Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" came out in 1964;  a new version by the group Disturbed in 2015.  I only heard the Disturbed version two days ago—exactly 60 years after the original.  Whatever accounts for taste in music, I was surprised—actually, thunderstruck comes much closer—by what I experienced.  All I know is that it seems to have electrified once dormant neuronal activity in the inner recesses of my brain as it proceeded to stalk my own restless dreams.  It reached inside and opened some kind of locked door. 

I’m not a heavy metal enthusiast, and I don’t know anything about the singer, the group, their ideology, their typical fans, or anything beyond what I’ve seen online. What I do know is how this particular rendition of this song has impacted me.  I find it incredibly delicate and sensitive, and yet astoundingly powerful and gripping. And yes, disturbing.   

(This video intentionally begins with 12 seconds of silence and the depiction of cultural loss.)

Lots of people have written about the meaning of the song, both long ago and more recently. Nobody would say it’s about Christian life or the Bible.

But whatever the song was intended to depict in the 1960's—personal loss, societal alienation, the unwillingness of people to communicate, the value of music—this is magnified all the more now only two generations later.  For this new version of the song now conjures up (in me, at least):

1. a deep sense of loss and longing for a country in serious decline, unravelling at an incredible rate due to inept and/or corrupt leaders who lack substantial character or integrity, and on all political sides;
2. the demise of social support systems that promote and build strong families;
3. the utter duplicity and betrayal by so-called leading educational institutions;
4. and most importantly, the abdication by faith communities of any real thinking role for the sake of both church and society, churches too often becoming little more than feeling-based advocacy groups for one political party or another. 

This part gets to me.  I say this next part not in judgment, but with a profound sense of astonishment and longing:  Most Christians I know join all non-Christians I know in deprecating the weight and significance of item #4 just above—and specifically I mean the church as a thinking place.  After all, "Who wants to go to an egghead church?"  "We don't need more 'Bible study', we need more people serving!"  Or, "I don't want all the technical stuff, I just want to know what the Bible means for me now!"  This latter sentiment (what it means for me now) is exceptionally important; but the tail cannot be allowed to wag the dog.  And it so very often is just that.

_____________________

When the church abdicates
its role
as a thinking place,
it undermines and guts
its role
as a serving place.
_____________________

There are exceptions:  usually small pockets of energetic or hungry people who want more.  However, there is an unmistakable and widespread demise among Christians for any serious interest in, or even patience with, anything relating to a deep-study of the Scriptures, where open conversation is prized and possible.  Even church leaders generally give only lip service to it.  Everywhere I have been, I have been dismayed by the number of Christians who tend to avoid or even dismiss anything that resembles focused study of biblical texts as too heady or philosophical or technical.  In theory, "Bible study" is said to be a good thing; but in fact, "Bible study" has come to mean just any kind of gab-session where the Bible might be mentioned—or maybe not even that. 

My point is not that good Bible study will cure cancer and pay off the national debt; nor am I talking about some kind of academic salvation for the church, nor that every church member must become a "biblical scholar."  However, just how much the church advocates responsible, sustained, biblical-text study as central to all other facets of its calling and mission is not a minor consideration.  It must not be merely an in-house discussion, or a luxury, or some kind of an elective; for it has long-term, societal ramifications.  When the church abdicates its role as a thinking place, it undermines and guts its role as a serving place.  And when it becomes a surrogate for denominational or social or political advocacy, it forfeits its right to be known as an ekklesia of Jesus Christ.  

_____________________

. . . helps me feel the vision
now planted in my own brain:
an impassioned outrage against
the shallowness that so satisfies
people of faith everywhere,
that we are so little moved
by the factual death
of the Scriptures among us,
even though, in theory,
we heap praise 
upon them.

_____________________

For me, the Disturbed version of "The Sound of Silence" offers an appropriate, moving, and ominous commentary on just how broken and still breakable human society is; and its message applies just as alarmingly to the church's abdication of its role as a thinking place.  The song moves in steps from soft tones of bewilderment to what is eventually a screaming rage over our lunacy and cowardice, in which we refuse to emerge from darkness and self-imposed silence.  This increasing sense of urgency over the loss of real conversation among people is eerily descriptive of churches who go silent and dark; content with platitudes and superficial, self-help banalities; abandoning God's call to be a thinking force in the world.  And so, God responds,

But my words like silent raindrops fell
and echoed in the wells
of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
to the neon god they made

And the sign flashed out its warning
in the words that it was forming

And the sign said
"The words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls 
and tenement halls
and whispered in the sound
of silence"

Whatever this means to anyone else, for me the highly impassioned Disturbed rendering of the song helps me feel the vision now planted in my own brain:  an impassioned outrage against the shallowness that so satisfies people of faith everywhere, that we are so little moved by the factual death of the Scriptures among us, even though, in theory, we heap praise upon them.  For the call of our Scriptures is not only that we speak honorably about our sacred texts, not only that we verbally acknowledge in them the voice of God, but that we engage authentically in ongoing, deep-level conversation, both with our sacred texts and then energetically and considerately with each other—even, and especially, where we encounter friction.

 Instead, we trudge along,

talking without speaking,
hearing without listening.

And through his texts, God rejoins,

"Fools," said I, "You do not know
Silence, like a cancer, grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you" 

The call of God issues from the heart of holy texts:  at once urgent and pleading, demanding and soothing, inspiring and alluring.  Impassioned.  Breathtaking. 

No, this is not the original intent of the song. 
It is but a whisper;
a remnant from my restless dream.  

Gary

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