Once in Royal David's City
Growing up religious is hard for a queer kid. You always know something’s off; you don’t quite fit in even before you have any idea of why, and the Southern Baptist church we attended didn’t exactly alleviate that alienation. I remember getting the sense that the love the preacher spoke of was just rhetoric and that religion was a deeply hateful, intolerant institution. Generally the sermons were fine, but they always made sure to instill us with a fear of the world and the direction it was heading. We went to a slightly better church for much of my childhood, one that taught the idea of loving the sinner but hating the sin. Of course, that sucks in a different way. Being told that these things you have no control over are worthy of the hate of everyone you know, but it was better than where we ended up afterward. It wasn’t one of those churches you hear about on TV, the ones that stand on street corners and hold signs, but I doubt they had significant disagreements with that kind of doctrine. Coincidentally, just as we switched churches, I began to recognize that I was genuinely different from everyone else, and why that was so. Thankfully I found some other people in a similar position, and we helped keep each other sane for a few years. We snuck out of services, smoked on the roof, and talked shit about the church. We did dumb teen stuff that dumb teens do, and it helped me get by, helped me realize that being trans, being queer isn’t a good or a bad thing; it just is.
None of us could figure out why a religion that, at its core, espoused humility and empathy, a religion that was founded around a man who spoke for the poor and downtrodden, people who the attendants of our church wouldn’t dare be seen with, would be used against us because of things we couldn’t control. That’s a question I still can’t answer, a contradiction that still shapes much of how I think about religion. I would probably be open to it in a different setting; the faith I saw in the Bible and the faith of my parents are two vastly different things. Now, what the hell does this have to do with Sufjan Stevens?
Sufjan’s sexuality and religious beliefs aren’t public knowledge, and it isn’t our place as fans or journalists to put labels on things like that. However, I’ve always sensed a deeply personal faith running throughout his music and especially in these Christmas albums. My relationship with hymns is an odd one – I actually love many of them; they resonate with me in the ways I was talking about above, unlike much contemporary Christian music, which reminds me more of the churches I grew up in. Naturally, I love all of the hymns he’s covered, for vastly different reasons. “Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella” is lo-fi and beautifully minimal, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” has a gorgeous chord progression that Sufjan does justice, and both versions of “Silent Night” are incredible in their own way. And yet, I find myself most moved by “Once in Royal David’s City” every time I listen to the album.
It comes back to how religion is manifested in Sufjan’s music – the exact opposite of how I was raised in it. Whatever his experience with religion is, it is a very loving and personal one, one that, in my view at least, falls much closer to that espoused by the founders. Through his music and how he describes religion, I’ve gotten glimpses of what my life could have been if only the church had been more accepting, if religion hadn’t scarred me in my formative years. “Once in Royal David’s City” shows precisely that. In the intimate and playful arrangement, I hear a song being sung by a family sitting around a fireplace or some other idyllic holiday setting. In Sufjan’s delivery, I hear a tender, gentle love, something that goes against every form of religious expression I’ve been exposed to. In short, it shows me an example of what religion should be and what was stolen from me by prejudice. It might seem weird, or maybe that I’m pulling too much out of a simple hymn, but every time I hear it, that image of what could have been brings me to tears. This song encapsulates so much of what makes Sufjan such an incredible artist; he takes this simple, old melody, turns it into something beautiful, personal, and unique, in the process evoking an emotion in me that I couldn’t imagine before.
By Chloe Thompson. You can find her at @punished_chloe on Twitter.