An excerpt from Saints Alive Magazine - the quarterly newsletter of All Saints' Episcopal Church, Atlanta, Ga)

The Gospel Truth: Singing About Faith and Doubt


"With this project, I wanted to say the unsaid thing, which is what the best songs always do. And here are two unsaid things people wish they could say about religion in America: 1) I'm a nonbeliever but I wish I could believe, because I see the deep sense of purpose the church can offer people, and 2) I'm a believer but I have very serious, troubling doubts and disagreements with the church." -Susan Werner


by Tracy Wells


Anyone who caught Susan Werner's May 18 show at All Saints' can testify first-hand to her captivating stage presence and quick wit. But Susan is also an incredibly thoughtful songwriter, throwing herself into her albums with the discipline of a graduate student writing a term paper.

Susan did her homework for her most recent album, "The Gospel Truth." A self-proclaimed agnostic who hadn't darkened the door of a church in years, Susan spent several months attending over 20 different churches around the country to hear the music and to "challenge her preconceived notions" about the faces of American Christianity. And the result is an album that is at once faithful and irreverent, that gives voice to the complexity Susan found in the pews across America.

Here I catch up with Susan and talk with her about faith, doubt, music, and "The Gospel Truth."

Tracy: There is a lot of theology in "The Gospel Truth." The album is rich in complexity, from more traditional songs like "Did Trouble Me" to more "edgy" pieces like the new "Our Father." If you could sum up the central theological message of the album, what would it be?

Susan: To be honest, I'm not quite sure what the album says about God. I know what it says about us as human beings--which is, we are complex creatures. And that we can hold faith and doubt together in our hearts and minds simultaneously. That message alone is what drives this project, what moves it by word of mouth from one friend to another all around the country. I had no idea what I was getting into with this, but it's been by far the most rewarding project of my career. This record seems to mean so much, so personally, to so many people.

Tracy: You have said in previous interviews that music itself comes closest to being your "religion." What about music makes it a spiritual experience for you?

Susan: There's the element of total absorption in doing something, whether practicing my scales or writing a new song--it feels something like prayer, I think. And there's the joining with others--making music with others, whether it's with my bass player or my harmonica player, or improvising with anyone. You find a common humanity with someone else in the experience of making music.

It's also a spiritual practice in that you know when you are faking it in performing a song, you just do. It keeps you honest with yourself and lets you know when you're falling short--which is what a vital religious practice does, too, I suspect.

Tracy: You have said in a previous interview that perhaps agnostics and atheists miss out on the opportunities that organized religion provides to motivate people to do good in the world. Do you think music can serve this same function?

Susan: I see people really smiling when they leave a great concert--smiling, embracing each other, in the same way they do after a good church service. But I'm not sure music moves them to be generous the next day in the same way a religious service might. I'm not sure it installs kindness on the hard drive.


There are similarities between concerts and church services--but at almost every church I went to, there were the elderly and/or people with physical and mental challenges. Concerts are mostly for the wealthy and healthy.

For those of us who don't go to church--we have little reason to interact with people who aren't part of our work environment. I think that sometimes results in a kind of myopia--we start to believe everyone in the world is part of the workforce, because that's all we see outside our homes. It impoverishes our lives, only to associate with people like us, and with our abilities. That's one argument for the church, right there.

But I can tell you this--since doing the Gospel project, I've had to hold my tongue a few times-- I had to live up to the better messages of the project--and be a good "Christian"-- because I knew I was going to sing these songs that night and I could not let myself be a jerk. Really.

Tracy: In the churches you visited while doing your research for The Gospel Truth, did anything stand out as a particularly powerful example of theology being expressed through art?

Susan: The choirs in the African-American churches were astounding. It's a kind of musicianship that isn't much appreciated in the academic or conservatory world, and that's a tragedy, and a loss on both sides. We are talking high-level musicianship--and much of it learned and performed by ear, so it has an incredible vitality. Incredible.

I found the Orthodox Church service I attended fascinating, as the entire service was sung, not spoken. I liked that a lot. We talk all day, every day. Singing is a total relief from our everyday routines.

I had a mentor who once said that the Roman Catholic Church lost something important when they gave up the Latin mass. I agree--what they lost was the refuge that it offered from everyday language; your brain enters a different wave pattern when you recite prayers in another language. I'm not a theologian, but I did grow up Roman Catholic and that's one thing I'd talk to the Pope about. Bring back Latin. Really.

Tracy: The album has been very well received amongst churchgoers. What does this do to your sense of the album as an "agnostic" album?

Susan: I've learned how very many church-going people, and even clergy, have harbored unexpressed and lonely doubts over the years... what's funny is how many people come up after a show and they buy the CD and say, "Now, this one's for me and now sign this second one for Father Frank." As far as it being an agnostic album, I think I've learned with this project that I'm barely agnostic. I mean, I just barely qualify. I believe in a great deal of what the church teaches... I'm just not sure there's a God somewhere steering the big car, ya know?


Singer/songwriter Susan Werner was our guest for the Café Night on May 18. Tracy Wells is the All Saints' webmaster, who encouraged Lauri Begley to invite Susan to All Saints.'