Abstract
In The Holy No, Adam Hearlson displays a montage of communities saying “yes” to God by saying “no” to complicity in oppression and violence. The holy “no” is not delivered in the way readers might expect, however, with preachers shouting “no” against powers and principalities from pulpits. Rather, Hearlson’s debut presents a kaleidoscopic array of subversive practices, deeply rooted in particular times and places, which re-choreograph God’s people in God’s way of justice and kindness rather than the world’s way of violence and apathy.
The montage aesthetic of Hearlson’s work functions on many levels. In terms of the structure of the book itself, Hearlson guides the reader through particular practices as sites for holy subversive worship in five chapters: preaching, prophetic theater, radical hospitality, music, and visual arts. Within each chapter are a wide range of “for examples,” which are diverse in terms of both geography and time. Speaking to the subversive “indirect sermon,” Hearlson names the practice of glossolalia, speaking in tongues (p. 52). Worship being defined as “absurd theater” in chapter 3, readers learn of the holy presence of the “caganer” (and the reader will not look at the nativity in the same way again). Addressing iconography, Hearlson highlights a living visual prophet by the name of Kehinde Wiley and his innovative juxtaposition of renaissance portraiture with black bodies in street clothes. Each movement from practice of worship to a site of subversive embodiment of the worship practice prompts reflection and sparks imagination. In so doing, Hearlson embodies the curative posture required for worship leaders that he describes in his closing chapter on “setting holy fires” (pp. 149–68).
Yet what do icons, caganers, and clowns (yes, clowns; pp. 70–74) have to do with worship? Hearlson presses readers to understand worship beyond the limits of an hour set aside in the four walls of a building each Sunday. The author presents Jesus as one who “worshipped” every day—the one who cleverly evaded “the powerful” in order “to meet the needy” through word and action (p. 37). Hearlson defines worship as inherently political and apolitical (p. 9). Worship is good both when it praises God in doxology and when it is “connected to the world in order that it might change the world” (p. 10). Thus, worship should be inherently subversive when in good form, meaning Christ-like form; it resists pleasing the powerful and comfortable in order to enact God’s promises for the sake of those in need.
Hearlson defines subversion as “the strategic actions of a politically subordinate group designed to change the systems of power that keep that group in a static place of subordination” (p. 13). Next, Hearlson defines subversive worship as coming “from those who have been denied an opportunity to have their story embraced as God’s story” (p. 23). These Christians are ones suppressed by misaligned versions of Christianity that choose to embrace the powerful rather than the needy. These are Christians without the power or authority to have their songs and sermons featured in the predominant spaces of worship leadership (p. 23). As a result, subversive worship leaders “make the bodega their pulpit . . . the kitchen their sanctuary . . . their coffee break their call to worship” (p. 23). “Subversion,” writes Hearlson, “has been a part of Christian worship since its inception” (p. 13). After all, the first Christians were doubly displaced—as reformers of their Jewish tradition and outsiders in the Roman empire for their monotheistic and private religious practices. The question Hearlson asks of readers is: how are power-laden worship structures prohibiting Christians from participating in “God’s in-breaking reign” (p. 35)?
Hearlson’s style of writing is invitational. His poetic phrasing and vivid language prompt the reader to pause and breathe in the beauty of worshiping God faithfully and wholly. Yet he does not shy away from theory and footnotes to make his book more approachable to a general audience either. Heidegger, Ricoeur, and Bourdieu dialogue with Dillard, Soelle, and Hornby (and many others) in Hearlson’s curated montage. While Hearlson intentionally invites a wide variety of readers to interact with his perspectives, including “the needy” (pp. 29–35), the audience for whom this book is designed appears to be the privileged, white, North American Christian seeking a way out of complicity and into solidarity with the needy.
Defining worship as an act in which people rehearse for God’s rule and resist the rule of oppressive structures is a risky business (as it has always been) in the context of the United States, but Hearlson is explicit about the connection between politics and worship. “Worship is political,” states Hearlson, “It cannot be anything but” (p. 35). Oppression manifests not simply in the content of worship but in its ordering as well. Hearlson is critical of orders of worship that are designed simply for the sake of “feeling good” (p. 166). For example, he argues that praise culture numbs our feelers to the cries of suffering within and around us. Too many “yeses” in some Christian liturgies perpetuate oppressive systems. The subversive worship leader “moves tenderly” in those environments, “recognizing that some pain is not harm” and in fact “is often a necessary by-product of growth” (p. 166).
The Holy No is a springboard to a more in-depth conversation about worship, both its purpose and practice. Consider this book as a resource in congregational settings, seminaries, and personal study to envision innovation of worship. Consider making changes not merely for the sake of aesthetic shifts (will changing our music draw young people? Should we pay for a screen in the sanctuary for the millennials?) but for the sake of how the church’s worship shapes people to live and move in the world as subversives and for the subverted in ways large and small.