Kicking at the Darkness
- World Religions
- Publisher: Brazos Press (Baker Publishing Group)
- Published: 2011
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Publisher's Description
For forty years, singer and songwriter Bruce Cockburn has been writing beautifully evocative music. Bestselling author and respected theologian Brian Walsh has followed Cockburn's work for years and has written and spoken often on his art. In this creative theological and cultural engagement, Walsh reveals the imaginative depth and uncompromising honesty of the artist's Christian spirituality. Cockburn offers hope in the midst of doubt, struggle, failure, and anger; indeed, the sentiment of "kicking at the darkness" is at the heart of his spirituality. This book engages the rich imagery of Cockburn's lyrics as a catalyst for shaping and igniting a renewed Christian imagination.
Endorsements (4)
“Brian Walsh has invited Bruce Cockburn—and us the readers—into a thoughtful and profound theological engagement about the meaning of life and art, through a conversation with the lyrics of Cockburn’s songs. Along the way Walsh quotes C. S. Lewis’s comment that ‘what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.’ This book both illuminates the depth of Cockburn’s spirituality and gives us a glimpse of where Brian Walsh stands and what sort of person he is. For those who know and love Bruce Cockburn’s music, this is a rich feast provided by a master teacher; for those who are new to Cockburn, this could be just the invitation to get them hooked.”
“Kicking at the Darkness is not just for the Bruce Cockburn fan club, but for anyone who longs to explore the implications of an imaginative Christian vision for the world—a vision that is heartbreakingly honest about brokenness and radically hopeful about the Creator’s sustaining promises. Walsh artfully and expertly toys with the many lyrical themes in Cockburn’s body of work, while maintaining an essential posture of humility and respect. Walsh might just be the single best scholar to engage this prolific artist’s work, bringing the reader over and over again to a sense of having communed with the Divine in the midst of the empire’s insanity.”
“YOU need to read this book! Bruce Cockburn is a shrewdly observant prophet and a graciously compassionate psalmist, ‘a troubadour on the way home,’ Brian Walsh calls him. Walsh, who has studied Cockburn’s music for forty years, here sings out his theological insights and political perceptions as a cantata that seeks to engender in us an alternative imagination. May Cockburn’s clear melodies of truth in this carefully nuanced book pique new imaginations for Christians and others throughout the world.”
“At last, a robust engagement with Bruce Cockburn’s art that brings Canada’s prized poet-musician into sustained and creative dialogue with biblical faith. Brian J. Walsh writes with obvious affection for his subject but also considerable lucidity as he ranges far and wide across the Cockburn canon. Good things happen when erudite theological reflection takes popular culture seriously. This book is a case in point.”
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