A reflection on Maynard’s controversial attitude towards Christian Faith by a Christian, waiting for Tool’s new album
Introduction
Surely one of the great news of this year is the release date of the long-awaited Tool’s new release.
The name of the new album will be “Fear Inoculum” and will be released on 30th of August, 13 years after their latest release “10000 Days”. Such a long time, someone will say, and there’s been also a lot of internet memes about this.
But these 13 years haven’t been of inactivity, especially for Tool’s singer Maynard James Keenan, who made some releases with his solo-project “Puscifer” and an album last year with his reunited side-band “A Perfect Circle”.
And I have to say, as I listened to the last APC album and it sucked a little bit, so let’s wait for Tool.
But in this post I don’t want to talk about Tool’s new album but I’d like to focus on Maynard’s aspects, especially about his “anti-christian” views.
Maynard’s tragedy
A real provocateur and a charismatic “changing man” on the stage, Maynard James Keenan is often known for his mockery attitude toward Christian Fundamentalism, like parodying ferociously the preachers on TV on the stage or making fun of Brian Welch’s conversion.
But what’s behind Maynard’s attitudes. Well according to some interviews and also to his biography ( A Perfect Union of Contrary Things, 2016 ), Maynard grew in a Baptist family but not a very happy family: his parents divorced and he grew with his mother, Judith.
But then when he was just eleven years old it happened the tragedy that signed his life: in 1976 Judith got a cerebral aneurysm which brought her to coma for almost thirty years till she died in 2003.
But what was worse was, that someone in the Baptist church told him that Judith got the aneurysm because her faith wasn’t enough.
This is from a 2016 Phoenix New Time’s interview about Maynard’s book:
INTERVIEWER: The most disturbing part of the book was when you talk about when your mother suffered an aneurysm when you were a kid and the church told you “she wasn’t right with God” and “that’s why she got sick.” MAYNARD : Yeah, it’s all fear. It’s whatever they were taught and just perpetuating it. I’m pretty sure they aren’t doing interviews about their biography (laughs). They can go just f**k themselves all the way to Walmart.
I have to say that this “sickness – lack of faith” associating is not an uncommon attitude in some churches, and it’s, for me one of the worst thing to hear. And in these last years with all those “Word of Faith” and “Seed Faith” stuff the thing got worse.
And this episode brought surely Maynard to an anger, not directly against God, but surely against Christianity. One of the most famous “A Perfect Circle”‘s song is “Judith”, where Maynard screams all his pain an anger for his mother’s condition:
It’s not like you killed someone
It’s not like you drove a hateful spear into his side
Praise the one who left you
Broken down and paralyzed
He did it all for you
And this is not the only song where Maynard talks about this episode, the latest album’s name “10000 Days” is a reference to the long time of Judith’s coma, just like the two part of “Wings For Marie” ( Judith’s second name ).
Last remember that Maynard is not an atheist but is more an agnostic, he has always told to believe in some higher power.
conclusion
What brought me to write this reflection about Maynard? Well just two things:
- First, I’ve been listening to Tool for a long time and for me it doesn’t create problem with my Christian faith, and I have to say better to listen worldly music with good quality than Christian music terribly played like this or this .
- Second, following MadLuv’s channel ( which unfortunately is not on Youtube anymore ), I discovered how many people who gave up their faith gave up because of problems or traumas with the church. The first example is Koi Fresco, a vlogger who unfortunately fell into new age stuff after leaving Christianity: he left because in the church has been forbidden him to ask question.
So, this is not a post pro-Maynard ( even if remains one of my favourite singers ) or against churches ( even there are some who makes mistakes ). But all we need is to understand why some people leaves.
