Journal Time

with Ray Waddle

The best Christian song I know doesn't get much air play. It's not written by a glittering Christian pop celebrity. It doesn't even mention Jesus by name.

But the song, "Jerusalem Tomorrow" — about a faith-healing huckster who in spite of himself joins Jesus of Nazareth's Galilean followers — delivers humor, sorrow and the hard truth of sacrifice. It's a quietly acoustic work by a Nashville performer who, without hoopla, has become one of America's most respected singer-songwriters.

He's David Olney — rock 'n' roll/roots/folk singer and Presbyterian churchgoer.

Olney is not a "Christian singer" but an independent troubadour who performs (with fedora and guitar) in bars, small folk-music venues, and festivals across the USA and Europe.

He writes songs from the point of view of soldiers, desperadoes, prostitutes, stage magicians, baseball players, even Canadian geese, even the iceberg that sank the Titanic. Biblical personalities and faith-haunted loners inspire him too.

He comes at life from odd angles. But his relationship with his church, Trinity Presbyterian Church in Nashville, keeps him connected to the big questions, the big answers, and a world of fellow pilgrims.

"To be in a room with these people, the way they open up, the level of civilized behavior — it's very humbling," he says.

"Everyone there has amazing stories to tell. I believe in these people."

That sense of community binds him to church — the disciplined discussions about ethics, the good-humored commitment to bridge-building in an era of political partisanship, the refreshing lack of consumer distortion of the gospel.

"What you hear a lot these days is, 'Become a Christian, win valuable prizes! God wants you to have money!' But if you buy into that, then God must be punishing people who don't have money."
This wrestle with the puzzles of faith drew this native New Englander to the South (and the South's music) more than 30 years ago. Like his adopted region, he is preoccupied with Bible stories and the beginnings of Christianity, the message of the risen Christ.

"Something happened. People wouldn't have made such a big deal of it if it were a non-event," he says.

"In Ezekiel, Isaiah and Genesis, the heroes are always doing something for their tribe. In the New Testament, it's not about the tribe — it's one-on-one. Jesus runs into oddball individuals — the guy in the tree, the poor woman who gives what she can. The idea is that God works in a very personal way, and all this bludgeoning has got to stop.

Forgiveness is the way to go."

Always poking around for spiritual clues in the dramas of human character, Olney has penned tunes about King David, Bathsheba, Absalom. He's fascinated by people on the periphery of revelation, so he wrote "Barabbas," about the prisoner freed by Pontius Pilate in exchange for Jesus. Olney keeps a list of possible subjects.

"The one I'd really like to get at is Job," he says. "What do you do when you get a raw deal like Job? How do you argue with God?"

In "Jerusalem Tomorrow (the song is on the album Deeper Well)," a cynical faith-healer boasts about his early stage scams: "Man, you should have seen me way back then ... I'd hire a kid to say that he was lame, then I'd touch him and I'd make him walk again ...".

Pulling into a "desert town," the faith-healer finds nobody is impressed with his deceptions. Instead, people are talking about a new preacher and a new message: "Instead of calling down fire from above, he just gets real quiet and talks about love; and I'll tell you something funny: he didn't want nobody's money ... "

The stumped charlatan decides to follow this new messiah ("I figure we can work some kind of deal ..."), unaware that the new faith will bring him not only unexpected fulfillment but the ordeals of Calvary: "I guess I'll string along, don't see how too much can go wrong; as long as he pays my way I guess I'll follow ... We're headin' for Jerusalem tomorrow."

These days Olney is busy touring for his new CD, Migration, the latest in a catalog of music known for dramatic story-telling and endorsements from the likes of Emmylou Harris, who has recorded some of his songs.

Working under the publicity radar, David Olney gets hold of Christian themes that go unmentioned among the relentlessly upbeat religious best-sellers and TV pulpits. Instead of fickle optimism, Olney keeps an eye peeled for street-level truths and gospel simplicity. His brand of spiritual realism, anchored in a local Presbyterian church, trumps religious celebrity every time.

(Ray Waddle, based in Nashville, is author of a new book, Against the Grain: Unconventional Wisdom from Ecclesiastes.)