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Is Taylor Swift a Christian singer?
A look at her religion
Her music is often about angsty teenage life, and she’s been received as vaguely Christian, if not Evangelical herself. But is Taylor Swift even a Christian?
It’s a matter hotly debated among her fans. Taking her to be a Christian like them, Evangelical are lately getting testy. There’s calls she be declared not a Christian at all, and some people want her executed.
That’s how it goes here in Jesusland.
Being “Christian” in America often means little more than getting married and having kids.
Mostly it’s just an aggressive commitment to being “normal.” Into her 20s, Taylor Swift had seemed to fit the bill. But as she delayed marriage and was seen with many men, religious anxieties gathered.
When she was chosen for Time magazine’s “person of the year,” a Christian guy on X lobbed a now-famous read:
“It’s shameful and sad that a hyper-promiscuous, childless woman (Taylor Swift), aging and alone with a cat, has become the heroine of a feminist age.”
How Christian has Taylor Swift ever been?
I’m looking over the accumulated commentary. She went to Catholic schools from elementary school to high school, though it wasn’t clear how much of a religous identification that was.
Her early music does suggest religious interest, but moving away from Christianity. An early song, “Didn’t They,” reflects on the September 11, 2001 attack on New York City, probing the religious problems.
Didn’t Christians die? she sings. And weren’t the Muslim attackers also worshipping God? She ends up just crying.
Her musical identity seems vaguely messianic.
Her first song, “Lucky You,” was meant to be “inspirational and sugarcoated,” she’d recall. It really is…
