Certain bedrock human impulses can be denied or ignored, but never rooted out. One is the drive to honor our heroes through works of art. The more radical Protestant Reformers fought this impulse tooth and nail, burning icons and smashing sculptures of Christ and the saints. Within a few generations, however, their followers were painting portraits and erecting statues to honor the beloved Reformers. Eventually, even iconoclasts become icons.
Another is the impulse to bless objects or substances and set them apart as sacred. The Baptists I grew up with were especially suspicious of this one. I knew one Baptist who, on his first visit to a Catholic church, spit in the holy water. He announc-ed to his horrified hosts, “That water’s no more holy than my spit.”
But even Baptists have their holy objects. Try burning an American flag in front of them. On a recent visit to a hardware store, I was struck by a sign instructing customers on how to properly care for the American flag: never let it touch the ground; fold it ceremonially; don’t throw it in the trash. The instructions were very similar to those that Catholics or Orthodox give for the treatment of blessed icons and liturgical objects.
While low-church Protestants often attempt to suppress basic human longings, more sacramental Christians strive to redeem them. One of those longings we all feel is for a Mother. Not just an earthly mother, but something beyond—akin to the way God the Father is beyond our earthly father, yet reflected in him to a greater or lesser degree.
On the one hand, this longing for a cosmic Mother can lead to goddess worship. On the other, Catholics and Orthodox find its redemption and fulfillment in the Virgin Mary. Protestants try to suppress the longing altogether. But, though they banish this impulse from their churches, it springs up elsewhere.
Take, for example, country music.
If you want to hear the soul of American evangelical Protestantism, listen to country music. All of the country greats—Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Willie Nelson—have recorded Gospel albums. At one time nearly every country album included at least one hymn, and artists such as Brad Paisley continue that tradition today.
The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, home of the Grand Ole Opry, has been called the “Church of Country Music.” Whatever denomination it is, it sure ain’t Catholic or Orthodox. Country music is Protestant to the core.
The recently departed Johnny Cash gave this summary of the genre’s recurring themes:
I love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak, and love. And Mother. And God.
It’s no accident that Cash put Mother second only to God. In country music, that’s exactly where Mama stands.
Indeed, Cash’s CD, My Mother’s Hymn Book, which was included in the five-disc box Unearthed, released by American Recordings/Lost Highway late last year to great acclaim, has just been released on its own.
In Catholic and Orthodox iconography, that’s also exactly where Mary stands. She’s the Queen of Heaven. Most Protestants would shudder at this title, and object to any talk of the Virgin Mary’s immaculate purity. In my Baptist church, it was often repeated that Mary was a sinner no different from the rest of us.
But what about Mama? As any resident of the Bluegrass Belt can tell you, Mama is the very model of saintliness. Mama’s conduct in this life is beyond reproach, and when she passes over Jordan, she holds a place of honor on high. “Up there above,” George Jones sings, “She’s the prettiest flower in God’s garden of love.”
Mama is the embodiment of boundless, selfless love. “I’ll never forget the love mother gave us,” sing Ralph and Carter Stanley. “I know her reward is a mansion in heaven.”
In fact, Mama’s pure and unconditional love models Christ’s own. In the words of a song from the band Confederate Railroad:
Jesus and Mama always loved me,
Even when the devil took control.
Jesus and Mama always loved me,
This I know.
Like Jesus, Mama knows when we’ve done wrong. A boy might sneak out behind the shed to smoke his first cigarette, but he can’t really hide. “Mama knows, Mama knows,” sings the group Shenandoah. “Somehow I think she’s got a window to my soul.”
Even if Mama has departed, she lives on inside our conscience. As Hank Williams, Jr., sings, “I bet Jesus and your Mama, they’re way up there on your mind, any time you take a sip or you walk across the line.” Thankfully, she’s always ready to welcome and forgive the repentant sinner.
Catholics and Orthodox stress Mary’s role as an intercessor (the Wedding at Cana is a favorite example), and they believe that she continues to intercede with her Son in heaven. In country music, Mama is the intercessor par excellence. She constantly prays for her children, and she has a way of bending God’s ear like no one else.
In the Randy Travis song “When Mama Prayed,” a wayward son comes home half-drunk to find his mother praying on her knees. “As I listened, her and Jesus talked it over, and I knew my restless days were about to end.”
“When Mama prayed,” the song continues, “good things happened”:
When mama prayed, lives were changed.
Not much more than five foot tall,
But mountains big and small crumbled
all away,
When mama prayed.
Mama’s love is stronger than death, and her intercessory role doesn’t end at the grave. In the Stanley Brothers’ classic “Vision of Mother,” she continues to pray at the foot of the heavenly throne:
There’s a blessed home up yonder,
Where my loved ones wait for me.
I saw mother in a vision,
Kneeling there to pray for me.
Imagine if the word “Mama” were replaced with “Mary” in any of the above lyrics. Protestants would cry “Idolatry!” while Catholics and Orthodox might even be compelled to shout “Amen!”
Of course, this doesn’t in itself prove that Christians should venerate Mary and seek her intercession. But it does suggest something about human nature and our innate longing for Mother. Is country music’s Mama, in her purity and prayer, in fact a reflection of the Virgin Mary? Or is Mama yet another idol we need to smash?
However we answer these questions, we’re all—in the words of a favorite country hymn—poor, wayfaring strangers traveling through this world below. Our true home, where longings end, is that bright land to which we go:
I’m going there to see my mother,
She said she’d meet me when I come.
I’m only going over Jordan,
I’m only going over home.
Sam Torode is an aspiring mandolin player who lives in rural Wisconsin with his wife, Bethany, and their two sons. His is the author of Body and Gift (Philokalia Books) and co-author of Open Embrace (Eerdmans).
Copyright © 2004 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine. Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.
