Hayley Williams’ “True Believer” is For the Ones Who Stayed, Yet Left
A haunting condemnation of gentrification, racism, and Christian nationalism
In the chorus, the narrator names herself as a true believer–a dedicated, albeit jaded follower of a remnant of a religion. The ghost whom she still loves could be the ghost of Nashville as she once knew it, or the ghost of her faith which she’s seen transformed into an unrecognizable, nefarious force. Her continued belief “reaminate[s] [the] bones” of this ghost, meaning that the true faith which she has is able to keep its pure essence going.
Here is the Church; Here is the Steeple: Our Best Guess at Love and God
Both our theology and our commitments to our earthly loved ones are best guesses.
As the band lingered on the outro to “Best Guess” and the couples danced together, Lucy began reading the script. Between spurts of giddy laughter, she acknowledged the friends and strangers here to witness these unions.
“This is what I wrote!” Jes told me as Lucy continued on, naming each couple and asking them if they would commit to one another in sickness and health, through good times and bad. The liturgy was short and classic enough to be recognizable as a wedding script to a secular audience, but adapted for a mostly queer, group setting.
We were next to the sound tent, far from the aura of stage or venue lights. But in the anonymity of the darkness, I saw love unfold onstage. Love that brought each couple together. Love that prevails in the face of anti-LGBTQ+ policies and sentiments. Love that brought the words of a queer minister to a queer artist conducting a queer ceremony during a song about committing her future to a woman (probably Julien Baker).
We were the church; we were the people.
boyjesus: Iconography at the Hollywood Bowl
Always an angel, never a god?
On October 31st, 2023 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit appeared before a crowd of thousands. With a choir of angels behind them, they gave an unforgettable finale to an unapologetic summer tour that skyrocketed them into the mainstream, giving the cheekiest answer to their creative challenge to one another: what would the boy genius do?
“Seeing the elements,” United Church of Christ
Imagine looking at water and saying that it’s “not hydrogen enough” or “not oxygen enough” because you can’t perceive these elements when you see it.
It sounds silly, but this is an experience many Latines have. Black Latines hear that they are not Black enough or not Latine enough. Diaspora Latines who don’t speak Spanish hear that they don’t count because they don’t live in their ancestral homeland, and they don’t understand the language of those countries. White and white-passing Latines face the tempting ease of assimilation into a culture that wants to read them as white to the exclusion of anything else.
“How Are You Checking Into This Space?” United Church of Christ
I felt both sad and grateful. Sad that “anxious” was the most common response to being in a religious space and grateful that this space allowed people to be so vocally honest. Because let’s be real–sometimes we check into our churches as performers. Maybe we have to perform because those churches aren’t affirming or because those churches may not understand the traditions we come from. Maybe we have to perform simply because we don’t want to fall apart in public and make others worry about us.
“Between Two Worlds,” United Church of Christ
But no matter what anyone says, God gave me two worlds that form my identity. Yes, one is this predominantly white culture that I do fit well into and I do skate through rather easily. But the other is this little island that’s only 100 miles across, where abuela in her pink house in San Juan always had a pot of food on the stove because she knew we were coming. No arbitrary cultural litmus tests should compel us to deny ourselves the right to claim our identities. Let us live joyously between however many worlds God has given us.
