The Wallflowers' Ode to the Church

I'm a fan of the Wallflowers. Maybe I just can't shake their early hits, like "6th Avenue Heartache" and "One Headlight." Maybe it's the fact that Jakob Dylan is Jakob Dylan (and has his father's propensity for sprinkling biblical allusions in his songs). But I listened with interest to the first track on their new album, Glad All Over. From Kanye West to Carrie Underwood, we're used to pop stars paying lip service to Jesus, usually while they simultaneously live in a very un-Christian way. And by now most people are well aware of the "spiritual but not religious" fad, where people chart their own forms of spirituality while decrying organized religion and the church. (Might I note the irony in people criticizing the church for its hubris, then basically serving as their own infallible religious authority to mix and match a patchwork quilt of 'spirituality.')

So I was surprised to hear the Wallflowers break into a tribute of sorts to the persistence and missional focus of the church. They don't quite quote Jesus, but portions of the song are basically a paraphrase of Jesus' statement that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Take a listen: 

Here are the lyrics: 

Some have crosses bells that ring
Most have angels painted with wings
Old men and blind ones can find their way in
Got statues and apostles and other godly things
In desserts they build them of mortar and clay
In barrios they stick them by fire escapes
They outlast the setbacks of earthquakes and plagues
They burn them like haystacks and another one is raised

In the backwoods of the country and the empire state
Wherever there's somebody at the crossroads that waits
At the junction of right now and a little too late
You'll see one before you with wide open gates
It's a hospital for sinners ain't no museum of saints

There could be a casket bums on the steps
A baby in a basket being left
It's a good place to shuffle when you've gone through the deck
It's the closest to heaven on earth you can get

It's a shelter a poor man it'll humble a great
It's where derelicts and outlaws can hide for a day
The worst hearts you've known can be salvaged and saved
In the same room that lovers' vows are exchanged
It's a hospital for sinners ain't no museum of saints

You'll sin till you drop
Then ask to be saved
If it's a comeback you want
Then get your hands raised

There's more than a few on nearly every map
More than a couple alone on this path
You ought to be in one when you beg your way back
Cut off at the knees at its feet you'll collapse
It's a hospital for sinners ain't no museum of saints
It's a hospital for sinners ain't no museum of saints

Now, theologically, I might quibble with the phrasing of a few lines. But on the whole, I find it interesting (and rare) that a mainstream pop group would put out a song that actually praises the virtues of the church. The "love-Jesus-hate-the-church" Christians could take some pointers from them! Too often, we have a "lone ranger" mentality that assumes the individual can and should relate to God apart from the church. In Scripture, we are members of one another and members of the body of Christ. Just as the body is nourished by its head, Christ, so the members of the body are only alive insofar as they are connected to the whole. That is why, in part, the Belgic Confession says, "There is no salvation outside the church." Would your hand be alive if you cut it off from the body? In the same way, a Christian perpetually cut off from the body cannot be said to be alive. 

By the way, check out another great track, "Love is a Country," featured below. On the whole I think this might be my favorite song on the album. "Love is a country that won't be overcome?" Maybe there's a theme here.