BU2B

Great conversation... I have a confession! Despite the fact that I am the senior pastor of a firmly, “Fundamentalist” Christian denomination, I confess to you that I am a big time closet Rush fan! Yes, I STILL listen to Rush after all these years, (in secret of course). I can’t help it, Rush rocks man!!! But I'm sure most Christians would not understand and may even call it sinful, or at the very least, spiritually immature. Perhaps they’re right, but I find a lot of truth in the lyrics that Neil writes, I always have. I have even quoted from Rush in my sermon illustrations, and I feel that I have the liberty to rock out with my favorite band from my youth from time to time. I just do it in the closet so that I won't stumble a weaker brother or sister in the faith.
Having said that, I have to admit that it has becoming increasingly more difficult to justify that liberty as of late! Songs like BU2B, Faithless, Totem Pole, and Armor and Sword seriously push the envelope for me. But rather than turn me off to stop listening, they just grieve me and make me sad for Neil. Because they are still truthful in the sense that they are the true but bitter feelings and tortured thoughts of a man that has suffered great loss and the love of his wife and child. That’s brutal! He can't find the answers to give him the inner peace about that loss and you see that coming through in his song writing. I feel for Neil and all that he has gone through and is most likely still going through. He is obviously searching for truth and unhappy about not being able to find it in what he was, "Brought up to believe", but most of us can relate to that. But I can also see in his lyrics that he is definitely reading the Bible (Hey, “Armor and Sword” comes right out of Ephesians Ch. 6), and other religious writings, searching for meaning in this life, as we all are.
He, along with Geddy and Alex, may very well be, if we want to label them as such, “atheists”. They are without a doubt, secular humanists at the very least. However, they along with everyone else riding this planet through space, headlong into eternity don’t have all the answers either and we are all seeking for truth whether we admit it or not. Sometimes it’s just easier to accept seemingly logical concepts such as evolution or atheism, so that you don’t have to deal with the obvious conclusions that you would otherwise come to… “The Watchmaker” Such concepts are found in Clockwork Angels. Peart writes in the song, The Garden… “The Watchmaker keeps to his schemes”, “The Watchmaker has time up his sleeve”. I see bitter anger toward God because of his loss in these lyrics, not atheism. Remember back to Power Windows when he wrote: “We sometimes catch a window, A glimpse of what's beyond. Was it just imagination, stringing us along? More things than are dreamed about, unseen and unexplained. We suspend our disbelief and we are entertained. Mystic rhythms, Capture my thoughts, Carry them away, Nature seems to spin, a supernatural way.”
Now obviously, that is very metaphysical and new age lingo, but it shows clearly that in the past, Neil was thinking of the natural world in terms of spiritual implications. Something that, “any rational person” should do. If you find a watch in the forest, your rational response is that a watchmaker made the watch. If you find a universe filled with metabolic machines and complex life forms, you should rationally conclude that it didn’t arise by chance because of an explosion of nothing that created everything. Look, I realize that it is hard to reconcile the bible and the teachings of Jesus with the way his followers act sometimes, but that doesn't get you off the hook for believing the truth that is found in His words and His creation, that testify with super decibels of His existence.
Ok, I’m done, now you can let me have it…