Raven’s Dark Angel Musings

Being Christian Gothic

Part 1:

Being a Christian Goth

Perhaps that question should read “can you be a Christian and a Goth?”

There are many sincere Christians who would say NO! They are sincere, but they are sincerely wrong.

They genuinely believe that to be a Christian, you should want to live in a million dollar home, have 4..5 children, drive a Lexus and wear an Armani suit. Their response to the way you look is based on their own culture — a culture that in no way reflects true America, or the Gospel. It is based on religious racism — “You can’t be a Christian because you don’t look like me.” This they genuinely believe because most of them grew up in churches and all they saw were mirrors of themselves. Since this is how all of them and their friends look, they believe that all Christians should look and act and be this way.

In the immortal words of Robert Ripley — “Don’t you believe it!” Nowhere does God command that a Christian look and live like this. In fact, what the Bible says about the Christian life is far closer to Goth culture than our typical American middle class culture.

A Goth is not just someone who wears black. Johnny Cash wore black, and he was a rockabilly.

A Goth is not just someone who likes skulls. Pirates liked skulls.

A Goth is not just someone with a morbid fascination with death. The local mortician has a fascination with death, and usually they qualify as geeks.

A Goth is someone with a transcendent soul; someone who is in touch with her own heart. She knows life sucks. She knows her life is a walk upon the edge of a knife blade. She knows that one drunk driver, one gunshot, one fight between her parents, and it’s all over. She knows her heart and she knows the pain that is in there. And she has the courage and knowledge to admit it.

A Goth is someone who wears this pain on the outside, letting the world know that she has been kicked, mained, crippled, but she still stands. She still walks, each step reminding her of the blow that felled her, the parent who left her, the so-called friend who betrayed her. She cries at the falling of a rose petal, for it reminds her of her own mortality, her own fading beauty that no one sees or appreciates. Yet she goes on, enshrining that rose petal in another tattoo. She knows the horror of her father not coming home, so she pierces her lip to remind herself of her loss — this ring is for you, Dad.

A Goth is someone who believes he will not live much longer. He knows the frailty of his own soul, that he cannot withstand the consumerism and competition that life demands. He cannot possibly hope to be better than the other 10,000 people applying for the same position, so he doesn’t try. He was born dead. His body just doesn’t know it yet. He knows that life and all it has to offer will kill him — the materialism, the agendas of others, the cold heartlessness of Wall Street, the hell-bent mentality of a nation that must go to war. So he prepares himself for his own funeral, now, while he’s alive to enjoy his own wake. He embalms himself, dresses in his funereal finery and sets out how he wants to be remembered, knowing that no one will do it for him once he’s actually dead. Mom and Dad don’t care for him while he’s alive — all they do is throw another Playstation at him, another wad of cash, but no hugs, no true “I love you’s”. So why should they care when he’s dead? Maybe his few friends will care and help him celebrate his meaningless life and death now.

A Goth is someone who is ruled by her heart, not her mind, not her wallet, not her culture. She does not know that she can only find happiness in being a wife and mother — she doesn’t believe that. She doesn’t know that she can only find happiness in being beautiful and owning a BMW and having a MBA — she doesn’t believe that. She believes her heart. And her heart tells her not the way things are, but the way things ought to be, and can never be, because the ones who make the rules will not let them be. And that breaks her heart. And her face and clothes are stained with her bitter tears. And she wants you to know that she cries and that you and your culture made her cry.

A Goth is someone who must express what he feels and sees and try his very best to make a difference. But because of the wounds he has endured, he knows that no one will listen. His voice has been silenced by one too many “shut ups” roared at him by the ones society values. The athletes, the beautiful ones, the rich ones, the powerful ones. They have silenced his voice. But not his heart. So he paints. He draws. He sings. He acts. He expresses his heart. Not rage, not anger, but fear, sorrow, pity for the way things could be, the way people could all live together, could all harmonize. Despite his tears and his black clothes, inside in his deepest soul, the Goth is still the last optimist, for he actually thinks that maybe, someone somewhere will see his art, hear his song, watch his play … and understand. That is a Goth.

And all it lacks to be complete Christian culture is Christ in its center.
To answer our question, “Can you be a Christian and a Goth?” Jesus himself would say “YES!”

We wear not our pain on the outside, but the pain of Christ. Every lash he took, every tear he cried, every drop of blood. These have stained our garments. Not black of death, nor black of evil. But black … the color of all colors, made of all colors. For He has given us all joy and cleansed us so thoroughly that we must wear everything He did at one time. All combined into one. One garment. Black is our garment of praise to our Saviour!

Part 2:

Being a Christian Goth

We wear black. Black is a color. Darkness is evil. We wear black. You must have light to tell the color black from the color red or the color blue. In darkness all colors look the same; all colors are empty and void of life. But in the light of Christ, where we now live, we wear black to show that we are unafraid of the darkness. We have been there and He led us out. We wear black as our emblem of honor. Black is not evil. It is a color of life for it is made up of all colors. We wear black to embrace the new life that is ours.

We prepare ourselves for our own funerals, for we have indeed died to ourselves, for He died for us. We have taken our pains, our pasts, our torments and nailed them to His Cross, and left them there. We have no past. We are dead. We celebrate the death of our old selves, our old ways, our old pains, our old natures. We bury them with gladness. And we wear black and skulls to show that we are dead. We are the Living Dead, dead to ourselves, but alive in Christ. We live no more, but we live, full of the joy and life of God Himself.

We drink blood. Not the blood of others — mere mortal blood — but the eternal, immortal blood of Christ, the blood that washed us free of hell. The blood that acted as an acid, eating away the bars that kept us imprisoned in the Hell of our own lives, our own hearts, our own minds, our own pasts. The blood that erased every fist that smashed us, every word that cut us, every body that raped us, every friend that betrayed us. The blood that infused us with life everlasting. And unlike the vampire, this blood gives us the right and joy to embrace the dawn, to marvel at a new day and enjoy what God has given us.

We embrace the image of the skull. For in the skull, we see a complete stripping away of our flesh, our death to ourselves, our emptiness before Jesus. All that remains is the foundation of bone, the essence of what Jesus did for us on the Cross. If there is to be any flesh, any face, any identity, it will be that which is formed there by God’s own hand. What will emerge then is the image of ourselves as God the master intended, made in His own image, not the image forced upon us by a society void of God or godliness.

We are ruled by our hearts. Now, with Jesus living in us, we can express our hope, our optimism that we can change our world. We can touch it with love, with change, with hope, with prayer. We are led by our hearts, now full of uncompromising love, befriending the friendless, believing that Jesus can make a difference in true life. We believe not in the mass accumulation of more toys and money, but in the purity of the souls of others. We believe that with Jesus living in our hearts, our hearts can rise above the lies and deceptions that our crass nation forces on us, and can make a difference.

We see the dark side of life. For it is dark. And God came to divide the darkness from the light. And who better understands the need to divide it than those of us who live in the darkness. Those of us who have known darkness in our souls. Those of us who know that life bites and sucks like an invisible vampire. Who better to take a lit torch to those huddling under stairs than those of us who know darkness. If we come out of the dark, who will remain to be friends to those we leave behind? They need us. So we remain.

We know that being a Goth is more than wearing Victorian clothing. Just as we know that being a Christian is more than wearing a WWJD bracelet or swearing blind loyalty to one political party or waving signs in front of an abortion clinic. It is nothing less than total mercy and total forgiveness and total acceptance of another human being as a child of God. It is saying I love you regardless of you and I will put your needs ahead of my own.

We. I say we. For I am a Goth and a Christian. I know the pain of life. It mocked me and betrayed me. It hurt me and maimed me. It crippled me and broke me. It beat me, raped me and left me for dead. But Jesus picked me up and cleaned me and healed me.

And as he wiped my tears, I looked into His eyes. And I noticed that Jesus was a Goth, too.

Jesus knows body piercing — he has holes in his hands and feet, and a hole in his side so large that his friend Thomas could put his hand inside. He has a ring of scars around his forehead. And his back looks like a spiderweb of pain.

Jesus was born dead. He was born to die. He knew it when He was twelve. He knew it when He was twenty. He knew it when He faced the Cross.

Jesus knows Hell. Not the Hell we live in, the Hell of our own minds and hearts, the Hell created for us by those around us. But the physical place, the place of eternal torment and flame and stentch. He knows the hopelessness of not being able to control His own life.

Jesus knows sorrow. He took mine. He felt mine. He was there every time something happened to me.

Jesus knows grief. He lost His dad, Joseph. He grieves over those He cannot save even now.

Jesus knows abandonment. He was abandoned by His best friend Peter. He was abandoned by God Himself.

Jesus knows betrayal. He knows the pain of Judas betraying Him with a kiss. He knows the pain of betrayal as I walked away from Him deliberately once.
Jesus prepared Himself for His own death, enjoying the scent of the embalming perfume while He was still alive, enjoying the love of a friend while He still could. And the love of this friend, this prostitute turned holy through true love and forgiveness, this woman that we call Mary Magdalene, was what He left behind for us to see as an act of unselfishness. This was His legacy to us.

Jesus knows skulls. The place where He died is called the Place of the Skull. Jesus knows.

Jesus is a Goth.

How can I … how can we … not be also?

– Nathan Boutwell, Ft. Worth

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