The religion of Rolling Stone
Get Religion’s Douglas LeBlanc writes about Rolling Stone’s 40th anniversary issue and the discussion of religion in interviews. There are lots of interesting highlights, but these two caught my interest. Doug writes,
What’s more interesting, at least for the purpose of this blog, is how often the subject of religion emerges in these discussions, sometimes at the bidding of the interviewer, sometimes on its own power. God bless Jann Wenner — who did not recognize the word agape when Bono used it in a Q&A in 2005 — for trying so hard to coax Bob Dylan out of his fiercely guarded privacy on spiritual matters. [I am including links where possible, and these pages include embedded MP3s of the interviews’ best moments. Rolling Stone assures its readers that more are on the way.]
Wenner makes the mistake of framing question as “being religious.” That would open Dylan up about as much as “You were known for some time as a Holy Joe. What’s up with that?” This is not a question of malice, but of being tone deaf:
Do you find yourself being a more religious person these days?
A religious person? Religion is supposedly a force for positive good. Where can you look in the world and see that religion has been a force for positive good? Where can you look at humanity and say, “Humanity has been uplifted by a connection to a godly power”?
Meaning organized religion?
Corporations are religions. It depends what you talk about with a religion. . . . Anything is a religion.
At one point, you took on Christianity in a very serious way, and then Judaism. Where are you now with all that?
Religion is something that is mostly outward appearance. Faith is a different thing. How many religions are there in the world? Quite a few, actually.
What is your faith these days?
Faith doesn’t have a name. It doesn’t have a category. It’s oblique. So it’s unspeakable. We degrade faith by talking about religion.
That would have been a “fun” interview. Doug also highlights a piece from Jane Fonda’s interview.
The person who speaks most directly about her faith is Jane Fonda, in an interview with DeCurtis (who has written several articles for Beliefnet):
Somebody very hostile said to me, “Have you been saved?” I tap-danced around that, but later I asked a friend of mine who teaches Bible study, “What does that mean?” And she said, “What it meant to me was taking the next step.” Well, that’s all anybody had to say to me — I’m always ready to take the next step [laughs]! So I became a Christian.
And I remain a Christian, but I’m still on a journey to define what that means. I very much feel the presence of God. And then this person Jesus — I am utterly fascinated by this man. I feel that what he preached was revolutionary, and it’s totally what we need now. The most revolutionary statement anyone could make is “Love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Whew, man. If we could live what he taught, everything would change. But it ain’t what goes by the name of Christianity right now.
A: Like you, I like to sit down occasionally to figure out what life was like in Bible times. It helps to understand the people and situations we meet on Scripture’s pages. I also like to sit down with a good beer. It helps to relax and refresh a world-weary pilgrim.
