Judas

During Holy Week, people freaked out over Lady Gaga releasing her song, "Judas." (I don't know if she wrote it but I will just assume ownership of the song on her part for brevity's sake.) I suggest listening and not watching the YouTube video for the purposes of this post.

I would like to offer that this is yet one more example of a failure of imagination on the part of Christians. I believe there are two interesting things going on in "Judas," things that are even theologically compelling. The first is simple and the second a bit more complicated.

1. "Judas" is a traditional reflection on sin in an untraditional form. In the song, Gaga sings in the chorus, "I'm just a holy fool, oh baby it's so cruel/ but I'm still in love with Judas, baby." Scandalizing, right? Well, yes. Anyone who has read the Passion narrative in a Catholic Church on Palm Sunday or Good Friday is no stranger to this scandal. The narrative puts the words "Crucify him!" into the mouths of the congregation. So the very community that has gathered as a testament to the Resurrection has to remind itself of its own betrayal of the Incarnate God. It's a deliciously uncomfortable and endlessly important moment.

The point is this: "Judas" is an unconventional reminder of the many ways in which we are "still in love with Judas, baby," if Judas represents the selfishness and short-sightedness that turns us away from God. More from Gaga: "I wanna love you/ But something's pulling me away from you/ Jesus is my virtue/ And Judas is the demon I cling to." It's possible that my reading is too literal. I'm not a literary scholar. I do think, however, that Gaga's "love" for Judas has a referent in the tradition, namely that moment in the Passion narrative where we must vocally betray the Lord we profess to love.

2. Following this (simplistic) reiteration of our battle with sin, Gaga says something interesting and helpful about women. In the song, she identifies herself with the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her hair in the Gospel (see Luke 7:37-38). This woman has been conflated with Mary Magdalene, and the text describes her as a "sinner," which has been assumed to be some sexual sin. Later in the song, the bridge says, "In the most biblical sense/ I am beyond repentance/ Fame hooker, prostitute, wench/ Vomits her mind."

I don't know exactly what she's up to here but in light of my primary reading, I appreciate that she draws out this language. Crafting our relationship with both sin and Jesus in the terms of erotic love is scandalizing, but again, not without referent in the tradition (e.g. Teresa of Avila). Furthermore, I think the bridge is especially helpful for highlighting the way in which women especially can come to define their identities in terms of sexual sin, either on their part or on the part of those who perpetrate it upon their bodies. Gaga herself, of course, is dismissed or hailed largely in terms of her relationship to sex.

Maybe I'm looking for something that isn't there but--and how's this for scandal?--I'll take Gaga over the majority of avowedly Christian music any day. The beauty of grace is that it is found in the most surprising of places, and often in places that Christians would rather not look.