The Case For Revival (an announcement)

Jesus, the killer of agendas

I can't imagine how infuriating it was to his followers when Jesus never seemed to stick the script they kept handing him. Every time they wanted him to kick ass and take names for their cause he kept inviting the absolute wrong people over for dinner like he didn’t understand the rules.

Were I one of his early followers I’d for sure take him aside and be like, “maybe tone down the hospitality and forgiveness of sins stuff, Jesus. We don’t want people to think you’re just letting people off the hook”.

But friends, our love of hooks has never healed us in the way mercy has.

Faith, Hope and Carnage

I’ve been slowly making my way through the stunning book, Faith, Hope and Carnage (a conversation between Nick Cave and Sean O’Hagan). This book is worth taking one’s time with.

Yesterday I read a passage that felt especially salient right now and which helped embolden me to finally commit to something.

Nick Cave Nov 2024 on his Wild God tour. I already have tickets for the Denver stop.

Nick Cave is speaking about the human realities he believes religion is a bit more adept and practiced at answering than secularism.

“[religion] deals with the necessity for forgiveness for example, and mercy. Whereas I don’t think secularism has found the language to address those matters. The upshot is a kind of callousness toward humanity in general, or so it seems to me. And I think callousness comes from aloneness, people feeling adrift, or separated from the world. In a way they look for religion – and meaning – elsewhere. And increasingly they are finding it in tribalism and the politics of division.”

Cave then goes on the admit that yes, religion has a lot to answer for, but it’s decline has taken with it a regard for the value of humanity in and of itself.

“This regard is rooted in a humility of one’s place within the world – an understanding of our flawed nature. We are losing that understanding, … and it is often being replaced by self-righteousness and hostility.”

To borrow Nick Cave’s language, it feels as if, especially over the last decade or so, our society has indulged in a nearly fatal dose of self-righteousness and hostility.

Hope is optimism with a broken heart - Nick Cave

Faith, Hope and Carnage

A couple weeks ago as I read so many passionate pleas for people to refuse to attend Thanksgiving with family members who voted for Trump (even if your uncle has loved you your entire life, you were expected out of ideological loyalty to abandon the reality of that love for the dopamine bump of self-righteousness) I found myself wishing we could just shake the etch-a-sketch in this country. And that maybe when the silvery sand settled blank, every one of us who has been incrementally pushed farther apart from each other over the years (so that some asshole could get more and more ad revenue) could see each other as beautiful and worthy of flourishing: trans folks, gun owners, immigrants, “trad wives”, military veterans, incarcerated folks, prison guards, atheists, priests, straight white guys, Black women. That feels like the Kingdom of God. And the Kingdom of God, like its founder, refuses to be domesticated by our current ideological agendas.

Religion

¹I know that religion has a lot to answer for, but if Cave has a point and the individualism inherent in this increasingly secular era has failed to be as good for us as we thought it would, I am left wondering what effect some forgiveness, mercy and humility might offer us right now.

In other words, is there perhaps a useful baby that can be fished out of the religious bathwater?

I argue, yes.

So here’s where I’m going with this.

An Announcement

You may or may not have seen this note I posted a few weeks ago.

But I’m gonna travel out of my blue state to host some red states revivals in 2025.

For weeks I have struggled with whether or not to go forward with it. And I am still not without concerns (emotional, energetic, financial, etc), but for some reason, reading that quote from Nick Cave sealed the deal for me.

I need this.

Why?

Because first of all, this is not the moment to concede the Christian faith to nationalists.

And it is not the time to isolate and double down on shit that is not working.

So I want to gather with you, pray with you, and sing with you.

And if you know anything about me you’ll be unsurprised to hear that I also want to PREACH.

I want to remind each other of what’s most important and least popular right now: humility, curiosity, mercy and hope - the things Jesus of Nazareth yammered on about and were as difficult to embrace then as they are now.

I want to be revived from despair and self-righteousness.

So, ²will you join me? I hope so, but I need your help. Here’s a start:

Here’s a Google Form specifically for churches in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma that may be interested in hosting the event in the first few months of 2025.

I have already logged all the suggestions you’ve made in the comment section of my Note above. But if there are churches in other red states that can seat at least 400 and would host me, could you let me know in the comments?

All glory and praise
To the God of all grace,
Who hast brought us, and sought us,
And guided our ways.

Alleluia, thine the Glory. Alleluia Amen. Alleluia thine the glory.

Revive us again.

1. An Alanon friend of mine said something to me this morning about the importance of forward movement and not getting stuck in the past: “There’s a reason the windshield is larger than the rearview mirror”. Maybe we could embrace this as we undertake a religious revival. Maybe we could try and not get so stuck in Christianity’s past mistakes that it prevents us from embracing the wisdom it offers as we move into tomorrow.

2. My public appearances have always been either sponsored by my publisher or by an organization that hired me as a speaker. This time, it’s just me, which is a little terrifying, but I feel like I’m not doing it alone.