Wilcox on Music and the Church

If you haven't heard David Wilcox sing, you are missing out. Though his style and voice might not be for everyone, he is undoubtedly one of the best songwriters of the last fifty years. I heard someone say once that where some see glasses half-full, or see them some half-empty, Wilcox sees the finger prints on the glass and wonders who left them, how they lived their life, if they were hurting, what made them smile. And then he sings into that.

Wilcox is frustrating at times because though he says he is a "Jesus follower," that can often mean quite a few things. Sometimes he is able to poignantly and pointedly call out the church for her failings. Other times his rejection of the church borders on unorthodoxy which probably stems more from liberalism than submission to biblical truth. Whatever the case, he is a rarity and, if you'll let him, he will fill you up with plenty of questions and, if you listen long enough, quite a few answers.

I say all this because he was just interviewed by CT for his new album. This was the most interesting interaction:

There are references to the church throughout your body of work. How do you see your relationship to the corporate church?

Wilcox: I have a lot of gratitude and compassion. It's like when musicians talk about the music business as some big, evil thing. It's not an evil thing; it's just people who are scared of losing their jobs. When you get individuals who are scared of losing their jobs running an institution, pretty soon the institution starts thinking about saving its skin. And if the institution were to behave like Jesus, it would have to value the truth more than its own life. That's a hard thing for an institution to do. Board meetings don't say, "How can we die gloriously?" Their death is not in their business plan. For Jesus it was. So I think it's beautifully contradictory.

Here he is with his song 'Start With the Ending':