God Really Did Create Adam and Steve - Page 2

"But Jon - you're such a romantic, iconoclastic loner with your hair blowing in the wind that rolls over the heath like a sigh. What are you doing at Town Hall — and at the Javits Center next week for Yom Kippur — with a bunch of observant Jews?"

"Heck if I know. Your point?"

Actually, I do know: I go because my girlfriend goes, but I'm glad to. If there were no other reason, the music really is beautiful. Funnily enough, while waiting for the service to begin I was flipping through a "magazine" Michelle Shocked sent me. It's merely an elaborate promotion for her new live CD and some reissues, but in it she writes about being inspired to get religion by attending gospel services. "If you follow the trail from rock ’n’ roll, it always leads you back to the blues, sweet soul music and finally to the churches and gospel music," Shocked writes.

In some way that I don't understand, tracing the roots of the music she loved brought her to the point of "living by the Good Book." That's just going backwards, as far as I'm concerned, but it does attest to the power and importance of music.

Sometimes, even a CBST service feels like going backwards in spite of all the social maturity, liberal attitudes, and major keys. (Spotted in the crowd: Democracy Now's Amy Goodman.) A formative superstition still lurks in the heart of the temple. Without it, the title and first paragraph of this article would make no sense. They do not, in fact, make sense. Nobody but Adam and Steve's parents actually "created" Adam and Steve. Nobody "created" Lucy, or the oceans, or the Earth or the Sun or the cosmos.

But people do create things, and as human creations go, CBST is a pretty nice place to hang your yarmulke.

Article Author: Jon Sobel

Jon Sobel is Co-Executive Editor of Blogcritics. As a writer he contributes most often to the Culture section, where he often reviews NYC theater; he also writes a semi-regular review round-up of independent music releases. …

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