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beginnerblueglass · 1 month ago

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The Christian Themes in My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade

Let me start by saying that as a Christian, I believe that God is the Creator of all things, including creativity, art, imagination, and storytelling. He is the God of those things, and His signature is on every part of the universe. The story of who God is - His nature and character - and His plans and purposes for His creation can be summed up in the word "gospel," or "good news." The gospel is not just something that is true or contains truth; it is the underlying Truth over, in, and behind all of reality.

I believe that any artist (regardless of what they believe) who spends enough time genuinely and honestly aiming for truth to put in their art, will eventually, intentionally or unintentionally, hit God.

Do I believe that Gerard Way and friends were trying to tell a story about Jesus? No, probably not. But they were trying to tell a story about life and death, sin and forgiveness, heaven and hell, and many other things that fall within the Bible's purview. The Truth comes out when we let it.

Believe it or not, The Black Parade is full of the gospel. If one were to hear me say this and then just listen to a few songs in isolation, one might think I was crazy, or possibly a heretic. BUT HEAR ME OUT OKAY

The story of the Patient, a man dying of cancer, as he reckons with his life, death, sins, and possibility of redemption.

The End.

We open with a very Shakespearean introduction to the story we are about to hear. It is clearly describing a funeral, and we are told that our narrator "expects we won't cry" at this "tragic affair." The Patient seems indifferent towards his own tragedy until the breakdown, where he screams,

"Save me! Get me the hell out of here! I'm too young to die!"

Dead!

The song opens with a declaration of the Patient's root problem:

"If your heart stops beating" "Then your heart can't take this" "Found a complication in your heart, so long"

His heart is the thing that is sick, the thing that is killing him. His physically failing heart makes a stinging metaphor for the condition of his spiritual heart.

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? 'I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds'" Jeremiah 17:9.

The Patient is confronted with the question,

"If you get to heaven, I'll be here waiting babe, did you get what you deserved?"

Basically, "If you got to heaven, I'd be wondering if that was the right call."

It's fascinating to hear the Patient vacillate between longing for death and being terrified of death. This song reveals that he's suicidal, and seems to welcome the end.

"Wouldn't it be grand? It ain't exactly what you planned, and wouldn't it be great if we were dead?"

But again, the breakdown reveals his deeper feelings:

"If life ain't just a joke, then why am I dead?"

What is the purpose of a life that ends with death? How can this be the way it's supposed to be? Well, here's the thing. Humans were not originally created to die; death is a consequence of sin. Our eternal soul recoils from the idea of being removed from our body and the earth, and it is indeed unnatural. These are questions that everyone should ask themselves at some point in their life: What is death? Why do we die? How is this a part of the plan?

God is a professional redeemer, and He in fact used death itself to break death's choke-hold on us, forgiving us of our sins (the cause of death) thanks to the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross. The believer can now say, "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (1 Cor. 15:55). I listened to this album for the first time when I was 15, and while I believed in God, I hadn't given Him my life yet; I didn't really understand Christianity. These questions filled me with dread, and I avoided MCR for years because they freaked me out. In the meantime, I put my faith in Christ, and my questions surrounding death and afterlife began to be resolved. When I revisited the Black Parade, I was so pumped to be confronted with these existential conundrums, and able to answer them with confidence! I am not perfect, but I am God's work in progress. Death and darkness still scare me sometimes, but the deep dread the Patient struggles with and tries to cover up with a rash longing for a quick death, "a pistol by the hand," are not my struggles, praise God. Okay okay okay, I'll get back to the actual story.

This is How I Disappear

The Patient feels himself slipping away, and is at once afraid and relieved to be alone. Relieved, because,

"I'm just a ghost, so I can't hurt you anymore"

He describes himself or his situation as "unforgivable," and alludes to some deep dark secret sins that he is terrified to reveal.

"There's things that I have done you never should ever know"

He also expresses more uncertainty about his chances of heaven, and seems to know that his destination is a bit more south.

"Tell me if it's so that all the good girls go to heaven" "You want to see how far down I can sink?

Welcome to the Black Parade

A recollection of the time his father asked him,

"Son, when you grow up will you be the saviour of the broken, the beaten, and the damned?"

The Patient's father can act as a stand-in for God, who calls us to be imitators of Christ, the Saviour. We are called to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe the naked, aid the sick, visit the prisoner, lift up the broken, welcome the stranger, be family to the lonely, and share the good news of salvation with the sinner, the damned.

The Patient is swept away by the Black Parade, who are kind of like the ferryman - the parademen I guess. They are leading him to his destination in the afterlife. It seems that on the way they are also showing him a replay of scenes from his life, which will prove to be his trial of sorts, the evidence for why he is going where he is going. He is caught up in the optimism of childhood and honouring his father's legacy, but still declares his perceived inability to live up to what was asked of him,

"I'm just a man, I'm not a hero, I'm just a boy who had to sing this song. I'm just a man, I'm not a hero, and I don't care."

To him, these are the actions of a hero, not a flawed mere mortal.

I think it's interesting that he has mentioned heaven multiple times, but has seemed afraid to do any more than allude to hell, but those seem to be the two options. He received a call, a mission from his father, and commission (a Great Commission?) from his Maker. How did he do?

I Don't Love You

The first vignette the Patient is greeted with is a past scene between him and an ex-girlfriend. There are a lot of references to being "beaten" in this song. How well did the Patient do in fulfilling his calling to be a saviour of the beaten? Not well apparently.

"Sometimes I cry so hard from pleading, so sick and tired of all the needless beatings, but baby when they knock you down and out is where you oughta stay."

I'm not sure about the voicing of this song. Is it all him? All her? Do they go back and forth? I don't know, but it still paints a powerful picture of a painful breakup, an ugly part of the Patient's history.

Also I want to highlight this line, since it comes up later,

"Maybe when you get back I'll be off to find another way."

The Sharpest Lives

The next piece of evidence in the Patient's trial: a life that he squandered away in joyless hedonism that benefitted no one, not even himself.

"I said in my heart, "Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself." But behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, "It is mad," and of pleasure, 'What use is it?'" Ecclesiastes 2:1-2

Also the reference to the sun, a common motif in Ecclesiastes, in which all the affairs of man occur "under the sun."

"A light to burn all the empires, so that the sun is ashamed to rise"

House of Wolves

Now this song is not about the Patient's relationship with God (that comes later), but with religion. The sad thing is that we are all liable to fail in being a saviour for those around us. The Patient was burned by religious experiences.

There's a mix of the church's failures and the Patient's misunderstanding of Christian doctrines. He perceived two-facedness in the church's back-to-back statements that he was "an angel," beloved of God, and also "a bad man." This is just the biblical doctrine of sin; we are at once God's immensely precious children for whom He would literally die, and vile sinners who commit atrocities against God and the people around us on the regular, and need the forgiveness Christ offers in order to be acceptable. However, the church's treatment of him proved hypocrisy, misrepresentation of God's heart for the lost, and a lack of Christ's love on their part. When he was a damned sinner in need of a saviour, the church spit on him, kicked him when he was down, told him that he would never find a home with them, and threw him to the dogs.

The Patient ended up doubling down on his sin, purposefully identifying with it, and treating the things of God with sarcasm and contempt. He gleefully acknowledges his sin, spelling it out ten times, and his certainty of going to hell, but without a hint of repentance.

"Well I said hey, hallelujah, I'm gonna, come on sing the praise, and let the Spirit come on through you, we've got innocence for days. Well I think I'm gonna burn in hell"

Mama

Whoo boy, what a song. Scared the bejeebers out of me when I was young. Now it just makes me think of the Screwtape Letters.

So the Patient has been deposited at his destination and is writing a letter to his mother, opening with the chilling statement,

"Mama, we all go to hell"

The "we all" he's speaking of are either his fellow soldiers or his fellow sinners as a whole. See, this is when we find out that, perhaps in an effort to follow his father's wish that he be a hero who fights for the broken, the Patient became a soldier and fought in a war. This also further reveals his penchant for running towards death, possibly seeking a heroic, "glorious" death. This caused a breach in his relationship with his mother, whom he is now either warning about the terrors of hell, or celebrating her eventual journey there herself, or both. It reminds me of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16.

We learn a little more about his deep dark secrets, finding out that they were done with his gun in the war. He still keeps the details to himself though. And of course,

"So raise your glass high for tomorrow we die," "If the dead are not raised, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.'" 1 Corinthians 15:32.

The song is full of weeping, wailing, and teeth gritting screams, calling to mind Jesus' description of hell,

"(They will) be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" Matthew 8:12.

Sleep

It was all a dream, a nightmare, a vision. He's not dead, but still laying in his hospital bed, soon to die. Only now he knows what is awaiting him, and has to decide what he will do with this brief second chance.

Let me just leave this here:

"Some say, 'Now suffer all the children,' and walk away a saviour, or a madman and polluted from gutter institutions." "But Jesus called them unto him, and said, 'Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.'" Luke 18:16 KJV "Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse." - CS Lewis, Mere Christianity

A Bible verse and a CS Lewis reference?? As far as I can tell, this is the only reference to Jesus in any MCR song, and isn't it interesting? I gasped the first time I noticed this lyric.

After being brought to face his utter failures at being the saviour he was called to be, and the severe consequences of his sin, the Patient is now contemplating the nature and character of the Saviour. No one can be a truly effective saviour on their own, not unless they have been saved by the Saving One. The question of whether Jesus really is the Son of God is the most important question anyone can ask.

But the Patient is stubborn, and weak. He repeats again and again that he's "not sorry for what he did," and he doesn't feel bad. He has completed step one: realizing the weight and enormity of his sin, knowing that he deserves hell. Now he's wrestling with step two: repenting from his sins and realizing that Jesus is bigger, and able to save the worst of sinners and forgive the worst sins, and He wants to save and forgive. It's like the Patient knows and is afraid of that, and refuses to repent, feeling like he's "unforgivable" and undeserving.

"Don't you breathe for me, undeserving of your sympathy"

He decides that he will sleep for the rest of his short life, avoiding the heartrending business of redemption. However, he can't stop the visions of the awful things that he's seen.

Cancer

The Patient's decision to avoid repentance affects the few remaining relationships that he has. He is preparing for that funeral from the beginning of the album, soaking in the agony and despair, lamenting that he will never marry, refusing to resolve his relationships.

Disenchanted

Alone now, the Patient quietly thinks over some good memories, and about the wasted potential of his life. Childhood, and the beginning of his life, was good. He was not without hope at one point, but can only be disappointed with how his life turned out. He is, in fact, sorry and feels bad about what he did and didn't do, but what now?

"I hate the ending myself, but it started with an alright scene,"

Everything he tried to find meaning in turned out to be worthless in the end.

"Vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does a man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?" Ecclesiastes 1:3. "You're just a sad song with nothing to say about a lifelong wait for a hospital stay"

But at the end there's a glaring question and challenge, one that demands an answer (and calls back to I Don't Love You):

"So go, go away, just go, run away. But where did you run to? And where did you hide to find another way?" "Jesus said to the twelve, 'Do you want to go away as well?' Simon Peter answered Him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.'" John 6:67-68.

Famous Last Words

"Where's your heart?"

Here's the answer, the end. He reaches out and grasps the forgiveness offered to him and chooses life, for however long he has, even if he'll be alone.

"Honey if you stay you'll be forgiven, nothing you can stay can stop me going home."

Honestly, can there be a better ending? The Patient chooses life, eternal life, chooses love ("so demanding," but worth it all), he accepts forgiveness, claims it, acknowledges his weakness ("I'm so weak!"), claims his home in God's kingdom. He never thought he'd be here saying these words, but stranger things have happened. Throughout his life he has variously feared death, been suicidal, risked his life on the battlefield, killed, been indifferent towards death, been resigned to death, and been in despair of death. Now though, he is finally awake (no more sleeping) and unafraid. Now he knows that death isn’t the end. His true home awaits. *Insert Gandalf quote*

"End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it (...) White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise."

Home.

*Edit* I’m thinking about how at the end, the Patient has 1) realized the Christian perspective of death: “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21), and 2) he is overwhelmed with love more than anything else: “A love that’s so demanding I can’t speak!”

#thanks for listening #this has been on my mind for weeks #i just want to thank my chemical romance and gerard way for this masterpiece #and thank God as well #the master storyteller #my chemical romance #mcr #the black parade #christianity #analysis #media analysis #and this isn't even all of my thoughts on the album #yes teenagers is not included #i love the song very much but it doesn't fit here in this context #at least not that i can see

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