TORONTO - From the stage of west-end Toronto folk club Hugh’s Room, Sue Werner jokes that her latest CD is the first Gospel album for agnostics. She gets a laugh from the full house.
It is a joke, and Werner in fact takes God, the church and Christian life seriously — even when she’s joking.
“If I didn’t care about the church at all, I wouldn’t have done this project,” she told The Catholic Register just before her Oct. 25 show.
Werner finds it strange and a little dispiriting that at most of her shows in the United States somebody will get up in the middle and walk out on her. It seems, Werner said, that people are disturbed when a religious song expresses anything other than absolute certainty, or strays from the politics of righteous indignation.
Nobody walked out on her Toronto show.
Werner grew up Catholic in Iowa, and first played guitar in public at the behest of Franciscan sisters who encouraged her to play at their Masses. Twenty years on, The Gospel Truth isn’t really a Gospel album for agnostics, but it is profoundly anti-fundamentalist.
“But my friend, imagine this if you would/A love much mightier than us all/If God is great and God is good/Why is your heaven so small?” is Werner’s opening question to the simplistic, angry American religion Werner holds accountable for the war in Iraq.
In an American context, an album of religious songs is necessarily political.
“People came (to America) for religious reasons,” Werner said. “It’s part of America’s personality.”
In “I will have my portion,” a song inspired by Ecclesiastes 2:10, Werner uses the American Gospel music tradition to define a more inclusive and generous politics.
“ ‘Cause I do believe/There’s a harvest in the field/I do believe/There’s truth to be revealed/I do believe/There’s treasure to be found/And I do believe/There’s enough to go around.”
Weary of the Iraq war and the religious certainty that has driven the Bush administration, the new centre in American politics is somewhere between a secular right defined by Republican presidential candidate John McCain and the religious left of Barack Obama, said Werner. Religious, red-state Americans are ready for change — and a little less certainty, she said.
Being a Catholic in America is a good perch for observing that country’s unique mix of religion and politics. It puts the singer on the sidelines of the cultural battleground. When politicians parade their piety it makes Werner cringe.
“It’s despicable, and it’s naive too,” she said.
“Lord, deliver us from politicians/Who drop Your name in every speech/As if they’re Your best friend from high school/As if they practise what they preach,” Werner sings in “Our Father (The New Revised Edition).”
As a musician, Werner finds the American Gospel music tradition — black and white — irresistible.
“There comes a time when you begin to appreciate it as a part of the landscape. It’s like black-eyed susans, the Rockies, redwoods,” she said.
Werner isn’t necessarily in church every Sunday morning and she harbours doubts about the hierarchy and the role of women in the church. She has been offended by what church leaders have said about homosexuality. But none of that cancels out her Catholic upbringing, or what she learned from the Franciscan sisters.
“There are many parts about growing up Catholic that resonate. One thing I love about the Catholic Church is respect for life, that whole thing,” she said.
She treasures memories of high school field trips to nursing homes and time spent with Down’s Syndrome kids.
Though anti-fundamentalist, Werner respects what most committed religious people do in their communities.
“It’s sure as hell not the atheists visiting hospitals, volunteering at food banks,” she said.
Michael Swan is Associate Editor of The Catholic Register. He is an award-winning writer and photographer and holds a Master of Arts degree from New York University.
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