The Song: “Heresy” by Nine Inch Nails
The Event: Christian Youth Gathering in Colorado/I part ways with the church
I was brought up in the church and there was a custom that teens (aged 15-17) in my particular congregation would go out to Colorado during the summer for a weeklong gathering of teens from Congregational churches across the nation. While I was a fairly religious person, I was by no means completely devout. I had questions, and swore, and did all other manner of sinful things that proved I wasn’t living “right by the lord” – but at the age of 15, I felt like as long as I wasn’t harming anybody, I was doing OK. One night, in our little group, a youth minister wanted to talk about how God is represented in music. He did this by first playing some bland Christian rock song. I’m sure there are some great Christian rock songs, but this one just hit all of the clichés – lyrics using the words “praise,” “light” and “raise up” a lot. Not to mention just musically it was incredibly boring. But people in my group were rocking out to it, clearly familiar with the song and loving it.
Then, with a smile (and I’ll never forget this moment), he segued into the next song:
“Ok. So there’s that version of how people talk about God in music. Then there’s this slightly different version.”
And with that, he hit play, and out came “Heresy” by Nine Inch Nails. I had The Downward Spiral and Further Down the Spiral back at home, so I was familiar with it, and actually noticed how much I liked the production on this song. I clearly thought it was vastly more entertaining than the jangled acoustic wuss rock of the Christian song. And as I looked around the crowd to see how others felt of “my” preferred song, it was like scanning a crowd at some horrible disaster. Tears were flowing down adolescent cheeks as Reznor’s song continued. I distinctly remember two girls with the hands FIRMLY clamped over their ears, their knuckles bone white with amount of force they were exerting, while they rocked back and forth, mimicking some shellshocked soldier being bombarded by enemy fire. The Youth Minister stopped the CD and mouthed “Yikes” to us. The kids were not happy and then began a dialogue about how that music was terrible.
It was at that moment that I realized church life wasn’t for me. Me and Jesus were still cool, but I just couldn’t be a true churchgoer if it meant I couldn’t listen to some nihilistic angsty music on occasion – or, more importantly, if it meant that I had to listen to the horrible sub-dorm room guitar plucking of Christian Rock. When I got home from that trip, covered in third degree burns on my face for passing out next to the pool (touché, God – good thing I don’t believe in omens!), the first thing I did was put on that song and lie in my bed with a huge grin spreading wide over my burnt and blistered face.