Washed in the Blood

There’s a very popular Christian hymn titled, “Are You Washed in the Blood?”  It’s catchy enough to be stuck in my head now that I’m writing about it.  Here, have a listen:

I used to love this hymn and now I really can’t stand it.  The thing I hate about this hymn is that it trivializes the brutal concept of vicarious redemption via the slaughter of an innocent.  When I was a Christian I thought it was a great song (and even better when my uncle would sing it because instead of “washed” he would say “warshed”) but when I was a Christian I also didn’t think too much about the concepts being presented.  To me, Jesus’ death was simply a gift from my creator because he loved me and wanted me to be with him forever, avoiding the punishment and suffering I deserved, just for having been born.  This made perfect sense at the time.  Here’s what I missed:

 

Jesus on the Cross
This is what god does to his children.
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Explicit Lyrics

Soo there I was: a kid spending every Sunday morning and evening, Wednesday night and every major (and some minor) holiday in church.  At this point church was still fun because I was doing arts and crafts, seeing flannelgraph stories and singing those great children’s songs that virtually everybody knows.  Oh, the songs!  They’re catchy, they’re cute, and they’re memorable.  Regardless of how I may feel now about religion I can still sing all of those songs on demand.

Song is arguably one of the most effective ways to drill ideas into a kid’s head.  There’s a reason you teach a kid the alphabet in song before they can read.  When you want to remember something it helps to put it to music.  For instance (and I can still sing this one too), children are taught to memorize the books of the Bible with this little number:

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