The Theology of Slayer

God Hates Us All:

2he theology of slayer

First of all I am writing this as a metal fan, a Christian and most importantly for a bit of fun. I’m not hear to once again berate Slayer for their anti-Christian views nor am I trying to twist Slayer’s lyrics or music to show how they’ve actually secretly been Christian all this time. I am merely trying to show how some of Slayer’s music is yet another unique voice that can teach us about the nature of God.

So Slayer. Glorious blasphemic Slayer. Probably one of the most important and influential metal bands ever, if not the most important as far as extreme metal goes.

But why look at them theologically? Well because alongside war and serial killers, religion, faith and God are the only things the band seem interested in, and like other metal giants, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest’s Rob Halford, the members faith is far more complex then their lyrical themes would suggest. Lead singer Tom Araya, when talking about his faith, has said "I believe in a supreme being, yeah. But He's an all-loving God." And that Christ "...came and taught us about love, about doing unto others. That was his preach: Accept each other for who we are. Live peacefully, and love one another."[1] Both of which seem contrary to a lot of what Slayer has to say about the two subjects.

I’m only going to be able to look at two albums, “1988’s South Of Heaven and 2001’s God Hates us All)  in detail here due to the self-imposed word limit but there is a whole lot more to be said on this subject. Also all of this is my own interpretation and should in no way be taken or understood as the band’s own views or what the songs literally mean.

But before going into a more detailed look at some of their music I’d like to look at some of the broader religious themes found in Slayer’s music. First of all the band’s iconic imagery. When not picturing nazi-esc soldiers and weaponry the artwork the band favours is almost exclusively religious. Larry Carroll’s iconic album art work for their albums depicts scenes of Hell many of which would not look unfamiliar in an exhibition along side medieval artwork of the reformation. The covers feature all manor of religious imagery and symbolism such as gothic architecture, crosses both inverted and the right-way up, people suffering stigmata, the devil, angels, several popes in hell (Dante would be proud) and Christ himself, most infamously on the 2006 album Christ Illusion which was banned in India. So whilst the images focus upon the negative aspects of the Christian faith they do all owe a huge debt. To write the art off as immature satanic scribbles would be a huge disservice as the images display many of the themes found within the writings and art of medieval and reformation Christians, particularly those based on what happens to us after we die. So Slayer start to ask us all sorts of theological questions before we even hit play.

The other aspect of Slayer’s music I’d like to quickly look at broadly is their lyrical style. The rhetoric they use borrows heavily from Biblical sources and many of their verse could be borrowed straight from an evangelistic preacher’s sermon book. Songs about suffering and hell seem eerily similar to the Psalmist’s laments and scenes of destruction they describe might as well be borrowed from many of the Old Testament prophets. I have also verged at a funeral where a friend of the deceased stood up and warned us all that hell awaits in a vitriolic fashion that Tom Araya would be proud of. Despite critics often deriding Slayer’s style as self-parodying with their over the top I think some credit is due to Slayer’s use of religious imagery some of it is rather clever, for example “abolish the rules made of stone” clearly being a reference to the ten commandments.

And so onto a closer look at some of Slayer’s albums, first off it’s South Of Heaven. After releasing the genre defining Reign in Blood the band choose wisely to try and take a slightly different approach and so took their foot off the accelerator and slowed things down a bit. This however only strengthened their sound and allowed them to explore more complex themes. The name of the album eludes back to the medieval idea of Heaven and Hell being physical places that people went to and so being south of Heaven implies that you have failed to get in to Heaven above. The title track (listen here) is probably the perfect example of Slayer’s theology, it is a dark menacing song and lyrically provides us with what slayer seem to believe is life without God.

An unforseen future nestled somewhere in time.
Unsuspecting victims no warnings, no signs.
Judgment day the second coming arrives.
Before you see the light you must die.

Forgotten children, conform a new faith,
Avidity and lust controlled by hate.
(The) Never ending search for your shattered sanity,
Souls of Damnation in their own reality.

Chaos rampant,
An age of distrust.
Confrontations.
Impulsive habitat.

Only you’re south of Heaven

Bastard sons begat your cunting daughters,
Promiscuous mothers with your incestuous fathers.
Engreat souls condemned for all eternity,
Obtained by immoral observance a domineering deity.

The root of all evil is the heart of a black soul.
A force that has lived all eternity.
The never ending search for a truth never told.
The loss of all hope and your dignity.

The song starts off describing the coming judgment day, revealed to John in the final book of the Bible and unlike some famous American evangelists Slayer correctly explain that it is not for us to know when this judgment day will come. As Paul explains in his letter to the Thessalonians “

the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. as labour pains on a pregnant woman”[2]. The verse ends with quite a profound point, “Before you see the light you must die”. Christians are often far to concerned about the wonderful things in life, the joy of being saved through the light of Christ. But they often forget that in order to do that we must first die. People do not like to suffer. We prefer to live our lives in the sun, the happy places and comfortable places, in the light. But in order to get to those places we must first travel through the darkness, we have to have suffering in order to have pleasure, there would be no Easter Sunday without first having a Good Friday and here Slayer serve us with a timely reminder that in order to get to the light we must travel through the pain and suffering that life brings.

The song then goes on to talk about what happens to those who are left “south of Heaven” i.e. those who are now living in either a post judgment day Earth or Hell and therefore without God. The scene Slayer paints is one of chaos, violence and despair. A world without rules, where God is no longer present and so is governed by sin. Without the need to live within moral and ethical boundaries humanity descends back to a primitive state where “Bastard sons begat your cunting daughters”. The true nature of humanity is shown for what it is and here Slayer are claiming that without a higher purpose or truth humanity can not function.

By describing what life is like without God and looking at what has been taken away we can see what God brings by His presence and therefore gain an idea of what God’s nature is. Here slayer argue that without God in the world there is chaos, anger and violence, and so God, in Slayer’s eyes, must be order, love and peace.

Here Slayer are displaying a form of theology called Apophatic, or negative, theology which is when the nature of God is understood by stating what God is not. By describing what the world is like without God and so showing what God is not, Slayer can help us to better understand what God is.

Another theme that is brought up in the song is that of spiritual truth. The “forgotten children” left south of Heaven start to search for understanding in their new lives without God. They create a “new faith” presumably to replace the one they have lost now they are abandoned but they find this self made faith without God empty. Here it seems that Slayer are arguing that a faith/spirituality without some sort of God is destined to fail. The people who have confirmed this search do not find their fill, they are stuck in “a never ending search” in “their own reality” presumably because they have put themselves in the centre rather then something higher then themselves and so when they find that they have failed their belief system collapses.

The whole premise of the song is that without God life is full of hate, violence and lacking substance. Many would now argue that that is the world now even with God, but what I think is argued in this song is that without God there is no hope of ever attaining anything more. God is what brings an end to “chaos rampant in an age of mistrust” and with God we lose all hope of anything better.

This idea of hate filling the void left by God is also strongly echoed in the second Album I am looking at, God Hate’s us All. Released in 2001 this album is claimed to be Slayer’s most blasphemy filled outing to date. This statement is backed up with the album’s title, seemingly the opposite of what all major religions believe, and the controversial art work. The cover depicts a defaced bible whilst the linear notes contain passages from the book of Job with sections blacked out. Sadly the passages are blacked out at random and the defacing is a bit crude so it appears to be more the work of a child then being any form of intelligent Biblical commentary.

The album begins with an instrumental track named after another contradictory image, The darkness of Christ in which the band claim that rather then a source of light to the world Christ has brought suffering and pain.

Mankind in his insatiable search for divine
Knowledge has discarded all biblical teachings

Realizing that the strength of religion is the repression of
knowledge
All structures of religion have collapsed

Life prays for death
in the wake of the horror of these revelations

It was never imagined how graphic the reality that would be known as the end
of creation
Would manifest itself

We believe all this chaos and atrocity can be traced
Back to one single event

We hold these truths to be painfully self-evident
All men are not created equal
Only the strong will prosper
Only the strong will conquer
Only in the darkness of Christ have I realized
God Hates Us All

The album then goes straight into Disciple (listen here)which I believe to be the best Slayer have sounded since 1991’s Seasons. The track sees slayer tackling, and seemingly solving, the age old problem of evil or theodicy. Rather then try and come to a complex reasoning of the need to balance good and evil or pleasure or suffering Slayer makes the logical conclusion that if God exists he must hate the world and so allows evil things to happen.

Drones since the dawn of time
Compelled to live your sheltered lives
Not once has anyone ever seen
Such a rise of pure hypocrisy
I'll instigate I'll free your mind
I'll show you what I've known all this time

God Hates Us All, God Hates Us All
You know it's true God hates this place
You know it's true he hates this race

Homicide-Suicide
Hate heals, you should try it sometime
Strive for Peace with acts of war
The beauty of death we all adore
I have no faith distracting me
I know why your prayers will never be answered

God Hates Us All; God Hates Us All
He Fuckin' hates me

Pessimist, Terrorist targeting the next mark
Global chaos feeding on hysteria
Cut throat, slit your wrist, shoot you in the back fair game
Drug abuse, self abuse searching for the next high
Sounds a lot like hell is spreading all the time
I'm waiting for the day the whole world fucking dies
I never said I wanted to be God's disciple
I'll never be the one to blindly follow

Man made virus infecting the world
Self-destruct human time bomb
What if there is no God would you think the fuckin' same
Wasting your life in a leap of blind faith
Wake the fuck up can't ignore what I say
I got my own philosophy

I hate everyone equally
You can't tear that out of me
No segregation -separation
Just me in my world of enemies

I never said I wanted to be God's disciple
I'll never be the one to blindly follow
I'll never be the one to bear the cross-disciple

I reject this fuckin' race
I despise this fuckin' place

The song is a personal testimony of someone who has gone through a conversion experience. Said person has come to the realisation that God hates the world and so he/she has chosen to stop believing in God and in turn has transformed their lives. It is similar rhetoric to that given by aggressive Christian missionaries or those who give their testimonies of faith only mirrored in an anti-deistic light. Rather then the Christian notion of Love being the powerful force in someone’s life this person feels freed by hate. They hate everyone equally and no long feel enslaved by their positive emotions. It is the Christian conversion experience seen in mirror image.

It’s also the same theme explored in South of Heaven. Life, the world, human existence is filled with hate and violence when God or positive[3] faith is removed. Whilst the song claims God hates us all it is also seemingly arguing that without God there is hate. So when seen through the lens of negative theology it can be claimed that God therefore must be love.

Granted the song is predominantly talking about all the negative things faith has brought into the world but I believe that is more a criticism of human made religion rather then God.

One more strong theme found within this song is the idea of being a disciple by “choice”. The chorus continuously repeats “I never said I wanted to be God’s disciple”. I don’t want to fall into the trap of predestination here but I’m not sure that Christians actually do choose to have faith. Granted we chose to follow Christ’s teachings but again that is more to do with being compelled to do so by our faith which is not a choice. It is a strongly held belief that Christian faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit given to us and so we technically do not chose whether to have faith or not it's already there. I also can’t think of a time when I personally chose to believe, I just sort of did. So I would probably agree with the lyrics here, I never said I wanted to be God’s disciple it just sort of happened. I also want to just point out that I am not saying that God implants belief so that we lack free will, or that God chooses some and not others as predestination suggests, I am just thinking out loud, in type, so to speak.

The rest of the album features other references to faith and God as well as the usual Slayer themes of war and serial killers. New Faith is a strong diatribe against the dangers of blind faith and includes some excellent biblical criticism that is then unfortunately ruined in similar fashion to the childish cover with the line "I keep the Bible in a pool of blood so that none of it’s lies can affect me” Fantastic metal lyric it may be but intelligent, constructive theological discourse it is not. Nor does it try to be.  

And that is where I think Slayer are. Whilst I have tried to show that they do include some well thought out theological arguments about the nature, or rather what the nature of God is not, they are after all a metal band and aren’t really trying to do theology.

That said I believe they do manage to ask us questions of what faith looks like without God or how we as Christians would conduct our lives if we did not have God in our lives most notably with the idea of being freed to hate with out divine love.

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[1] http://knac.com/article.asp?ArticleID=4576

[2] 1 Thess 5.1-3

[3]  as opposed to people who’s faith leads them to acts of hatred