Chris Cornell: This is what it sounds like to be Lost.

Chris Cornell, the multi-octave singer for Soundgarden, Audioslave, and solo work, has died.  It appears to be suicide at this point.  In reading various obituaries and seeing hundreds of forum posts about him, the theme repeats of how shocking such an early death is.  The one word I heard over and over to describe people's reactions was "gutted".   Not one soul, out of hundreds, expressed hope that Chris had gone to heaven.

Now, I am not saying that Chris was lost.  Only God knows that, and I hope, I really hope, he wasn't.  But I can tell you that a lot of his music sounds like someone who once had hope and optimism, but has lost them and has learned to make art out of utter despair.  Yes, much art has been made of utter despair, and some of it is good art indeed, but today's despair has a singular hopelessness.  That hopelessness did not happen by accident.  Theologian Dallas Willard said: "the enemy of souls works through the power of bad ideas, and those ideas are self-perpetuating, being repeated from one person to another". It's the culture.  We often cannot even see these bad ideas because they are the lens we see the world through, being brought up in this culture with this music as the backing track to our lives. But this hopelessness has a source. It is the result of losing Jesus in the name of spirituality and losing the cross and repentance in the name of a false love that never lasts or brings peace.  It's the result of John Lennon singing "imagine no religion" and Bono reducing the Creator of the universe to another nice guy who came "in the name of love", and finally Chris Cornell singing this: (from "Preaching the End of the World")

With no commitment and no confessions and,

no little secrets to keep.

No little children or, houses with roses,

just the end of the world and me.

Cause all has been gone and, all has been done,

and there's nothing left for us to say.

But we could be together as they blow it all away

and we could share in every moment as it breaks.

This is nothing but lonely dancing in a house that is burning down and the only solace it offers is being together as we die.  If that does not horrify you, especially knowing that his death was chosen, not forced upon him by cancer, murder, or stroke, then these bad ideas are invisible to you too.  Yes, drugs were involved and perhaps even prescription drugs intended to help him, but in the end, that only reinforces the concrete reality of our time: there is no hope.  It's a lie.

The culture has lied to us, equating Jesus Christ with the imperfect human church. 

The culture has lied to us saying that there are many ways to God, when that view always ends with their being no way to God. 

The culture has lied to us, telling us that knowledge of God is simply "spirituality" and we are free to make that up as we go along according to our dark and blind expectations. 

The culture has lied to us, saying pot is harmless and psychedelics are here to help us learn more about ourselves and even find the divine. 

The culture has lied to us, telling young people that sex is what you do on the third date (or sooner) leaving us bereft, depressed and suicidal, because no matter what, we always end up alone.

And finally, the culture has lied, a million times, telling us that we are merely meat puppets, having no soul and the universe is purely mechanical, having no miracles in it, when there are miracles every day.

Jeremy Camp is also a rock singer, but he sees the world differently from Chris Cornell.  But Jeremy also knows what it is like to have your heart broken; his young wife died of cancer when she was 21.  Here is what he wrote following her death:

Scattered words and empty thoughts

Seem to pour from my heart

I've never felt so torn before

Seems I don't know where to start

But it's now that I feel Your grace falls like rain

From every fingertip, washing away my pain

I still believe in Your faithfulness

I still believe in Your truth

I still believe in Your holy word

Even when I don't see, I still believe

What is the difference?  Hope.  Knowledge of God. Experience with God.  A future.  Salvation.

“For all the wealth in Europe, I would not see another atheist die.” 
- Famous Atheist Voltaire's nurse at his passing. 

Me neither.  I would love to never again see the hopeless, sad death of a rock star, but I will, and so will you. Right now there are souls at stake, people we know, who have yet to hear the wonderful idea that Jesus was real, that Jesus lives, and Jesus still saves, no matter what John Lennon said.