Reckoning with R.E.M. Part 1: Losing My Religion

As you’ve probably heard, American rock band R.E.M. officially broke up on Wednesday, September 21. In the ’80s, along with Irish rock band U2, R.E.M. was the most prominent voice adapting underground sensibilities to mainstream radio. In the ’90s they got huge and became elder statesmen of alternative rock, serving as the final punchline in Todd Snider’s “Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues”, and hearing their early career chronicled in Pavement’s “Unseen Power of the Picket Fence”.

Also like U2, R.E.M. have inspired a generation of Christian music lovers to explore their faith and their lives. In this first of two “reckonings”, Burnside writer Michael D. Bobo relates his encounter with R.E.M.’s 1991 song “Losing My Religion”. On Monday we’ll read about Bert Montgomery’s experience with the 1992 song “Everybody Hurts”.

Oh, life is bigger

It’s bigger than you

And you are not me

The lengths that I will go to

The distance in your eyes

Oh no, I’ve said too much

I set it up

Growing up in a fundamentalist cult, I fought hard to deny the immensity of life, the diversity of creation, the breadth of God’s very being.

That’s me in the corner

That’s me in the spotlight

Losing my religion

Trying to keep up with you

And I don’t know if I can do it

Oh no, I’ve said too much

I haven’t said enough

I thought that I heard you laughing

I thought that I heard you sing

I think I thought, I saw you try

I rose to the top of my cloistered world. A pastor. A missionary. I knew it all. The Bible was mine for the taking, and I took it all. The spotlight shone so brightly upon all of me. My darker sides emerged despite my posturing and manipulating. Looking over my shoulder for any detractors, I heard laughing, singing, and plotting. I feared.


Every whisper

Of every wakin’ hour

I’m choosing my confessions

Trying to keep an eye on you

Like a hurt, lost and blinded fool, fool

Oh no, I’ve said too much

I set it up


Doubts shadowed every sermon and my own private fears of failure – of falling. I discerned my end was nigh, my prophetic demise. And yet, I tried. I fought to maintain the spotlight while wrestling my own demons.



Consider this, consider this

Hint of the century

Consider this, the slip

That brought me to my knees failed

What if all these fantasies

Come flailing around?

Now I’ve said too much

The inevitable fall came harder than I dreamed. Called a heretic. Castigated by my community. I was alone with my words and my regrets. I said too much.


I thought that I heard you laughing

I thought that I heard you sing

I think I thought, I saw you try


In the post-Evangelical wilderness, I had to find a new way to live, to escape my former delusions of God, of Church, of the good life. Many dark, isolate days became part of my dream. A nightmare. Where do I go? Religionless? Am I losing God?


But that was just a dream

That was just a dream


Soon my peers realized the same. Slowly the community that I fought so hard to lead and protect unraveled. It was a dream now, just a shell of its former glory. This world-conquering vision of Christendom collapsed before my eyes, but I still remained. The dream did not take me in its vanishing.

That’s me in the corner

That’s me in the spotlight

Losing my religion

Trying to keep up with you

And I don’t know if I can do it

Oh no, I’ve said too much

I haven’t said enough

I thought that I heard you laughing

I thought that I heard you sing

I think I thought, I saw you try


Here I stand, religionless. With God, but churchless. I wander alone in the light of One. His spotlight has shined on me from the beginning. His light illumines the darkness of my path, the uncertainties of tomorrow. And now I rejoice. Coming through religion into union. God’s presence is evident, not like before. I’ve lost my religion, but I’ve found Him in the process.


But that was just a dream

Try, cry, why try?

That was just a dream

Just a dream, just a dream

Dream

I no longer fight with my past. I lament the losses, but I discover more each day about how great God’s world is. Expansive. Inclusive. Exhilarating. Not a mere dream, but an endless reality. My past was just a dream. Now as the healing sets in, my upbringing evolves into a childhood fantasy. And, I abide in a love sublime. A new kind of dream that loses religion in Divine mystery.