Bad Religion: Sufjan Stevens’ Quiet Prayers

Sufjan Stevens so often toes the line between sexuality and religion that an entire Facebook page with 30,000 members asks the question: are these songs about being gay, or God? The answer? Probably both.

Bad Religion explores the relationship between music and spirituality, from Christianity and Islam to the paranormal and the occult.

Written by Grace Robertson

Photo courtesy of Evans Richardson

Throughout his 20-year career, Sufjan Stevens has shed genres like clothes: from electronica to folksy singer-songwriter to avant-garde synth. In every new incarnation, though, religious overtones shape his music, even as he actively questions his faith, explores his own sexuality, professes his belief in aliens, and dedicates songs to serial killers (looking at you, John Wayne Gacy, Jr.). 

What keeps Stevens' music from sounding overly zealous to a non-religious audience is his profound way of writing faith-based songs — sometimes even retelling Bible stories — with nuance and unexpected secular context. He has never defined himself as a Christian singer (he’s referred to mainstream Christian music as “didactic crap”), but his discography is steeped in themes of forgiveness, hope, and love. 

His 2003 album, Seven Swans, a somber banjo-and-guitar folk record, is most directly connected to religion; he explores biblical themes with a sincerity that turns the explicitly Christian themes into universal experiences of compassion and forgiveness. In the song “Abraham,” Stevens retells the story of the religious figure Abraham, who was ordered by God to sacrifice his son on Mount Moriah as a test of his faith. The track is brief and sparse, with only his voice and a bare banjo. Alone, the song seems cut-and-dry: a biblical story retold. But in the context of the album as a whole, it becomes clear that the song expands beyond a simple reimagining of a biblical story. The track plays after “To Be Alone With You,” an exploration of the sacrifices Stevens would make for love. Stevens croons, “I’d swim across Lake Michigan / I’d sell my shoes / I’d give my body to be back again / In the rest of the room.” Stevens admits he feels distant from the subject of the song, even as he details the sacrifices he would make for them and the ones that Jesus, or the subject, would make for him.  

But removed from its religious context, Stevens’ intimate whisper morphs the song into a pining queer anthem of heartbreak and selflessness. Though Stevens has never explicitly discussed his own sexuality, he leaves breadcrumbs in his lyrics. Stevens sings, “You gave up your body to the lonely / They took your clothes / You gave up a wife and a family / You gave your ghost / To be alone with me.” It’s unclear if Stevens speaks to a lover, or to Jesus. Stevens, purposely or not, merges homosexuality and religion. Even in openly queer songs, like “The Predatory Wasp of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us,” Stevens ends the song with crashing layers of “hallelujah"s over trumpets and bells —  reminiscent of the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s "Messiah" that bursts from every church organ on Easter Sunday. 

In the song, Stevens compares the romantic relationship between two boys at a Christian summer camp to the love between and of the Holy Trinity, singing, “Unto us your ghost is born.” The relationship is both a mirror of the Trinity and born of it — a converging of the sacred, and in the eyes of some Christians, the sinful. 

On his work for the 2016 gay film "Call Me By Your Name," Stevens remixed the first track from his 2010 album Age of Adz, “Futile Devices,” an exploration of the intersection of romantic and platonic love. The song is tender and intimate, but Stevens doesn’t have the words to express his love: 

I’d say I love you 

But saying it out loud is hard 

So I don’t say it at all 

But you are the life I needed all along 

I think of you as my brother, although that sounds dumb 

And words are futile devices 

To understand what Stevens is, it’s crucial to understand what he isn’t. He distanced himself from contemporary Christian music, which was born from an effort to "modernize" the Church in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Christians felt they needed to compete with the budding rock and roll and spiritual hippie movements that gained steam during the period. Although the rock and roll movement was initially denounced by the Church, pastors realized that they could attract younger audiences with a contemporary sound but traditional theological message: pro-Jesus and anti-sex. In a piece on the explosion of contemporary Christian rock, New Yorker journalist Kelefa Sanneh wrote that “they could make pretty much whatever noise they wanted, as long as the words were sufficiently joyful.” 

Churches embraced the movement, birthing a generation of Christian pop and rock musicians that still lives on today through the likes of Lauren Daigle, Kelly Clarkson, and Hillsong United. While these artists still explore themes of romantic love and struggle, the genre’s goal is always to evangelize and spread the Good Word, which paints the genre as somewhat shallow and kitschy. 

Stevens turns that idea on its head. Instead of making music with the aim of evangelizing, Stevens explores his faith through music in a way that intertwines with his own life. Stevens’ 2015 album, Carrie and Lowell, is the clearest example of this. The album explores his grief after his mother — who experienced schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and substance abuse her entire life — abandoned Stevens when he was one. The album was written after she died of stomach cancer in 2012. The album is one of his most personal: a direct autobiography of his pain, emptiness, depression, loneliness, and above all, faith. 

The second track on the album, “Should Have Known Better,” begins with Stevens embracing the crushing grief — his “black shroud”— that followed his mother’s death. He’s backed by nothing but a guitar as recalls her leaving when he was young: “When I was three, three, maybe four / She left us at that video store.” But halfway through, a more hopeful, upbeat keyboard and a percussion line join him; his voice grows more sure of itself as a choir of voices helps him sing, “Don’t back down, concentrate on seeing / The breakers in the bar, the neighbors’ greeting.” Although the next verse revisits his depression as he’s dragged back into his grief, he ends it with a biblical message of hope. He continues: “Don’t back down, there is nothing left  / The breakers in the bar, no reason to live  / I’m a fool in the fetter (fool in the fetter) / Rose of Aaron’s beard, where you can reach me.”

In Psalm 33, the Beard of Aaron represents the good and purity of being together as one: “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head … running down Aaron’s beard.” God is not the only place Stevens finds solace. The psalm could also be interpreted as praising the peace that comes from being with family. In “Should Have Known Better,” Stevens reveals that his niece brings him "illumination" during his depressive episodes, an example of how he uses his faith and love of family to counteract and explore some of the most painful parts of human existence. 

Regardless of whether Stevens will admit it, his music is faith-based. But instead of isolating audiences, his exploration of spirituality invites us to experience what it really means to be human. While his songs draw from the Bible, even the most secular listener would give Stevens a begrudging “Hallelujah!”