a pretty well-founded archetype and, in all honesty, in acknowledgement of the irony in doing so, I similarly judge myself and other Christians and Christian worship against this singular stereotype. As so many identities tend to do, our Christian ones are constructed against an other. And, of course, if we sat down and had a meal with those Christians who fit the profile of The Christian, we’d see, I’m sure that they are pretty normal people lookin’ for love. Still we search for articulation of what kind of Christian we are in contrast to them.

We are not alone. There are a slew of Christian authors, activists, pastors, and worship leaders who work to unearth a Christianity that reacts against The Christian‘s hypocrisy and his judgmental, showy, and exclusive church. Their voices are not what you would consider in the minority either. Writers like Anne Lamott, Sarah Miles, Rob Bell, Philip Yancey, Donald Miller, and even Shane Claiborne have a readership that easily reaches the multi-millions. The Christian is being challenged by a new kind of Christian, who often rejects the term “Christian” and its sullied history altogether, accepting, instead the identity of “Christ Follower.” Similarly, many churches have begun rethinking Christian music and worship, replacing the clichés, commodification, and cheese of CCLI music with music that is, as Travis might argue, legitimately good. Often this music was not written for Christian communities, though it speaks to Christian ideas of love, grace, and awe in relationships with the divine. Thus you might find “Christ Follower” communities singing Coldplay, The Beatles, Arcade Fire (yes, I’ve seen it with my own eyes), The National, Andrew Bird, Page France, or, this movement’s golden child, Sufjan Stevens. However, taking a cue from artists like Stevens and the Welcome Wagon, many worship leaders have also turned to old hymns, replacing organs with pianos and vocal lines with banjos; the intent behind such a sound is to create a worship environment that is simultaneously relevant to the tastes of contemporary listeners but also harkens to an ancient Christian community that communed before the commercialization and commodification of The Christian‘s worship service. Worship leaders like Travis are well aware that the lyrics and sound of CCLI may not be what people want to hear anymore, especially when they have rejected (or been rejected by) the dominant Christian church.

At this point, however, you may be thinking that for all of the critique we have of the judgmental Christian and his commercialized and showy “Christian worship,” we sound pretty obsessed with our own image, perhaps above our interest in, oh, say, following Christ’s commands to love and serve. This article did start with my musings on the personal injury of being assumed to be The Christian, after all. Is this all one indulgent and frivolous identity crisis parading as a social statement on the status of Christianity? Well… there’s a bit of that, yes. I will admit that some part of the manner in which I act as a Christian and the “wife of a worship leader” is motivated by a concern for personally not being mistaken in those introductory settings as The Christian or the “Pastor’s Wife.” Moreover, I know Travis struggles with the identity of worship leader, and aches for the recognition that Christian music and worship don’t have to be an even less interesting and more massively consumed Christian version of shitty pop songs. So yeah, when we sing the National it’s not for not entirely altruistic motives—there is also the desire to maintain our supposedly cool hipster identity—guilty as charged.

But we are also concerned with the perceptions of Christians and the status of the Christian Church more generally because the Church is, in so many ways, our home, our family. Every day we fall more in love with it, and the people who comprise it, despite its faults. And trust me, as with any person, the more time I spend with the Church and my church family, the more faults I undercover. So frequently I am reminded of an oft cited quote sometimes attributed to the 20th century Christian activist Dorothy Day, sometimes to the 4th century theologian St.Augustine: “The Church is a whore, but she is still my mother.” (I know, I know. I have to remove my feminist lens to appreciate it, too).

While the quote refers to the “big ‘C’” Church in the universal and larger institutional sense, and while I have plenty to say regarding this Church and the universal Christian family of those claiming Christ as their guide, I have become ever more interested in my “little ‘c’” church mother. Before being so involved in a church as a volunteer and the “wife of the worship leader,” I used to think that churches and especially church buildings were fairly valueless; that with their maintenance fees, their church councils, and their denominational structure, they simply created barriers for us being Christ’s hands and feet (acts of social justice) and to being the connected, God-centered, and loving community that the early church was designed to be. Travis and I used to talk for hours on end about the dangers of churches and the attendant hypocrisy of church communities. But then we got adopted by our current church mother and gained a few thousand very different, often challenging, brothers and sisters of different ages, backgrounds, and socio-political persuasions. It’s this family that makes loving my church so challenging but also so compelling and rewarding.

There are days when I hear about people complaining that the direction of the candelabras interfered with their worship, that the songs at the service are too loud, that someone needs to sing the melody and the worship leader is incompetent if he doesn’t let them, that there should be a million dollar courtyard instead of a million dollar food pantry, that the Christmas Eve service has to be in a certain building at a certain time until the end of time, or that some stupid thing has to be done a particular way because 90-year old Betty has been doing it that way since she was 8-years old, and in those moments I want to have an angst-y teenage breakdown and run away from my family before it hurts me anymore.

But recently I’ve been, as we say at the church, “putting on an apron instead of a bib,” and letting myself be vulnerable to the quirks and frustrations of this family by serving them—volunteering for random events with the opinionated old church ladies, leading small groups with strangers, and helping Travis with his service. The result? As much as I’d like to write off my family members for their ridiculous complaints about the building, the volume of the music, or what we should do with this fund or that one, I’m learning that every family member, myself included, is essentially someone in need of love, with a really fucking beautiful story. We are broken cheaters, drunks, divorcees, narcissists, and kooks; if we are crazy enough to come to the church, it’s probably because we are in desperate need of one another’s love. Listen, I know that sounds just so CCLI cheesy, but, I’ll be damned, it’s the truth. Does that make me a “church lady?” Yes? I guess I don’t really care anymore.

Of course, as worship leader, Travis learned this lesson a long time ago. He had to “put on his apron” from day one and, thus, had to take seriously everybody’s annoying demands and their oh-too-visible brokenness, and had to sacrifice his own vision of worship to the needs of the community. So while I know he would love to sing Sufjan or Page France or write his own folksy avant garde tunes every week, instead, he plays one Sujfan song and a dozen tunes from the 60’s for all the 60-something hippies in the congregation. He learned long ago to let go of that cool hipster image and, perhaps, his own artistic vision, and have the humility to play songs that he often detests because that’s what speaks of God to the greater church family.

As his supportive wife, I have listened and sung from the audience for years now, first in awe of his humility to sing songs I know don’t speak to him, and then, in shock with the feelings (gulp) the music began to stir in me. After time, I could stop lying about how much I loved singing “Everyday People” or “Love Train” and just started loving it because it became kinda wonderful singing with people with whom I was in relationship; these songs gained their own meaning in my faith life, and in my marriage, and they were no longer about the popular identity or image with which they were associated but with the story of Christ’s work in my life. Hell, maybe that is something that all those CCLI churches have had figured out along. Maybe that’s what all that hand raisin’ is all about. After all, I will admit that there are some Sundays that I’ve unapologetically got my hands in the air, no matter how “Christian” (wink) it makes me look. I think it weirds out some of the other folks, but we’re all dirty ol’ Christians so we don’t have to care too much what each other thinks anymore.

« Read more from Issue 5: The Music Issue

About Ashlee Andrews

Ashlee Andrews and her husband, Travis Jeffords, live in Bloomington, Indiana where Ashlee is pursuing a doctorate in Religious Studies at Indiana University, and they are both discovering the beauty of small Midwestern towns, church folks, and flannel. To alleviate the stress of her most recent semester, she baked 400 cookies, using 6 pounds of butter in the process.