Swift Lament: Pop Liturgy for the Ecclesiastical Wounded
Presented at the 2024 Christian Scholar’s Conference.
I recently found myself in the car for a road trip of about two hours. I was on my way to the annual Society of Biblical Literature meeting, a welcome retreat away from my current situation. I’ve lately been in the middle of a painful breakup, not a romantic relationship, but one with the church.
Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Despite being put in positions of lay leadership, it lacked implementation and I felt pushed out and unseen by my church, a phenomenon that has left me thinking “it’s me, Hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.”[1]
So on my way out of town, I pressed play on a familiar playlist of worship songs only to find myself unable to stomach them. My mind immediately went back to painful things the church has said regarding me taking up space as a female. The tune took me back to darkened sanctuaries, but instead of worship music, all I could hear were recent words of condemnation through the pastor’s microphone.
I quickly switched songs and landed on my Taylor Swift playlist. An artistic compilation that mimics her creative proficiency, in that it can play for over 25 hours without repeating. An accomplished singer/songwriter, she is the only Grammy artist in history to claim Album of the Year four times. Naturally, as I sang my heart out in the car my mind began connecting Taylor Swift’s lyrics with what I was currently experiencing. Her struggle in relationships and finding her own agency in a male dominated industry resonated with me. As a middle-aged woman, without a church home who will graduate from seminary in three days it also leaves me thinking,
“I’m so sick of running as fast as I can, wondering if I’d get there quicker, If I was a man.”[2] It can also feel that a seminary degree is like “driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street.”[3] It feels like a gamble to be this vulnerable considering the pain, because I’ve got a long list of ex-churches and “they’ll tell you I’m insane.”[4]
Part of what makes Taylor Swift endearing is her relatability that bubbles up from her vulnerability. And so today breaking the academic 4th wall, I stand before you vulnerable as a lamenting seminary student struggling in her relationship with the church. Through her lyrics, Taylor Swift has a way of lamenting as well as standing up for the marginalized and the misfits, sometimes in stark contrast to evangelical churches that are more focused on their own brand than they are looking like Jesus. As Sarah Bessey wrote recently about the church, in what could have been a Swift lyric, she says, “I do love the Church. It just turned out that I loved them more than they loved me, perhaps.”[5] In a season of ecclesiastical loss and lament, I am suggesting that one can find solace in similar empathetic emotions buried in the lyrics of Taylor Swift.
Standing before you in my newfound stage of agency like Taylor, I’ll say, “This ain’t for the best. My reputation’s never been worse, so You must like me for me”.[6] So let’s journey together on the road of ecclesiastical lament through Swift’s lyrics.
In her groundbreaking psychological work titled On Death and Dying, Dr. Kubler-Ross works out five stages of grief gleaned from countless hours with terminally ill patients. These stages are Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.[7] Though these stages were born out of loss through death, I am suggesting that they can be tools for many of us as we experience grief in various areas, including loss of a church. Today we will consume what I like to think of as a triple layer cake, the loss of church relationships, the stages of grief and the icing on top, Taylor Swift lyrics.
Denial and Isolation
Though not created to be in any sequential order, the first stage is denial. This brings avoidance, confusion, and fear. “Did they really say that? I should just stay home.” These are all natural thoughts of those grieving, whether a death or a loss in relationship. In her documentary, Miss Americana, Swift speaks about a dark season after a public embarrassment by a male musician. She said, “I just wanted to disappear. Nobody physically saw me for a year. And that’s what I thought they wanted. I had to deconstruct an entire belief system, toss it out and reject it.”[8] She goes on in her documentary to note how difficult this season was as she wrestled with what was said about her, her own people pleasing desires and figuring out who she was in response. Like many seminary trained women who are initially pegged as a threat to the institution, Swift’s immediate reaction was isolation.
For women in this stage, especially in congregations where the gendered lines are blurry, women may find themselves in isolation as they wrestle with what was service and dedication, vs the idea of being tolerated. There are often unspoken boundaries placed around women who long to serve the church. Without words, we are often told, “You can set the table, but you can’t sit at it.”
In Tolerate It, Swift laments,
I take your indiscretions all in good fun
I sit and listen
I polish plates until they gleam and glisten
You’re so much older and wiser and I
I wait by the door like I’m just a kid
Use my best colors for your portrait
Lay the table with the fancy shit
And watch you tolerate it
If it’s all in my head tell me now
Tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow
I know my love should be celebrated
But you tolerate it[9]
In their excellent work, A Church Called Tov, Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer speak of how churches will often spin a story. They say, “the pastor and other leaders often seek to control the narrative to protect the reputation of the pastor, the church, or the church’s ministries.”[10] Though the stages of grief are rarely experienced in order or apart from each other, the narratives written by those in ecclesiastical power can bring up the stage of anger.
Anger
In an interview about her song Mad Woman, Taylor said, “the most rage provoking element of being a female is the gaslighting that happens.”[11]
As she says,
“No one likes a mad woman.”[12] Anger can rise up when pastors use jokes and microphones as a weapon of power, something Swift describes in her newest album as, “Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I’ll never see.”[13]
Many women in ecclesiastical spaces are expected to quickly forgive. Forgiveness can occur with just one party, but reconciliation takes humility from both parties.
Lacking recognition of a power differential, Matthew 18 references are used as a check mark to ensure that the lack of reconciliation lies at the part of the offended. This showmanship lacks the necessary humility from those in power.
Her lyrics in Bad Blood, surmised to be about a friendship gone bad, Swift says,
Band-aids don’t fix bullet holes
You say sorry just for show
If you live like that, you live with ghosts[14]
Bargaining
Bargaining is the stage where one begins to have second thoughts and according to Kubler-Ross, begin to consider a different approach.[15] “Bargaining she says “is really an attempt to postpone.”[16] For the woman bruised by church this may result in a realization of the painful realities she finds herself in and yet in her inability to distinguish from her relationship with church and God, she begins to bargain with God and herself. This bargain according to Kubler-Ross is “most always an extension of life, followed by the wish for a few days without pain or physical discomfort.”[17] For the dying whether physically or spiritually, there is a temptation to postpone your own pain and bargain your way into staying one more day despite the pain.
In The Story of Us Swift sings:
How I was losing my mind when I saw you here
But you held your pride like you should have held me
And she goes on,
I’ve never heard silence quite this loud
Now I’m standing alone in a crowded room
And we’re not speaking
and I’m dying to know
Is it killing you like it’s killing me?[18]
In the loss of relationship, the bargaining and realization that perhaps grief is one sided can bring the next stage of depression.
Depression
Kubler-Ross notes that in the stage of depression bewilderment, anger and rage are “replaced with a sense of great loss.”[19] For the loss of relationship this can result in the afflicted wondering if there is any sense of loss by the other party, especially when it is an institution like church. Do they even notice?
In her lyrics of All Too Well, Swift, poignantly describes this grief when she sings:
And you call me up again just to break me like a promise
So casually cruel in the name of being honest
I’m a crumpled up piece of paper lying here
‘Cause I remember it all, all, all
Too well
Time won’t fly, it’s like I’m paralyzed by it
I’d like to be my old self again
But I’m still trying to find it[20]
Acceptance
That sense of trying to find your old self again can bring one to the stage of acceptance. In the case of loss of a church, there can be a moment of looking back and seeing the good that was experienced mixed with the pain. Joy and sorrow so often run side by side. Acknowledging the reality of this tension can be a cathartic form of acceptance.
In this stage of acceptance I thought, “I think I’ve seen this film before, so I’m leaving out the side door”[21] and I found agency in myself. I have done some deep work in therapy to realize who I am in Christ. I stand with many seminary sisters and realize we “figured you out, we all know now, we all got crowns, so you need to calm down.”[22]
Sometimes there is a moment of clarity that allows us to shake the dust off our feet and realize we will never see true change. As Swift says, “I shake it off.”[23] Sometimes soul care means leaving toxicity. Sometimes in an incredible act of irony to salvage our relationship with Jesus it takes leaving your current church. Through this final stage of acceptance I want us to look at Swift’s song, It’s Time To Go and imaginatively apply them to difficult church situations:
When your dinner is cold and the chatter gets old
You ask for the tab
Or that moment again, he’s insisting that friends
Look at each other like that
When the words of a sister come back in whispers
That prove she was not in fact what she seemed
Not a twin from your dreams
She’s a crook who was caught
That old familiar body ache
The snaps from the same little breaks in your soul
You know when it’s time to go
20 years at your job
Then the son of the boss gets the spot that was yours
Or trying to stay for the kids
When keeping it how it is will only break their hearts worse
That old familiar body ache
The snaps from the same little breaks in your soul
You know when it’s time to go
Sometimes giving up is the strong thing
Sometimes to run is the brave thing
Sometimes walking out is the one thing
That will find you the right thing
15 years, 15 million tears
Begging ‘til my knees bled
I gave it my all, he gave me nothing at all
Then wondered why I left
Now he sits on his throne in his palace of bones
Praying to his greed
He’s got my past frozen behind glass
But I’ve got me
That old familiar body ache
The snaps from the same little breaks in my soul
I know when it’s time to go
Sometimes giving up is the strong thing
Sometimes to run is the brave thing
Sometimes walking out is the one thing
That will find you the right thing
And you know in your soul
When it’s time to go[24]
When I think about the part of my soul that died at church, I’m reminded of the power of Jesus and to, as Wendell Berry says, “practice resurrection.”[25] I’m also reminded of Swift’s ecclesiastical lyrics that say,
“what died didn’t stay dead,
what died didn’t stay dead
You’re alive, you’re alive so alive.”[26]
The sixteen year old girl in me who felt called to ministry is still breathing.
I’ve been visiting other churches in town and due to the pain and trauma, I don’t feel I’m “out of the woods yet.”[27] I’ve always been a slave to hope and I know that Jesus is bigger than my pain. “The more I think about it now, the less I know.”[28] Perhaps Jesus will be able to use my story, like Swift, to advocate for others. Perhaps he has strengthened me in the fire. Perhaps he has given me the great gift of empathy and ability to believe the victim.
I believe strongly that Jesus wants us to be in community and a part of a church. I have hope that one day I will find that again. As Swift says, “There’ll be happiness after you. There was happiness because of you. Both of these things can be true. There is happiness.”[29]Until then, like Taylor, “I want to still have a sharp pen and a thin skin and an open heart.”[30]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bessey, Sarah. “Belonging.” February 2024.
I used to belong there. I don’t belong there anymore.
3 years ago · 192 likes · 80 comments · Sarah Bessey
Berry, Wendell. “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.” https://ag.arizona.edu/~steidl/Liberation.html.
Kubler-Ross, M.D., Elisabeth. On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families. New York: Scribner, 2014.
McKnight, Scot and Barringer, Laura. A Church Called TOV: Forming a Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing. Carol Stream: Tyndale, 2020.
Miss Americana. Directed by Lana Wilson. NFilm. 2020. https://www.netflix.com/watch/81028336?trackId=255824129&tctx=0%2C0%2Ce3af03b3-3ec0-4a6c-8c7b-f6a8d7f2cad8-5267780%2Ce3af03b3-3ec0-4a6c-8c7b-f6a8d7f2cad8-5267780%7C2%2Cunknown%2C%2C%2CtitlesResults%2C%2CVideo%3A81028336%2CdetailsPagePlayButton.
Swift, Taylor. All Too Well. iTunes audio, 2012, https://music.apple.com/us/search?term=all%20too%20well.
Swift, Taylor. All You Had To Do Was Stay (Taylor’s Version). iTunes audio, 2023. https://music.apple.com/us/album/1989-taylors-version-deluxe/1713845538.
Swift, Taylor. Anti-Hero. iTunes audio, 2022. https://music.apple.com/us/album/anti-hero/1650841512?i=1650841515.
Swift, Taylor. Bad Blood. iTunes audio, 2014. https://music.apple.com/us/album/bad-blood/1440935467?i=1440936028.
Swift, Taylor. Blank Space (Taylor’s Version). iTunes audio, 2023. https://music.apple.com/us/album/1989-taylors-version-deluxe/1713845538.
Swift, Taylor. But Daddy I Love Him. iTunes audio, 2024, https://music.apple.com/us/album/but-daddy-i-love-him/1736268193?i=1736268392.
Swift, Taylor. Delicate. iTunes audio, 2017. https://music.apple.com/us/album/delicate/1440933849?i=1440934254.
Swift, Taylor. Exile. iTunes audio, 2020. https://music.apple.com/us/album/exile-feat-bon-iver/1524793738?i=1524793900.
Swift, Taylor. Happiness. iTunes audio, 2020. https://music.apple.com/us/album/happiness/1547315522?i=1547315992.
Swift, Taylor. It’s Time To Go. iTunes audio, 2020. https://music.apple.com/us/album/its-time-to-go-bonus-track/1547315522?i=1547316186.
Swift, Taylor. Mad Woman. iTunes audio, 2020. https://music.apple.com/us/album/mad-woman/1524801260?i=1524802187.
Swift, Taylor. Marjorie. iTunes audio, 2020. https://music.apple.com/us/album/marjorie/1544275966?i=1544276492.
Swift, Taylor. “Me!” iTunes audio, 2019. https://music.apple.com/us/album/me-feat-brendon-urie-of-panic-at-the-disco/1468058165?i=1468058706.
Swift, Taylor. Out of the Woods (Taylor’s Version). iTunes audio, 2014. https://music.apple.com/us/album/1989-taylors-version-deluxe/1713845538.
Swift, Taylor. Red. iTunes audio, 2012. https://music.apple.com/us/album/red/1440935340.
Swift, Taylor. Shake It Off. iTunes audio, 2014. https://music.apple.com/us/album/shake-it-off-taylors-version/1708308989?i=1708309002.
Swift, Taylor. The Man. iTunes audio, 2019. https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-man/1468058165?i=1468058176.
Swift, Taylor. The Story of Us. iTunes audio, 2010. https://music.apple.com/us/search?term=the%20story%20of%20us
Swift, Taylor. Tolerate It. iTunes audio, 2020. https://music.apple.com/us/album/tolerate-it/1544268281?i=1544268344
Swift, Taylor. You Need To Calm Down. iTunes audio, 2019. https://music.apple.com/us/album/you-need-to-calm-down/1468058165?i=1468058704.
“Taylor Swift Explains Female Rage in Her Song ‘Mad Woman.’ YouTube, July 19, 2021.
.
[1] Swift, Taylor. “Anti-Hero” iTunes audio, :04, 2022. https://music.apple.com/us/album/anti-hero/1650841512?i=1650841515.
[2] Swift, Taylor. “The Man” iTunes audio, :09, 2019. https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-man/1468058165?i=1468058176.
[3] Swift, Taylor. “Red” iTunes audio, :09, 2012. https://music.apple.com/us/album/red/1440935340.
[4] Swift, Taylor. “Blank Space (Taylor’s Version)”. iTunes audio, :58, 2023. https://music.apple.com/us/album/1989-taylors-version-deluxe/1713845538
[5] Sarah Bessey, “Belonging,” https://sarahbessey.substack.com/p/belonging.
[6] Swift, Taylor. “Delicate”. iTunes audio, :01 2017. https://music.apple.com/us/album/delicate/1440933849?i=1440934254
[7] Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D., On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families (New York: Scribner, 2014).
[8] Swift, Taylor. “Miss Americana” Directed by Lana Wilson. January 31, 2020, 36:10. https://www.netflix.com/watch/81028336?trackId=255824129&tctx=0%2C0%2Ca9c5c7a4-bb6d-40b6-8d86-eb75bb61f927-257844384%2Ca9c5c7a4-bb6d-40b6-8d86-eb75bb61f927-257844384%7C2%2Cunknown%2C%2C%2CtitlesResults%2C%2CVideo%3A81028336%2CminiDpPlayButton.
[9] Swift, Taylor. “Tolerate It” iTunes audio, :10, 2020. https://music.apple.com/us/album/tolerate-it/1544268281?i=1544268344
[10] Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer, A Church Called TOV: Forming a Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing (Carol Stream: Tyndale, 2020), 55-56.
[11] “Taylor Swift Explains Female Rage in Her Song ‘Mad Woman,’” YouTube, July 19, 2021,
[12] Swift, Taylor. “Mad Woman” iTunes audio, 2:32, 2020, https://music.apple.com/us/album/mad-woman/1524801260?i=1524802187
[13] Swift, Taylor. “But Daddy I Love Him” iTunes audio, 3:01, 2024, https://music.apple.com/us/album/but-daddy-i-love-him/1736268193?i=1736268392.
[14] Swift, Taylor. “Bad Blood” iTunes audio, 2:16, https://music.apple.com/us/album/bad-blood/1440935467?i=1440936028
[15] Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D., On Death and Dying, 79.
[16] Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D., On Death and Dying, 81.
[17] Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D., On Death and Dying, 80.
[18] Swift, Taylor. “The Story of US” iTunes audio, 1:08, https://music.apple.com/us/search?term=the%20story%20of%20us.
[19] Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D., On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families (New York: Scribner, 2014), 83.
[20] Swift, Taylor. “All Too Well” iTunes audio, :06, https://music.apple.com/us/search?term=all%20too%20well.
[21] Swift, Taylor. “Exile” iTunes audio, :26, https://music.apple.com/us/album/exile-feat-bon-iver/1524793738?i=1524793900.
[22] Swift, Taylor. “You Need To Calm Down” iTunes audio, 2:17, https://music.apple.com/us/album/you-need-to-calm-down/1468058165?i=1468058704.
[23] Swift, Taylor. “Shake It Off” iTunes audio, https://music.apple.com/us/album/shake-it-off-taylors-version/1708308989?i=1708309002.
[24] Swift, Taylor. “It’s Time To Go” iTunes audio https://music.apple.com/us/album/its-time-to-go-bonus-track/1547315522?i=1547316186.
[25] Berry, Wendell. “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”. https://ag.arizona.edu/~steidl/Liberation.html.
[26] Swift, Taylor. “Marjorie” iTunes audio, 3:00, 2020. https://music.apple.com/us/album/marjorie/1544275966?i=1544276492.
[27] Swift, Taylor. “Out of the Woods (Taylor’s Version)”. iTunes audio, :55, 2023. https://music.apple.com/us/album/1989-taylors-version-deluxe/1713845538
[28] Swift, Taylor. “All You Had To Do Was Stay (Taylor’s Version)”. iTunes audio, :11, 2023. https://music.apple.com/us/album/1989-taylors-version-deluxe/1713845538
[29] Swift, Taylor. “Happiness”. iTunes audio, :57, 2020. https://music.apple.com/us/album/happiness/1547315522?i=1547315992
[30] Swift, Taylor. “Miss Americana” Directed by Lana Wilson. January 31, 2020, 1:23:31. https://www.netflix.com/watch/81028336?trackId=255824129&tctx=0%2C0%2Ca9c5c7a4-bb6d-40b6-8d86-eb75bb61f927-257844384%2Ca9c5c7a4-bb6d-40b6-8d86-eb75bb61f927-257844384%7C2%2Cunknown%2C%2C%2CtitlesResults%2C%2CVideo%3A81028336%2CminiDpPlayButton.
