In a world that seems increasingly divided, Matt Maher just wants to echo Jesus. The “All the People Said Amen” singer’s new album, Echoes, speaks to the sounds that reverberate in our culture and in the Church.
“There’s a quote from an N.T. Wright book called Simply Christian. He says, ‘We hear the echoes of a voice who calls for the wrong things to be made right, and that voice is ‘Jesus,” Maher says. “This album sort of starts with that. We all hear a voice that sort of tells us things aren’t right, things can be better. Sometimes the voice is like a whisper and sometimes it’s an encouragement. Sometimes it’s like an itch.”
For Maher, it’s all about being true to God, but also not getting swayed by ideologies (inside or outside our sanctuaries) and missing what Jesus would have us see in each other.
Recently, I spoke with Maher on the phone about Echoes and how we should be responding, as believers, to what’s going on in our world today. His comments were so challenging and powerful, I’m just going to let him talk:
On his new song, “Picket Sign”, and race relations in America…
Matt Maher: “The Cross really does represent the intersection of salvation and solidarity, Jesus saving us and Jesus also coming alongside those who are marked and calling us to be reconciled with the world around us, not just to God.”
“It’s important that Christians remember that Satan just doesn’t want to destroy the Church; he wants to destroy the human race and he’ll do it any way he can. It’s literally who we are … that’s the ultimate offense to the devil. And it’s everybody, because everybody carries on them the image and likeness of God. So if he can use the Church as a means to divide the world and not bring reconciliation, it’s great.”
“When you look at the issues of racial equality and how that continues to be a source of division, the easiest thing, first and foremost, for Christians to do, particularly if you’re white, is to just begin to really, really understand what African Americans have endured and what they have experienced in this country truly from their shoes.”
“I still think that even in the whole sort of ongoing conversation about systemic racism in our country, the church is not helping. People say it’s a sin problem. You can’t disagree with that. But if you’re a Christian you believe that the church is the agency that brings about reconciliation, so we have to get involved.”
“Dr. Martin Luther King was a pastor first. Out of the church came men and women who were dedicated to the Civil Rights Movement. I still believe that a lot of the issues that we face right now, that God’s heart is for the church to be the agent of reconciliation. But it’s also going to make some people uncomfortable because it also means that we have to take a look at our political affiliations and ask honest questions.”
On the Church becoming bipartisan…
“What’s concerning me is how much politics has infiltrated the Christian worldview in the last, like, 15 years. It’s insane. To me that might be the greatest threat to Christianity in America is actually how much politics has become confused in our language. Because we talk about things that are biblical, but then we use words like ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’. Now, I hear Christians using those two words more than anything else.”
“I know that I myself can be prone to it, but I’m asking the question, does God want me to relegate or classify a bunch of people by a political term, or am I acquiescing, am I allowing politics to infiltrate every area of my life including my faith? This is a very dangerous problem. It’s just very dangerous, especially when we live in an area where there’s a two-party system. There’s not a two-denominational system of Christianity. I mean, you’ve got just in America alone, think about how many denominations you have. Yet, we’ve now reduced people to either being liberal or conservative; and those words aren’t in the Bible.”
“We need to ask the question as the church, ‘Is the government or is the political establishment trying to make us designate people this way, because it makes it easier for them to enact their agenda in the church every four years?'”
“If you’re an Orthodox Christian, meaning that you believe that the things that God’s revealed are the things that God’s revealed and they don’t need to change, then you now tend to think that conservative politics is the way for you. And all of the things that don’t line up with the Gospel within that you’re willing to turn a blind eye to. It’s sort of the same thing on the progressive side, where you can find yourself as a Christian thinking that tradition is always something that’s unfolding and things change. But then there’s aspects on the political side that you go, ‘Well, I guess I’ll only turn a blind eye to this.’ To me, that’s because neither side works.”
“Christians shouldn’t fit in conservative or liberal political ideologies because the Gospel doesn’t fit in those. If I have a sense of even dread – “dread” is too drastic of a word … I just get bummed out by the fact that I see so many Christians acquiescing real orthodoxy for a political one that is most of what they believe, instead of truly embracing the Gospel and radically following Jesus and confounding the political establishment just like Jesus did.”
On the reconciliation we can bring to our world…
“I’m a staunch believer in Orthodoxy; G.K. Chesterton’s one of my heroes. And I think more than ever we need solid orthodox belief. We need right belief. There are things that we shouldn’t change. There are beliefs and thoughts about who God is and what He’s done and who we are in light of that, that won’t change, and even if culture and society tries to change it. That’s why I wrote the song “The Cross Forever Speaks” on this record. ‘You can silence me, but you can’t unring the bell that is the Cross. You can’t take away its meaning. You can’t build a time machine and go back and say it didn’t happen. It happened and it affects our eternal, and it has eternal ramifications, but because of that I’m also free.'”
“That’s my hope and my prayer for Christians moving forward is we can start to realize when we sing songs, when we talk about the war’s been won, most of us are thinking it in light of just our salvation, but I’m more and more thinking of it in light of every plight that the church faces today. I have to believe that God’s got this, but how we’re choosing to respond to things and how we’re choosing to address people is very, very important.”
“And when we automatically assume that because this person thinks differently than me, there must be some sort of terrible agenda going on, and I think that’s the worst is that when we demonize people who just don’t see things the way we do. The challenge always is to stay faithful to the things that we’re called to, but I think also to grow in a sense of compassion and a growing sense of understanding.”
- Get a copy of Matt Maher’s album, Echoes (Deluxe Edition)
- For more info and tour dates for Matt Maher, go to: www.mattmahermusic.com