King's X, "Mission"

I stumbled across this song at just around the same time I was becoming acutely aware of just how clever people could be in their hypocrisy. 

If someone told me he was a Christian, for example, I would assume this meant he was at least trying to put his love of God and his love of neighbor above all else. I had a few deeply unpleasant experiences before I stopped naively taking people at their word, and I learned to look deeper into the motives behind their actions. 

As Marcus Aurelius says, I won't be surprised at how a man lives if I take the time to understand something about his judgments. I will also not need to be consumed by resentment, because I can then see how he is a slave to the limits of his thinking. 

I spent too many years angry at a girl for breaking my heart, but what did I think was going to happen? I let myself be fooled by her insistence that she was a woman of faith, and yet I never once saw her at prayer or, for that matter, actually take heed of any one of the Ten Commandments. 

From blaming her I turned to blaming myself, and then I even stopped blaming myself, instead finding some peace in appreciating a hard lesson. I don't imagine it will ever stop hurting, but it does confirm how Providence never acts in vain. 

Indeed, "some are true, some do lie." 

Serious musicians always praised King's X, and they were a thinking man's hard rock band, but they never quite made it big. From what I know of them, I imagine they were fine with that. 

Their early albums were full of Christian imagery, and yet they staunchly refused to be labeled as a "Christian" band. This song may explain something about why. 

When their singer and bassist, Doug Pinnick, spoke openly about his sexual orientation, their records were immediately removed from the shelves of Christian bookshops, and I then made it a deliberate point to buy any of their albums I didn't already own. 

No, not because I happen to agree or disagree with any lifestyle, but because I think it right to treat people with some basic human decency rather than tossing them into the trash. 

What, pray tell, would all those pious prigs do to Mary Magdalene these days? Just listen to the gossip at your local church picnic and you'll have a sense of what I mean. 

Compassion is always a surefire sign that virtue is present. 

—12/2016 

King's X, "Mission" from Gretchen Goes to Nebraska (1989) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdOlqqGZFoc

A broken body its joints at war
Religious vipers sucking royal blood
The price is paid
The final score
The truth exists even through pious mud

Who are these people behind the stained glass windows? 
Have they forgotten just what they came here for? 
Was it salvation or "scared of hell"
Or an assembly of a social get-together? 

What's the mission of the preacher man? 
Some are true some do lie
What's the mission of the preacher man? 
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

A threat of justice the lazy judge
The governess teaches his son to scream
Adopted child
True path to trudge
No minor plot to undermine his dream

Who are these people behind the stained glass windows? 
Have they forgotten just what they came here for? 
Was it salvation or "scared of hell"
Or an assembly of a social get-together? 

What's the mission of the preacher man? 
Some are true some do lie
What's the mission of the preacher man? 
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

(Bless God! The more I think about it the more I think I was preaching the truth.

 I went down to the Cadillac agency and one hour later I drove out a new Cadillac. 

Hallelujah, say praise the Lord! 

Bless God I'm gonna drive that Cadillac down here and get it dusty and dirty and use it for God. 

Hallelujah! Thank you Jesus!) 

Who are these people behind the stained glass windows? 
Have they forgotten just what they came here for? 
Was it salvation or "scared of hell"
Or an assembly of a social get-together? 

What's the mission of the preacher man? 
Some are true some do lie
What's the mission of the preacher man? 
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah