I’m sitting in my home that overlooks Munson Park and listening to Linkin Park’s “What I’ve Done.” I like this song -instrumentally, lyrically, and production-wise.
I’ve drawn regret
From the truth
Of a thousand lies
So let mercy come
And wash away
What I’ve done
I’ve faced myself
To cross out what I’ve become
Erase myself
And let go of what I’ve done
Watch the video and you’ll see the song is a statement about what “I” have done to contribute to the world’s wars and poverty and eco-disasters by my self-centered life. This is a song, for me, that is Jesus-like in the sense that we see what He called “the kingdom of earth” and the darkness and oppression that comes with it. In the kingdom of darkness people satisfy their own gluttonous desires, usually in terms of Money, Sex, and Power (see Richard Foster here). The result is that a lot of people and even the creation itself gets marginalized. The need is for personal repentance. And, there is a Henri-Nouwen-type “cry for mercy.” Which, to me, only makes sense if we are talking about God.
This is not a misguided interpretation of the song. Two of the band members have Christian backgrounds, two are Jews, and all 5 have a “religious” worldview. Their songs are written, inexorably, out of such a worldview. For example, in ”Somewhere I Belong” we hear the words: “I want to heal/I want to feel what I thought was never real/I want to let go of the pain I’ve held so long/(Erase all the pain ’til it’s gone)/I want to heal/I want to feel like I’m close to something real/I want to find something I’ve wanted all along/Somewhere I belong.” Here is the cry of a heart that is dissatisfied with the stuff this world serves up to us and is looking deeper. Put in a more philosophical way, there’s a sensus divinitatis in us all (a “sense of the divine”). As the apostle Paul writes in Romans 2:15, God has written “the requirements of the law” on every human heart.
Go here for some more thoughts about Linkin Park’s underlying theology. And if you don’t have a name yet for your band “Munson Park” is available.
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