Posted by Eliza on: 06.26.2007 /
I (Eliza) had the pleasure of attending the Seattle Men’s Chorus (SMC) show “Scared Faithless: God and Gays in the 21st Century” with Benjamin and Megan last weekend. It was a most interesting and enjoyable evening! I was glad that Megan and Benjamin were interested in seeing the show. It was great to talk with them about the show at intermission & afterwards. I couldn’t have had better company! (Benjamin & Megan are camping this week, so won’t be able to comment until next week — they may have different observations about the show.)
Seattle’s a pretty liberal city, & SMC is well-known for including some risqué (& therefore by extension irreverent) elements in their shows. SMC is also well known for being made up of gay men — that’s its raison d’etre. (It’s big, too — the SMC website lists more than 200 chorus members at last update, last year.) Even so, this show definitely broke some usually pretty intact taboos by approaching religion in a less-than-reverential manner, and questioning it. It was breath-taking to see this show occur. At the beginning, I was thinking, “I can’t believe they’re doing this”. By the middle of the 3rd piece, though, I was thinking “It’s about time!”
Apparently there was a “sour note” before the show: the promotional poster, or at least merchants’ and churches’ reactions to it. The poster included photos of 2 men holding signs saying “God Hates Fags” and “You’re Going to Hell”. Because of this, there was apparently less advertising before the show & supposedly lower ticket sales. (In the program handed out at the show, the men in the photo held signs saying “God Loves You” and “You Are Welcome Here”. As for ticket sales, while there were a few empty seats up in back, where we were, otherwise McCaw Hall – which seats nearly 2900 people – looked pretty full to us.)
The title of the show, while catchy, was not quite accurate. The stories told by individual SMC members throughout the show were not of people who were “scared faithless”, but of people who were shunned, kicked out, told they were going to hell, or otherwise made to feel unwelcome. These were stories of people who experienced tension between the expectations of their religious community, including family, and their own integral sense of self. And the stories included new routes to acknowledging, fulfilling, and sharing their faith, in new communities and new ways (including one SMC member who was kicked out of his church for not hiding his identity as a gay man, & who later became an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ). One theme repeated over & over was that a person has to be accepted for all he is, as he is, as God made him, without being expected to reject or hide an integral part of who he is. Another recurrent theme of the stories was about the limits of human knowledge – how we know less than we think we do, and how what we know is so much less than what we don’t know (and how helpful it would be to a recognize & acknowledge this). (Also, regarding the title, many of the stories recounted events from years ago, in the 20th century. But that’s a minor point.)
The show used the SMC’s trademark humor in several numbers, especially in the first half, but overall the show was much more spiritual than I expected from the SMC & from the title. The show opened with a young person (teenage? 20′s? male? female? couldn’t tell) kneeling in the spotlight center stage, singing a song titled “I Am” (including “I am creation…I am life…”) with a visual backdrop of a low white cloud (which turned out to be a white gauzy tent covering the rest of the very large chorus) and, higher up, a deep blue screen which gradually morphed into a video of whispy clouds in a dark blue sky. I think the chorus was providing wordless vocal tones as auditory background in this piece. It was moving. (That song, and 4 others of the 18 in the show, were written by Eric Lane Barnes, the Assistant Artistic Director of the SMC). (And, yes, I do “get” the reference to “I Am”. For those left wondering, see Exodus 3:14, and then the Gospel of John.)
After that piece, a booming bass voice came on over the speakers, reading Leviticus 20:13 (“If a man lies with a man as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them”) & after that a number of other voices were heard saying negative things about gays in religious terms, including a woman with a strong Southern accent (sounded like an actual recording — maybe Phyllis Schlafly?) saying how “those people” are going to hell & that was fine with her, she didn’t care about them. More and more hostile voices were added, until it was a cacophony…and then the voices abruptly stopped and after a moment of silence the chorus sang a lovely and thought-provoking song, “Would You Harbor Me?” I didn’t know at the time that the person who wrote the song, Ysaye Barnwell, is a black woman. It was pretty darn moving to hear it sung by more than 100 (200?) gay men wearing red AIDS ribbons on their left lapels, right after the cacophony of condemnations we had just heard.
After this, the Artistic Director, Dennis Coleman, spoke for a while, making some announcements. He also said that he hadn’t realized how much interest (& controversy) the topic would garner, attributing it to their use of “one three-letter word…God.” I think he was the person who pointed out during the show that Jesus didn’t say anything about (or against) homosexuality in the gospels (one of several observations on Biblical references this evening which had me nodding vigorously).
Afterwards, I thought of the show as being made up of musical pieces of 5 types. These musical pieces were intertwined with SMC members speaking about their own experiences in religious communities. Most who spoke were Christian, including one Mormon. Two Jewish men and one who had been raised in Daoism (Taoism) also spoke; they expressed more acceptance of religion than the others. The Jewish men were very positive about their religion. (One of the Jewish men said that his religion has more important things to be concerned about…like bacon cheeseburgers.) Only one speaker identified himself as atheist; his story seemed to me to get the coolest reception from the audience. His comments weren’t wrenching, nor as reflective, as some of the others; also it unfortunately came across more like he thought he had the “right” and only rational approach, which was off-putting (yes, even for me!).
The first type of musical piece were “hymns & spiritual music”. There were several of these pieces: “Alleluia” by Randall Thompson, the 3rd movement & finale of the Chichester Psalms by Leonard Bernstein (in Hebrew), “Notre Pere” by Maurice Duruflé (Our Father, in French), and the lovely a capella piece “The 23rd Psalm” by Bobby McFerrin, in which God is referred to as feminine (“She maketh me to lie down in green pastures…”). That piece ended with reference to “The Mother, The Daughter, and the Holiest of Holies.” (The female references were surprising and seemed refreshing to me, but I could imagine that many people might be offended by that.) I’d also put the first piece, “I Am”, in this category.
The second type of piece I’ll categorize as “don’t shun us, don’t bug us, we’re okay”. These were: “God Help the Outcasts”, “I Come From Good People”, and “We’re Not Lost, We’re Here”. (The latter one I could really relate to!) I’d put “Would You Harbor Me?” in this group.
The third type I’ll call the “nyah nyah to religion” type: “I Ain’t Afraid” by Holly Near, which includes the refrain “I ain’t afraid of your Yahweh, I ain’t afraid of your Allah, I ain’t afraid of your Jesus, I’m afraid of what you do in the name of your God.” This song made me wonder how chorus members who DO believe in God felt about doing this show & about singing those lyrics. But then I realized that atheist-agnostic singers have been performing religious music for decades (if not longer), including members of just about any chorus you could name, & I started feeling that a little bit of turnabout is fair play. It’s hard to be in a chorus & not be expected to sing religious music at times.
Another song of this type, later in the show, was “Sweet Mormon Boy”, following a story by a former Mormon SMC member; the song speculates about Mormon missionaries who are hiding their sexual orientation from their church. I think one of my companions commented later that this piece seemed to single out Mormons as potentially gay.
The fourth type was “comic”. There were several of these pieces, each of which brought the house down; they occurred mostly in the first half. One opened with a fire & brimstone preacher coming out & castigating the audience for that sinful behavior he just KNEW they’d engaged in, which was forbidden in Leviticus. He went on for a while before revealing that he was referring to…eating shellfish! (Especially funny, because a local seafood restaurant was the sponsor of the show.) That led to the song “The Fundamental” (about a movement that’s sweeping the nation – & how to do it — fundamentalism, that is). The lyrics of the refrain are at the end of this news article.
Another comic piece was brilliant — it opened with a young man in ripped jeans & a T-shirt slouching across the stage, wondering aloud how his parents would react if they knew…whether people would look at him differently if they knew…etc. The chorus starting singing with him, wondering aloud “how to say…that I’m……..Catholic!” That morphed into a rollicking song about how hard it is to come out as Catholic, capped by the appearance of “nuns” in wimples & robes, some with beards, who did a synchronized swimming kind of number on the floor at center stage, in the end revealing their colorful stockings & knickers. (This was the only part I thought was “sacrilegious”.)
In another comic piece, a woman claiming to be Marge Phelps came onstage & berated “ho-mo-sex-u-als” in an over-the-top way for a while, leading into “A Hymn to Fred Phelps: God Hates Fags”. This was funny as long as you knew who Fred Phelps is; if not, it probably seemed confusingly anti-gay.
The fifth type I’ll categorize as “where we get support or see hope”. These were the last 5 songs: “In My Mother’s Eyes” (with photos of SMC members’ moms being shown on the screen above the chorus), “Gathering of Friends” (with photos of defrocked GLBT clergy scrolling on the screen), “The Reunion” (which I recall being about love), and “Keepers of the Light” (which I recall being about humans & humanism, without using that term; photos of people of all sorts & from all over the world were shown on the screen). Right after the song about mothers & their support & love, quite a lot of the SMC members onstage wiped their eyes — that was quite touching. (Two of the “stories” had been men reading supportive letters their mothers wrote them after the sons “came out” to them.) All of these songs were lovely. (It struck me that the last 2 really spelled out the message that the minister at the UU church I’ve joined keeps giving, in different ways each week, in his sermons: love one another, all we have is each other.)
At intermission, chorus members handed out CDs of the 2007 Directory of Inclusive Faith Communities for Washington State, by a group called Multifaith Works listing 150 spiritual groups which welcome gays in this state. We also spent a few minutes looking at the Shower of Stoles display in the lobby; this was a display of ~150 stoles made by, for, or in memory of GLBT clergy. It would have been nice to have longer to look at the stoles; they were beautiful.
It seemed to me that the overall structure of the show was to “tear down” in the first half (express concern, expose hatred & intolerance) and to “build up” in the second half (give thanks for supportive families & community, acknowledge the importance of loving & helping one another).
This show was only performed twice, once each on Friday and on Saturday. (Smaller groups from the chorus had performed some of the songs in several area churches in past weeks, but there was no mention of plans to continue that.) While that short run is typical for the SMC, I think we all agreed that it’s really a shame that more people won’t have the chance to see this show.
Comment by: Helen
1Hi Eliza! I’m very happy you had time to post today and this is a very interesting write-up of SMC’s show.
(Btw I just remembered I read that Benjamin and Megan are away camping this week, so they won’t be commenting in the next few days)
It’s interesting that SMC’s ads with photographs of what some people really say against gay people were deemed too offensive to put up by a number of people. There seems something strangely ironic about that.
I’m struck that a men’s chorus would sing a song depicting God as Mother and Daughter. I think that’s awesome.
It’s interesting that they mixed sacred music with protest music – it sounds fascinatingly diverse.
So do you have to be gay to join or can you join if you support gay people but aren’t actually gay? Maybe I can answer my own question: looking at their site it seems like you don’t have to be gay, only to have enough musical ability to pass the audition and to be happy to participate in activities which are supportive of GLBT people.
Comment by: Eliza
2I wondered, too, about that, Helen. The site doesn’t suggest that an applicant has to offer any proof of anything, other than ability to sing & read music, to try out.
My husband and I have donated to the SMC for a number of years. They seem to form a very close & supportive community, & I’ve heard a number of stories (including one from the stage during this show) of men who were “lost” until they found this group.
Comment by: Helen
3I can imagine it being a close supportive community. (In the way many people hope church is)
Comment by: Paul
4sounds like an awesome show, thanks Eliza
Comment by: Clay
5I think I see more hypocrisy here. I don’t think I would be accepted by the gay community for accepting gays for who they are, but condemning homosexuality as a sin. Where’s the tolerance? If God and His son can be referred to as women, why can’t I be accepted by them?