Arcade Fire's Bible

If you've spent any time listening to the popular, not-so-indie-anymore band Arcade Fire, you've probably noticed a couple of things. First, their music is amazing, complex, and not much like anything else out there right now. Second, their lyrics and interviews reveal strong feelings about God, the Bible, and especially religion.

And while they get kind of pointed with their criticism of the church in culture, they remain cagey about ever saying too clearly (at least in what I've seen) what exactly they do believe about Christianity.

In the latest issue of Interview magazine, the band's Win Butler and interviewer Ryan Adams seem to be missing each other a bit in an exchange about the Bible's place in this culture:

RA: . . . the Bible's application may have been more relevant to the time in which it was written, and the Old Testament relevant to its time.

WB: Obviously the Bible is still relevant, or so may people wouldn't still believe in it. I think that's a pretty unique thing about it. But, at the same time, expecting somehow to relate it to the culture in which we live now does something pretty weird to the meaning of the text.

RA: Do you think we're a time when the Bible itself has been appropriated to sell a kind of mysticism in our culture, which is becoming less and less mystic?

WB: I'm just always suspicious when religion isn't countercultural. It seems the purpose of the Bible was to be countercultural -- even in the time it was written. . . .

RA: Win, you went to school to study Bible interpretation, right?

WB: Yeah, it was scriptural interpretation. There was a lot of that stuff about how over time people have gotten different meanings out of the same text.

Still not sure where Win Butler and co. would stand on the idea of the Bible being God's Word to mankind, but I love what he says about the Bible as counterculture. As the church, we sometimes seem to shout to the world, "See, the Bible can help you live a really successful life. It makes sense for you today. Don't be scared of us. We're not weird. Please add us to your myspace page!"

Meanwhile, the Bible clearly refers to people who believe in the Bible as "aliens and strangers" who will never be at home in this culture. Jesus' teaching suggested that those who follow Him most closely should expect someone NOT to like it. When the world becomes too comfortable with us, we need to start asking ourselves if we're not telling the whole story about human sinfulness and God's loving commitment to reconciliation through Jesus alone and how everything valued in this world is meaningless without Christ.

Beyond that, those living by the world's dominant philosophy -- "you must provide for, protect, and promote yourself at all costs" -- should eventually notice that we're beginning to live by Jesus' culture-defying philosophy of "making ourselves nothing" as we live in submission to God and each other. If not, maybe we should wonder if we're really countering our culture -- or missing something in the pages of our own Bibles.