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#man idk if jon actually went and listened to any of semlers stuff but its a jam
svvitchfoot · 3 years
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I haven’t actually emotionally processed uh, any of what happened yesterday, so this is part emotionally processing and part explaining a LOT of context because this isn’t just something Grace Baldridge thought of doing this past week.
I think the easiest thing to start with is by explaining who Grace Baldridge is, and why the topic of affirmation in the Christian music industry even needs to be discussed.
In spring/summer 2020, Baldridge, in conjunction with Refinery29, released a series of YouTube videos, mostly looking at the intersection of Christianity with various topics, focusing on queer issues because, well, Baldridge is gay. I’m pretty sure they were recorded in late 2019-early 2020 because there weren’t any pandemic precautions. One of these videos (linked here) is about the Christian music industry. Short version, the industry isn’t affirming, because mainstream Christianity isn’t affirming. Towards the end of the video, Baldridge talks to Dan Haseltine, the lead singer of Jars Of Clay (will admit, haven’t listened to them), who received a whole bunch of backlash for asking why people were so opposed to gay marriage on Twitter in 2014. I will note that Haseltine mentions that there are other Christian bands/artists who would be openly affirming, but can’t because of label/distribution consequences. Baldridge talks about wanting to see an openly queer Christian artist, and questioning whether the bands, like Switchfoot, that she listened to growing up and related to as a closeted queer kid actually would be supportive of her, and queer people in general.
Now, Baldridge is a musician, releasing an album under the artist name Semler in 2018 called Six Feet Under All The Same. Semler/Baldridge calls it “creepy folk music”. Almost exactly a year ago on TikTok, Baldridge floated the idea of a “queer Christian cover band”, basically taking the songs that pretty much every early-2000s youth group played and reclaiming them for the queer people who were pushed out of the church when they came out. Dare You To Move was one of the songs, Baldridge has been pretty open about her love for Switchfoot and Dare is a very common one among Christian youth groups. Hell, I heard Dare at Christian youth events, and I was involved in that kind of stuff about 10 years later. This is when I started following her, my partner knows I’m a huge fan of Switchfoot and sent me the TikTok of Baldridge’s cover.
In February of 2021, Semler released an EP called Preacher’s Kid, written about her experiences growing up as a queer PK, and all of the religious doubts, questions, and struggles that came with it. I’m not joking when I say that EP exploded, it charted on the Christian charts on Apple Music, Spotify, and iTunes, even reaching number 1 on iTunes. Semler released a single in April with, well, two songs and a prayer. The prayer is done by Kevin Garcia, a queer Christian, kind of minister, and author of Bad Theology Kills. The first song, Thank God For That, is a queer worship song with a lot of swearing. The second song is called TobyMac, and Semler writes about the struggle of growing up with Christian music, interpreting the songs through a queer lens, but not knowing whether or not you’d actually be accepted by the people who wrote/sing the songs. Switchfoot/Only Hope get another shout out here.
“And I’m terrified, I’m terrified, they’d hate me if they knew, I’m using worship songs to say I love you”. This, unfortunately, isn’t an uncommon sentiment among the queer Christians and ex-Christians I know or follow. Now, I was raised in the Catholic Church, not Protestantism, but the homophobia, transphobia, and general queerphobia is just as present. I can’t put into words the fear that comes with being raised with this kind of constant rhetoric, and then figuring out you’re the people they’re talking about and saying horrible things about.
To bring this back to the industry, I know Switchfoot doesn’t call themselves a Christian band, and I respect that, because their music isn’t as inherently religious as bands like Jars of Clay or NEEDTOBREATHE, but they are associated with the Christian music industry. They’re held up as the kinds of people Christians should aspire to be (as long as you ignore the songs criticizing the Church on Jon’s solo projects or any of the myriad songs about doubt). That association is enough for people like me and Baldridge to doubt whether Switchfoot, or any band that doesn’t say one way or another but seems cool, is actually affirming of LGBTQ+ folks. I genuinely never thought I would hear one way or another, not because I didn’t think that Switchfoot/Jon would openly be assholes, but because that fear runs so deep. You NEVER know if the person who seems outwardly kind believes that you don’t deserve to have rights, that you don’t deserve to have a place in Christianity.
Due to Preacher’s Kid and the follow-up single, Baldridge has gained a platform on Twitter/TikTok to be a voice for queer Christians. Baldridge used this platform to ask the question: “Is Switchfoot affirming?” Her first TikTok earlier this week was her plan to go to Switchfoot’s show in LA and shout “gay rights” after Dare and see what happens. She was too far back for the band to hear, unfortunately, so nothing really happened, so she posted a follow-up TikTok basically saying that. I think Jon’s video is replying to the first TikTok, there isn’t enough of Grace’s video at the beginning for me to know.
“I support your rights and freedoms” is not a sentence I ever thought I’d hear from Jon Foreman in regards to queer people. I never thought I’d hear that queer people are accepted for who they are at Switchfoot shows. This band and this music has meant so much to me throughout my life, it’s gotten me through some incredibly difficult times, including trying to figure myself out and come out. I resigned myself to the fact that my queerness would always be something that I would hide in certain situations, including Switchfoot shows. To know that Jon accepts people like me for who we are, and thinks that we have value as queer folks and deserve a place in the conversation, it genuinely means the world to me. I was going to wear my trans pride shirt to the show I’m going to in Boston under my interrobang shirt. I think I’m gonna wear it over my interrobang shirt instead.
The other thing that gets me is Jon’s apology. Dan Haseltine does the same thing when him and Baldridge were talking about Baldridge’s experience growing up with this music and doubting whether she’d be accepted by the people behind the music. Jon (and Dan) genuinely means it when he apologizes for the hurt that Baldridge went through because of being queer and Christian. I can’t put into words what it means to hear someone with a huge amount of influence say “I’m sorry for the hurt that the church put you through”.
This truly means everything because it goes against what mainstream Christianity is saying about queer folks. It feels like the collision of two worlds, and instead of being even more hurt or disappointed, I can instead rest easy knowing the band is accepting and affirming of people like me.
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