They tell you not to read the Old Testament too closely. It’s “metaphorical” when it’s violent. Suddenly “literal” when it’s telling you who you can’t love, who you can’t be, what you can do with your own body. funny how that works.
I got tired of the mental gymnastics. HEATHEN HYMNS isn’t just an album, it’s an exorcism. If your morality requires you to look away from the text to justify the text, you don’t have a morality. You have a hostage situation.
I was the good girl. Front row, white dress, memorized every verse they assigned me. I genuinely believed it. That’s the part I want people to understand. I wasn’t rebelling for cool points. I was a true believer who read the fine print.
The Fine Print
The fine print is 1 Samuel 15. It’s Numbers 31. It’s Deuteronomy 22. It’s the parts they skip in Sunday school because there’s no way to make them sound like the god they’ve been selling you.
I’m not angry at people who believe. I’m angry at the institution that taught me shame before it taught me anything else and weaponized my body against me before I knew what my body was.
The album is 13 tracks. It starts with the good girl in the front pew and ends with her walking away from a door she realizes was never locked. only made to look like it was.
That’s the whole record. That’s why I left the altar.