Punk Poet Henry Rollins has had his run-ins with religious haters. He writes in the L.A. Weekly that “religious people” have emailed to berate him for being a tattooed “freak” and offered to pray for his soul. Hypocrisy quickly reveals itself and, as he neatly puts it: “There is nothing like being told to go fuck yourself by the same person who was, only days before, praying on your behalf.”
He doesn’t make the delicate distinction between “religious people” and, say, “conservative Christians.” (The term “religious” is shorthand for “fanatic” in broad swathes of the culture so that makes sense.) But then he casually reappropriates it in a “yeah, I’m religious” kind of way. And he doesn’t bother with “spiritual but not religious,” which might be a matter of style–Rollins does not do cliché. Or he is not afraid to get into it, to claim the whole “religion” thing for art, for justice.
“Basically, I believe that someone believes something,” he says.
Can I get an amen?
