Which Elvis?

A cosmic, spiritual issue of personal and communal concern

This past week my sleep was full of stressful dreams, some mildly malevolent. I think the music is causing it.

I've been digitizing forty-year-old analog cassettes and reel-to-reel ¼" tapes. The process is all real-time. No progress bar tells you the multiple rate you're copying at (e.g., 7.5X) or the estimated time remaining till completion (e.g., 53 seconds).

If the music is sentimental, surprising, or good, I listen. Suppose it's a song where I'm vacillating between my actual voice and a yelpy, hyped-midrange, Elvis Costello/Bruce Springsteen sonic chimera. In that case, I turn the volume down and practice the piano.

These recordings, most from 1978-1981, stir ambivalence. On the one hand, some are worth keeping for history sake—I think. Those recordings with counterfeit vocal affectations depress me, though. It is sick-to-my-stomach depression. I want to destroy these recordings—and in many instances have.

Obscuring the Real Voice

All these years later, I know why I thought I had to sing like that. Why I obscured my real voice.

The punk-new wave musical moment gave me cover to distort the truth, to be false, to pretend to be someone I am not. Dramatically affected voices were de rigueur. Think Iggy Pop, David Byrne, Joe Strummer, and the other Elvis above.

Embarrassed by the sound of my high, wispy speaking voice, I hid behind a vocal mask I mistakenly believed was more flattering and right for the time. Not only did I not like the sound of my voice, I didn’t like myself. In any era, this is a problem. A cosmic, spiritual issue of personal and communal concern.

I'm no therapist, but neighbor love is nearly impossible for people who do not first love themselves. This is my experience, anyway.

As I’ve documented in multiple books, a recovery group helped me face the false and real me without a filter. The experience was harrowing and shameful but freeing. This, in turn, set the stage for a saxophonist named Mike to come riffing on God’s love for those who cannot love themselves.

In the evangelism vernacular of the time, Mike asked me if I needed saving? I recalled our conversation in Roots & Rhythm:

“I might have laughed out loud. Yes, I needed a savior, practically, cosmically, and in any other way known or unknown.

Next, he asked, “Do you think Jesus could be that savior?”

Then I knew. I knew more than I could tell. I was experiencing a kind of awareness I had no prior experience with or words to describe.

Then, without another thought, there I was, on the other side of the line, standing in the land of effectual belief. In a fraction of a second I knew love more completely, more extravagantly than I’d ever known it. I felt mercy.

Not everyone does, but I had a very physical reaction. I was overcome with gratitude. God had heard my cries for help bouncing off his satellites and sent me a saxophonist. Of course he did.”

Part of the physical reaction was that I became comfortable with my speaking voice, and it returned to me as my singing voice. In an existential sense, I was put back together and given a do-over with self-perception, identity, and love that begets love. It was a beginning. The transformation continues—even now as I write.

The Risk of Assumption, the Reality of Coopting

This past week, I was interviewed by Russell Moore for his popular podcast, The Russell Moore Show. He keyed in on this story and we talked it through afresh. Russell is a gifted theologian, social commentator, and interviewer. We bounced from karma and grace to recording Merle Haggard and Amy Grant, from our mutual respect for Frederick Buechner to the God-haunted Jack Kerouac, and much more. I will pass a link on as soon as it is available.

Naturally, during the interview, I used the proper name, Jesus. As often happens in interviews, I experienced ambivalence about being so Christian-specific, with essential names and words floating about without any clear definition. I know Russell is well-respected beyond his Christian audience. Even so, his listeners are more likely Christians, as in students/followers of Jesus the Christ. Surely they know what I mean by Jesus, right?

35+ years ago, contemporary theologians and apologists argued that definitional assumptions were risky because we were living in postmodernism’s post-Christian world. Christian-centric words employed outside the communally-constructed context of Christian gatherings were meaningless to the average citizen.

Additionally, today, there remains the two-millennia problem of the coopting of the Christian story and the person of Jesus for money, politics, personal privilege, empire, subjugation, and power in general.

This has an insidious way of making words used in the context of Christian gatherings meaningless to average citizens and Christians. “I hear you saying Jesus, but the context makes me think you mean accomplice.”

Problems Old and New

The latter issue, currently front and center in America, inspires me to find my explanatory voice again. And just as soon as I’m inspired, I’m tired. I’ve been here before. We all have.

I want the words I use, especially those so susceptible to misinterpretation, to be as clear as my beloved Lake Tahoe, as understandable as “see Spot run.”

But do I want to put in the work it takes to artfully and succinctly deliver?

I think I’d rather turn down the volume and practice the piano.

10+ years ago, I was faced with the same challenge. I gave it a name: The Hope of Humble Explicitness. The topic eventually became a chapter in Why Everything That Doesn’t Matter, Matters So Much, titled “Talking About Jesus in the Public Square: To the Writer and Public Speaker of Every Kind.”

The world of words has devolved further since then. 2025 has the old problems plus new innovations.

America in 2025 underscores an intensified intolerance for complexity, combined paradoxically with a heightened necessity for thorough definition.

It’s this juxtaposition of opposing realities that is so chronic in 2025. We are living right in the middle of an epistemic collapse.

Language Compression and Complexity Shaming

We increasingly favor brevity and oversimplification. What I call the digital compression of language. Social media platforms normalized a style of communication where brevity isn't merely convenient, it's required. This contributed to the global reshaping of our attention spans. It conditioned us to reject nuanced, layered discussions. But this is old news. We now know our brains have been tinkered with.

Complexity shaming has been on the rise, though, and it’s everywhere now. Algorithms, popular rhetoric, media, and entertainment promote the idea that shorthand simplicity equals truthfulness and authenticity. It’s become a populist moral imperative. Statements such as: "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it" are cliché. Try shaming your skilled, verbose heart surgeon next time you go under the knife. Do we really want to hear our experts say: “I know the heart is in here somewhere, it’s over to the left a little bit, right? Oops, gonna need a clamp.”

This absurd example is not far from what we’re being encouraged to accept as authoritative and definitive. When anything more than a slogan, a grunt, or two sentences equals elitism, society is in deep trouble.

Which Jesus?

Because language is so chronically compressed and distorted, careful definitions of particular words have become essential (again).

The word Jesus is one of them. It requires explicit clarity to maintain cosmic integrity.

Humble explicitness is the antidote to the false voice of what the apostle Paul called another Jesus (2 Corinthians 11:4).

This is where I will state the obvious.

If there is a historical Jesus, a Creator With Us, who made extraordinary cosmological claims as the axis of reality, nothing short of a trustworthy definition will do. Risking belief in, or alliance with, another Jesus is to place one’s hope in a distortion—an image cast by culture, power, or projection that cannot mediate the truth, restore the cosmos, or reconcile humanity to its Creator. It’s not merely a theological error but a life-derailing, cosmic misalignment.

Because I hold to this with my whole being, I've made the decision to publicly answer Jesus' question to his disciples: "Who do you say I am (Matthew 16:15)?"

Don’t worry, not today.

You’ve already been generous with your time. In the future, I will write explicitly about Jesus and more. I'll share my epistemic framework for being a student of Jesus, and we will go from there.

As exhausted as I am by the coopting of Jesus' name for power and pain, I can't stand by and say or do nothing. I'm hearing that many feel the same. Let's find our voices.

The time has come.