Jason Isbell, Morgan Wallen, and Redemption

 

This is one of those stories I'd ordinarily not talk about here.  I do so mainly because it illustrates the failure of our modern culture to appreciate the value of redemption.

For those who are unaware of the story, Morgan Wallen is a country music artist. I have never purchased one of his albums, nor seen him in concert, and for the most part he is not the sort of fellow I'd give much of my attention to.  This was made all the more so when, in February of this year, a video of Wallen circulated wherein he was highly intoxicated and used the n-word to refer to a friend of his.  The friend is apparently not black, though I'm not sure which would be worse.  This sort of colloquial use of that word is one for which I have little use; however, suffice it to say, there is not a white person in this country who ought to use that word in any context.  It was bad.

Wallen was rightly, and quickly, criticized by nearly everyone.  He was also remorseful and apologetic.  You can read (or watch) his complete statement here:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/morgan-wallen-apology-video-1126831/

He also pledged $500,000 to black-led groups, earmarking part of it in $15,000 chunks in the names of 20 people who counseled him following this incident, and leaving with them the option of donating to the charity of their choice or keeping it within the BMAC, the organization to whom he donated the money.  

Is that sufficient remorse?  It's not for me to say.  Ultimately, those he has harmed must answer that question, as must his fans and the country music industry.  The latter, at least, have answered that question by continuing to purchase his albums and go to his shows.  In droves.

Enter Jason Isbell.  Jason Isbell, by contrast to Morgan Wallen, is one of my favorite songwriters and recording artists.  I love his work with the Drive-by Truckers, and I love his solo work, especially his 2013 masterpiece, Southeastern.  Jason Isbell writes songs about redemption.  His redemption.  In a particularly strange twist of irony, perhaps the greatest of these songs is a song off of Southeastern entitled "Cover Me Up."  "Cover Me Up" was covered by Morgan Wallen.  This embarrasses Jason Isbell, in the bright light of 20/20 hindsight.

"Cover Me Up" is a song about a drunk, high, stoned, arguably abusive Jason Isbell, and how his now-wife, then-girlfriend Amanda Shires helped him through that period in his life to become a better man. The lyrics include masterpieces such as these:

                                       

 Days when we raged, we flew off the page

Such damage was done

But I made it through, 'cause somebody knew

I was meant for someone

* * *

Put your faith to the test 

When I tore off your dress

In Richmond on high

But I sobered up, I swore off that stuff

Forever this time

The old lovers sing

"I thought it'd be me who helped him get home"

But home was a dream

One I'd never seen 'til you came along

It is a particularly beautiful song, one that sounds themes of weakness, pride, hurt and ultimately humility, humiliation and eventual redemption. It is a song about brokenness, recovery and hope.

Because Morgan Wallen covered "Cover Me Up," Isbell thought it right to condemn Wallen's words when they were initially made public. He called them "disgusting and horrifying." He was right. They were. And he was also right that Wallen owed an apology and much, much more. For his part, Isbell donated the songwriting royalties for the Wallen version of "Cover Me Up" to the NAACP. This, too, was a noble act. After announcing the donation of the Wallen royalties to the NAACP on Twitter, Isbell's manager said he does not plan to comment beyond the tweet. This month, Isbell broke that promise.

This is, in part, because Wallen's redemption has been more than expected, certainly by Isbell at least. Morgan Wallen had the best selling album of 2021. Not the best-selling country album, the best selling album in any genre. His tour has played to sold-out venues all summer. One can imagine lots of reasons why, but two seem readily apparent. First, the attempt by people like Isbell to "cancel" Wallen generated a backlash. Second, people love a good redemption story.

Isbell talks about the second of those in a recent interview. Referencing George Jones, he says "excuses have been made over and over to try to craft that same white male narrative. It’s just part of the story. It’s like, ‘yes, sometimes, as white men who’ve been put upon, we slip and we make mistakes, but we can rise again! And that’s country music, folks.'" So to the extent country music fans, and Americans in general, believe in rising above your mistakes, Isbell thinks this is a terrible thing. Well, except for the success of his own version of "Cover Me Up," which is ironically about that very thing. Isbell sounds the themes, reaps the rewards, and then refuses to acknowledge that the same impetus that made his fans love "Cover Me Up" is the one that sends Morgan Wallen's fans to buy his album and attend his shows. The irony in this is hard to miss.

However, there is a greater issue, and it's the one Isbell doesn't talk about, except in an ironic sense because he's making it worse. Again referencing George Jones, he says "there’s a lot of shit that George did that was not cool, shit that you really should not be able to be completely redeemed from." Well, who is Jason Isbell to decide what one ought to be "completely redeemed from?" Does he want to live by those rules? The guy who "tore off (her) dress in Richmond on high?" Listening to Isbell's music, it is apparent that the very themes he sounds himself are the ones he cries against most loudly when others reap the benefit. This is a textbook example of why the phrase "virtue signaling" was invented.

This isn't the first time Isbell has done this either. In June of 2020, Mike Fuller, who makes Fulltone guitar pedals, made a comment on his own website about the rioting in Los Angeles, where Fulltone is based. He decried the looting "with 100% impunity," and said the mayor and governor don't care about small businesses. For this, Isbell took to Twitter to tar Fuller as a racist. He said "Check out black-owned pedal company Dogman Devices. http://Dogmandevices.com I’ve not used them but they seem to be good and fulltone has always made overpriced junk." So Isbell doesn't purchase Dogman Devices pedals, he calls Fulltone Pedals "overpriced junk" (which is nonsense -- I own two of them and they are fantastic pedals, whatever one thinks of Mike Fuller's politics), and he gets in his Twitter virtue signal and his shot at Fuller. But what has he actually done? Maybe he began purchasing Dogman Devices pedals? Even assuming so, before that he had ignored them in favor of other manufacturers. He wasn't promoting that pedal company except in an attempt to tear down Mike Fuller's pedal company. So what makes him better than Mike Fuller? Mike Fuller never trashed Isbell's music publicly, after all.

All of this highlights the real issue. Isbell is not speaking now because Morgan Wallen's apology, donations and remorse are insufficient. And being honest, he's not speaking now because Morgan Wallen did "shit that you really should not be able to be completely redeemed from." That's not his call to make. He's speaking now because he has a large following on Twitter, and he has made a name for himself in large part by calling for the cancellation of people he disagrees with. And let's be even more honest -- that desire to destroy Wallen is precisely why Wallen's fans flock to him all the more. It's why Wallen's albums outsell Isbell's by multiples, and why Wallen sells out bigger venues routinely. Granted, part of this is the different way they make music -- Isbell is and has always been a smaller operation, and as a songwriter he is not willing to make the compromises people like Wallen make to be a bigger artist. That is commendable. But after that video surfaced, Wallen's career could easily have been over. Instead, people like Isbell unwittingly encourage his fans to embrace the redemption story. And that is a good thing, if only Isbell could see it.

The prideful impetus that makes Isbell feel he has to speak out against Wallen is not based in a desire for Wallen's redemption. Far from it. Isbell seeks Wallen's destruction in order to appease his fans. And ironically ends up helping him to be bigger than ever. It is an indictment on our society that this is encouraged by anyone, or seen as virtuous. And while I doubt I will ever buy a Morgan Wallen record or concert ticket, I have not yet lost so much of my humanity that I don't appreciate the value of redemption. It is the core of what the Christian Church teaches us. We are all rotten. But there is hope, and that hope is in Christ, Who calls us to become by grace what He is by nature. Who, yes, redeems us.

It is, I suppose, a great irony that if I did not believe so much in the value of redemption, I wouldn't like Jason Isbell's music as much as I do. And it is a great tragedy that he fails to see that.

Vaccine Skepticism, Vaccine Skepticism Disguised as Vaccine Promotion, and Love of God and Neighbor

 

This little speck has caused untold damage to our world.  The damage I write about today, however, is the damage it has done to our souls.  I still frequent a handful of internet discussion boards that discuss theology and theological matters.  On one in particular, I was saddened to see the politics of COVID override Christian love of neighbor.  In this case, it dealt with those who were fearful of their unmasked and unvaccinated neighbors.  Such people were called "crazed," and at least one person said he "lacked sympathy" for anyone who would not get vaccinated. Today, in a comment that caused me to reconsider my hesitance to publish this, one of them said that healthcare workers' lives were "endangered" by the unvaccinated.  

I also, in contraindication of the health of my own soul, still frequent social media sites.  On one of those (likely the one you received this link from), another person suggested that anyone who vaccinates their minor child is guilty of "child abuse."  I'll elaborate on my thoughts about both downstream.  I'll say at the outset, this is not intended to be a condemnation of the people who took these positions.  It is, rather, a case study in how we as Christians actually deal with each other (all involved are professing and practicing Christians), and an encouragement as to how we should.  The people who said these things are not mentioned for that reason.  It isn't about them, it's about us and how we treat one another.

Part of the problem, no doubt, is the general polarization and ugliness of our politics.  We are not a tolerant people.  We were not a tolerant people when the self-styled champions of what they called "tolerance" (but which was actually authoritarian thought policing) still pretended to believe in it.  So it is to be expected, I suppose, that it is not enough to disagree.  We must also tear down, ridicule, lampoon, demean, and seek to control and conform.  We spring to hyperbole as if it were the most persuasive way to discourse -- there is a reason this moment in time has required the coining of Godwin's Law.  We blame social media for this, but the truth is it is who we are, what we allow ourselves to be.  But the problem also stems from fear and a desire to control others, and therefore the natural outcome of man's fall into sin.  These are the points I want to drill down on.  

We know from the Scriptures and the Church Fathers that the problem of man is the problem of mortality.  Stripped bare of our communion with God, and therefore imprisoned in this body of death, we turn inward, and seek to protect ourselves first.  We seek to do so often by attempting to control the behavior of others.  Lacking trust in God and love of neighbor, we put our needs above our neighbor and seek to survive.  This is why, some Fathers suggest, all sins ultimately trace back to pride and love of self.  It is why the great ascetics, and monastics like St. John Climacus, make such a great deal of denying the self.  It is why we fast.  It is why we do prostrations.  We teach ourselves to deny the self and live for God and neighbor.

So returning to these two objections in this light.  The first, that those who will not get vaccinated (or wear masks if they are vaccinated) are in essence bad people, is obviously about fear and control.  One person who took that approach suggested that absent a doctor's excuse, anyone who refuses to be vaccinated should be forbidden from going in public spaces.  Forbidden from holding certain jobs.  Forbidden from using public transportation.  (Whether these are good or bad policy provisions is beyond the scope of my point -- I am speaking about how we as Christians view our neighbor).  When pressed, he said they should not be allowed to use the public accommodates he uses.  Since he was the fearful one, I asked why he did not stay home.  I did not receive an answer.  Today, as noted, this same person suggested that the mere presence of the unvaccinated threatens the lives of healthcare workers.  Even though healthcare workers were the very first in this country to receive the vaccines, this person thinks unvaccinated people are a threat to their lives when they come to the hospital for treatment.  Who is the real vaccine skeptic here?  Most of the people in the discussion -- even those of us opposed to vaccine mandates, but still in favor of vaccine promotion and encouragement -- at least believe the vaccines work.

This person is vaccinated, as am I, and as was, best I was able to tell, everyone else in the discussion. Yet his fear of being around those who are unvaccinated was practically palpable, and it was highlighted best in the comment today.  This fear and skepticism caused him to suggest his neighbor should essentially be imprisoned in his own home for the crime of endangering people who took steps to mitigate the danger, as if those steps are insufficient.  It didn't matter that the unvaccinated neighbor actually poses very little real public health threat at the moment, much less a threat to this man in particular or vaccinated healthcare workers.  No, he thought everyone should get a vaccine, and therefore he was willing to take away the freedom of his neighbor in order that he might travel freely and without his own irrational fear of illness or death.  He and a couple of others said expressly they could conceive of no good reason why anyone might want to avoid being the first in line to take a vaccine that is not FDA approved, and the long-term efficacy of which is still undetermined.  I can articulate many good reasons why I got the vaccine as soon as it was available (and I do so below).  But these men could think of no reasons why anyone else might have taken a different approach than they, and I, did.  For those of you who are similarly unable to conceive of why anyone would not want to get a vaccine, I offer this:

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/20/948614857/race-and-the-roots-of-vaccine-skepticism

At any rate, lacking trust in God and love for neighbor, these folks are willing to harm their neighbors to make themselves feel better.

On the other side of the aisle, so to speak, is the man who proclaimed it "child abuse" to vaccinate minor children.  He also commented recently, demonstrating his pride that he would not be getting vaccinated.  The reasoning is sound enough for him to make that decision for himself and his kids -- minor children are generally unaffected by the COVID virus and therefore for him the risks of the vaccine outweigh the risks of the virus.  If he doesn't want the vaccine for a variety of good reasons, as noted above, that's certainly rational, even if I would (and did) disagree.  So far, so good.  

For our family, I disagreed for several reasons.  First, I don't want my children to be a danger to others.  It was love of neighbor that prompted me to get the vaccine myself, and to encourage my wife and oldest child to get it, and that same love prompts me to encourage my youngest two to go now that they are able (both received their first dose of Pfizer yesterday and are doing well).  I understand there are risks associated with this vaccine, and others, but I also understand that the best way to defeat the virus, best we know, is to have more people inoculated.  It will not go away, we understand that.  But being able to fight it off will return us to a post-pandemic world with less sickness, less death, and less pain than simply waiting it out and hoping enough of our loved ones survive to obtain herd immunity.  Second, the newer COVID variants, especially the currently prevalent Delta variant, affect younger people differently than the initial outbreak.  So we don't really know that minors are unaffected by mutations of the COVID-19 virus.  That's my reasoning, and it is at worst equally sound.  

Yet, despite the fact that my children are not his children, not his to raise, and not his to influence, this person decided to announce publicly that I am abusing them by my decision to vaccinate.  No, he did not direct those words at me personally.  Rather, he directed them at everyone thoughtlessly (I do not think he was being malicious).  Why?  Because he holds a very strong distrust toward the vaccines, and so lacking fear of God and trust in neighbor, he wrote to discredit the vaccines rather than simply trust that others could engage in good decision making without his judgment.  As part of that, he engaged in hyperbole that puts me and others like me on equal footing with people who beat their children or deprive them of food.

I'll repeat here that I don't write this to condemn any of these men.  For one, I am hardly innocent of the charges of fear and desire to control others to conform to my way of thinking.  I'm sure my words could as easily be used in someone else's blog post.  And I am hardly innocent of being judgmental of others and lacking in love for my neighbor, both before and since the word "COVID-19" came into our common lexicon.  I write because both are such good illustrations of how this pandemic illuminates our spiritual illness.  We fear disease of body, and we end up ignoring our diseased souls.  Often, the very basic dignities and freedoms of humanity are the first to go out the window.  

St. John Climacus wrote: “The blessed living corpse grows sick at heart when he finds himself acting on his own behalf, and he is frightened by the burden of using his own personal judgment.”  John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent (New York: The Missionary Society of St. Paul, 1983), 92.  He also wrote: "Repentance goes shopping for humility and is ever distrustful of bodily comfort," and "the penitent stands guilty – but undisgraced.”  Ibid, 121.  Finally, he wrote: “The first stage of blessed patience is to accept dishonor with bitterness and anguish of soul,” while “[t]he perfect stage, if that is attainable, is to think of dishonor as praise.”  Ibid, 149.  As Christians, this is our calling.  We don't often like it, and I for one frequently rebel against it.  But we are called to put ourselves behind our neighbor, most especially in terms of offense, bodily comfort and pride.  We are to put our neighbor's ease ahead of our own.  As noted above, for good or ill, whether I was right or wrong, this is one reason I chose to get vaccinated early.  I knew that in order to ask my family and friends to be vaccinated themselves, I had to step up to the plate.  I knew that if there were any ill effects (there were, all temporary, but all miserable in the short term), I could not ask others to withstand them if I was unwilling to do so myself.  I don't say this to suggest I am such a good person -- again, I judge, I mock, I scorn, I fear.  It is to say I hope I repent, and I hope others do as well.  

We are truly all in this together.  Until you have seen someone you care about out of work due to the pandemic, or been there yourself, you have no call to suggest people be deprived of their livelihoods.  Until you have seen someone you care about suffer, perhaps even die, or been there yourself, you have no call to suggest people who attempt to avoid the ill effects of this disease by getting vaccinated are evil.  I hope that as we move forward, we can take another look at how we deal with one another, and apply a healthy dose of charity and grace to our neighbor.  Especially as Christians, we have a holy obligation to put the best construction on our neighbor's words and actions.  I write to ask that everyone get in line behind me to repent of those many times we fail in that obligation.