the music of faith with Brian Hirschy (ep 3, 34).

Every episode of this season has opened the same way. Cannon fire and the old sounds of Northwest Arkansas. A gospel choir singing Go Tell It on the Mountain. Then static, like someone turning the dial. Then something slower and darker underneath. Thirty-three episodes in, nobody has said on tape what that minute is. On Election Day, the underview steps out of its schedule for a short conversation with the friend who made it. Brian Hirschy is a musician and one of the first people brought into the creative work of this season, invited before anyone knew where a year of conversations about the faith of Northwest Arkansas would go. The only thing that was clear was that the season, like faith itself, would have to hold both sides. Brian explains why the theme refused to resolve. A traditional song of judgment, sung for a generation in Johnny Cash's voice. A dial turned from proclamation to the signal that was underneath the whole time. He talks about worship music that offers declarations instead of honesty, about what happens when a faith tradition chases certainty and the tension it refuses to name shows up everywhere else, and about why tension can't be sung over. Then the conversation turns. Wendell Berry and the tension built into the land. A sermon on Zechariah and what it means to be a prisoner of hope. The desert fathers and the silence of God. Love as the capacity to see pain. Asked the question every guest this season is asked, Hirschy doesn't say wholeness. He says a state of grace. The episode closes with the season three theme in full, so you can hear it the way he does. Episode Link:  https://www.theunderview.com/the-music-of-faith-with-brian-hirschy About the underview: The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness. Send us a Voice Message at https://www.theunderview.com/ Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠ Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe Host: @mikerusch