Sixteen Songs to Help You Through Religious Deconstruction
Music is often a major part of religion. But it can also be a powerful tool to help deal with all the feelings and questions that come up when you start deconstructing or moving away from a religion that you once believed in.
This playlist is for those who are finding their way out of a high-control religion — particularly, fundamentalist or Evangelical Christianity — and looking for understanding, comfort, or even joy in the experience.
Unlike a lot of deconstruction playlists, many songs on this list are not directly about leaving your faith, but contain lyrics that speak to different parts of the process: the confusion, the grief, the cognitive dissonance, the reframing of former ideologies, the newfound freedom, and the way it feels to finally come into your own. I hope you’ll find something here that’s for you.
Jesus, Jesus — Noah Gunderson
Don’t let the title of our first song fool you: this is not a worship song. Over delicate and spare guitar plucking, Noah Gunderson sings straight from his heart as he asks a distant savior for answers to many of the same questions you’ve probably been asking — especially if you were raised on concepts like hell, sin, and the imminent end of the world.
Jesus, Jesus, there are those that say they love you
But they have treated me so goddamn mean
And I know you said, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,”
But sometimes I think they do
And I think about you
Heavy — RAC, Karl Kling
It can be hard to exit Christianity and be left with the truth of yourself and who you are, no longer relying on a higher power to change you but knowing it’s up to you to seek change. This bittersweet song will sit with you and remind you that we all feel this way sometimes, and that’s okay.
Now we remain in the haze
In the heaviness of truth
Peace be with you
And we’re all heavy with the weight of who we are
Deliverance — CHVRCHES
This deeply emotional electro-anthem could be a conversation between a doubting believer and the church (or should I say, the chvrch?). I know the religious motifs here aren’t meant to be interpreted literally, but I can’t help but hear it as a song about reckoning with a faulty belief system and finding the strength to let go. Plus, it’s just fun to dance to.
Trust me when I tell you ‘bout my own convictions
Made my mind up long ago
Trust me when I tell you it’s a contradiction
Wishin’ that I didn’t know
Look at What the Light Did Now (cover) — Flo Morrissey, Matthew E. White
Bright and slightly reminiscent of something you may have sung in church, this song celebrates light and growth without bringing religion into the picture. It’s originally by Little Wings, but I feel that Morrissey and White’s upbeat cover adds something special to the message.
Like a dead tree that’s dry and leaving
Look at what the light did now
Oh, play it on me with grief and grieving
Look at what the light did now
Sunday Morning — Tyson Motsenbocker
Most songs on this list are not literally about leaving the faith, but “Sunday Morning” is actually a look back on the artist’s experience as a church musician, and his disillusionment with the use of music and highly charged sermons to manipulate people’s emotions.
And the pastor yelled ’bout faith and hell
And I soundtracked his words for effect
While everyone cried and cried and criedAnd then we played kickball
Well is God just a feeling you can use at your will?
Fast Talk — Houses
While Dexter Tortoriello has said that this song is a tribute to friends he lost to drug use in his teens, the lyrics have always resonated with me for an additional reason: the suggestion of heaven as a place that is simply our world, but one we can navigate without fear. I find it freeing to re-imagine my concept of God and heaven through songs like these, and Tortoriello’s voice soothingly guides you through it as he sings about nostalgia, mortality, and the realities of growing older in a complicated world.
So maybe heaven is a ghetto with no bad blocks
Shangri-La dealers at the bus stop
And maybe God is just a cop that we can fast talk
So if you’re guilty and you know it, put your hands up
Hard to Be — David Bazan
Like “Sunday Morning,” this song is about growing up and becoming disillusioned with religion, no longer satisfied by the answers it gives to life’s hardest questions. I specifically love the references to Biblical myths that Christians are supposed to accept as the explanation for why being a human is so painful.
Wait just a minute/you expect me to believe
That all this misbehaving grew from one enchanted tree
And helpless to fight it/we should all be satisfied
With the magical explanation for why the living die
For the First Time — Best Coast
People often poke fun at Christian artists for writing songs about Jesus that sound like they’re about a romantic relationship, so I don’t feel bad including a break-up song on this list. To me, it depicts the joy I was able to access once I was free of the burden of trying to conform to religion.
’Cause I finally feel free/I feel like myself again
But for the first time
I used to think that I would die without you
And no offense to you, but I’m doin’ fine too
Extraordinary Machine — Fiona Apple
The title track of Fiona Apple’s 2005 album is one I played a lot growing up, but the lyrics took on a new meaning as I began to navigate the choppy waters of disapproving family and friends who didn’t like that I was deconstructing. It also helped me shift my mindset from “I’m made in the image of God” to “I’m an autonomous human being of great capacity,” which can be a hard change to make.
If there was a better way to go, then it would find me
I can’t help it, the road just rolls out behind me
Be kind to me, or treat me mean
I’ll make the most of it, I’m an extraordinary machine
Orange Sky — Alexi Murdoch
Gentle and almost hymn-like in its chorus repetition, I love this song for the alternative it presents to the salvation Christianity tells us to seek. It’s not a matter of being saved from “sins,” but one of finding home and comfort in the love of those who are close to us.
Here is what I know now
Goes like this
In your love
My salvation lies in your love
My salvation lies in your love
To Be Human — MARINA
Christianity can serve as a comforting blanket, shielding us from the world and making us feel that we aren’t a part of it because we expect to spend eternity in heaven. But when we deconstruct, the blanket comes off, and we see that we live in a world full of meaningless pain that we as humans cause each other. From the artist formerly known as Marina and the Diamonds, this song can help you feel less alone in that knowledge, and even remind you that “if there is a God, they’ll know why it’s so hard to be human.”
All the people living in/living in the world today
We’re united by our love/we’re united by our pain
Ooh, all the things that I’ve done and I’ve seen
Still I don’t know, don’t know what it means
To be human
I Prefer Your Love — St. Vincent
A song I would have perceived as sacrilegious in my Christian days, this slow-swaying ballad now brings me a lot of peace. Though it’s really about the powerful love you can feel for a parent, I look at it as a song about realizing that having someone real and present who loves you unconditionally can be more transformative than the love of an invisible god.
Forgive me of all these bad thoughts
I’m blinded to the faces in the fog
But all the good in me is because of you
It’s true
I, I prefer your love to Jesus
God Shuffled His Feet — Crash Test Dummies
Approaching the deconstruction process with humor can be helpful, and this clever 1993 jam does the perfect job of delivering thought-provoking lyrics through a funny scenario. I love the way it transitions from playfully imagining a tired God declaring the 8th day of creation as a day for picnics to his apparent discomfort as guests become confused about the way he’s answering their questions.
So someone asked him, “I beg your pardon
I’m not quite clear about what you just spoke
Was that a parable, or a very subtle joke?”
God shuffled his feet
And glanced around at them
The people cleared their throats
And stared right back at him
You Are Loved Eternally — Jenny O.
This is a great song to play loudly on your headphones during times when you may have turned to worship music for a similar message. The rhythmic guitar will make you want to dance, and the lyrics deliver a reminder that you might be needing these days.
If you cannot change
You are loved eternally
Dance with me in the garden
You can’t feel it but it’s growing
You are loved eternally!
Pure Comedy — Father John Misty
A list of deconstruction songs wouldn’t be complete without a little something from Father John. “Pure Comedy” goes hand-in-hand with the other songs on this list that question the human condition and point out flaws in religion and its explanations, but it does so with a sharpness and eloquence that are hard to find anywhere else.
Oh, their religions are the best
They worship themselves yet they’re totally obsessed
With risen zombies, celestial virgins, magic tricks
These unbelievable outfits
And they get terribly upset
When you question their sacred texts
Written by woman-hating epileptics
Mystery of Love — Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan was the first artist to speak to me in the early days of my deconstruction, so I’m ending this list with his beautiful contribution to the film Call Me By Your Name (which you can watch, now that you’re no longer being inundated with anti-LGBTQ+ messaging). Though the song’s main theme is love as both a blessing and a curse, there is one simple line that always stands out to me.
Lord, I no longer believe.
There’s something that deeply resonates for me in the dissonance of directly telling God you don’t believe in him anymore. It comes at the crux of the process; at the point between admitting and letting go. When I hear it, I remember how I was grieving the loss of a being that was once very real to me while knowing I couldn’t maintain my belief anymore.
Deconstructing from a high-control religion is hard, and it’s a process that can make us feel very alone and without answers. I hope you found something on this list that you were needing to hear today.
