++A spiritual atheist’s journey to helping death row inmates. +
++When you hear the word “chaplain,” you probably think of a priest or an Imam or some other kind of traditional clergyperson — that’s what springs to my mind in any case. Which is why I was surprised when I stumbled upon an article in the New York Times magazine from earlier this year about an “atheist chaplain” working on death row in an Oklahoma prison. +
++The piece is about a convicted killer, Phillip Hancock, who didn’t believe in God but wanted a spiritual adviser with him as he approached his execution. The chaplain is a man named Devin Moss, who spent a year in daily conversation with Hancock and eventually traveled from Brooklyn to Oklahoma to be with him in his final hours. +
++The whole notion of an atheist chaplain is interesting, of course, but even more interesting are the deeper questions here about what spiritual care looks like without religion and what it means to confront our death without God or a belief in the afterlife. +
++I wouldn’t call myself a religious person, but I do take the spiritual life seriously and, whether you’re a believer or a non-believer, it seems important to understand what religion offers to people and what it would mean to offer something similar in a secular context. +
++Which is why I invited Moss onto The Gray Area to talk about what being a humanist chaplain (he prefers that term over “atheist”) means to him and what his experience on death row taught him about religion and the universal struggle to face death with dignity. +
++Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to and follow The Gray Area on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you find podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday. +
++
+Sean Illing +
++You did your residency as a chaplain at Bellevue Hospital in New York City during the pandemic. What was that like? +
++Devin Moss +
++It was intense and full of people in acute moments of crisis, at that hospital in particular. But I cannot imagine a better place to learn what it means to be spiritual. Because I came into this incredibly insecure about spirituality in general and what kind of spiritual care I can provide to people when I’m a non-theist. How can I do this without God? It was scary as hell and it was profound as hell at the same time. +
++Sean Illing +
++Were you a different person coming out of that? +
++Devin Moss +
++Absolutely. And even on a daily basis, my shift hours were from 2 to 8 or 9, and around 1 I’d be like, Ugh, I can’t believe I got to go back and do this today, but when I’d leave at night, I’d be like, Wow, I could never have imagined that would happen today, I learned so much! I felt like a different person leaving at night than when I got there in the morning and that was a repetitive cycle over and over again. +
++Sean Illing +
++We’re talking because I happened upon this article about your experience on death row. I guess I’m curious how you found yourself there in the first place. How does a humanist chaplain from Brooklyn end up on death row in Oklahoma? +
++Devin Moss +
++Soon after I finished my residency at Bellevue, the American Humanist Association sent me an email saying that there are some attorneys that represent this man on death row named Phillip Hancock in Oklahoma, and he’s looking for a non-theist chaplain and they wanted to know if I was interested. I said I was absolutely interested. And on reflection, to be candid, I felt called to do that from a spiritual care perspective, but I also was very much intrigued by the story. +
++So I wrote Phil a letter, introduced myself, left my phone number in it and said, If you find that I am the right person to represent you or be by your side in such a important time, I would love to do so, and then we talked and hit it off and started a journey of almost a year. +
++Sean Illing +
++Did you have strong feelings about the death penalty before you went to Oklahoma? Did the experience change your views one way or the other? +
++Devin Moss +
++I did not have strong opinions. I’d describe my views going in this way: If there was a chance for anybody innocent to be executed, then I’m not for it. +
++And yet, knowing that there are monsters among us, I still had this hypothetical scenario in my head, and it’s the one that everybody who’s pro-capital punishment will use: If it was your daughter (and it’s always the daughter, no one says if it were your son), and she was murdered and raped, that should be the litmus test of how we think of capital punishment. That’s the argument that the state legislators in Oklahoma use and I don’t know where I got it, but that was also in my head prior to working with Phil. And in the case of such a heinous violent crime, then yeah, I would be okay with capital punishment. That’s how I came into it. +
++Those are real feelings. If a parent had to go through that horrible, horrible scenario, they have every right to feel that. And I’m not advocating that anybody can’t feel those very strong and real emotions but what I didn’t realize until I was actually in the soup is that there are a lot of externalities. The ripples of who it affects, they’re significant. +
++The legislators make the laws, the judicial branch of the state does the sentencing, but guess who does the executions? None of them are doing the executions, none of the family of the victims are doing the executions, it is everyday people. It’s people like me, it is the corrections officers in the small towns where this is more than likely the only employment opportunity they have and we are the ones that are doing this. +
++I spoke with a man named Adam Luck, who was the former chair of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board before the execution, and he said, Everybody that has a hand in doing the execution itself, part of them dies in some way. Although that sounds like a dramatic statement, it’s absolutely 100 percent true. The warden isn’t for it, the corrections officers aren’t for it, and so with all of the externalities and all the pain, it creates a karmic ripple that is multigenerational. +
++Sean Illing +
++The last words Phillip heard were yours — what did you say? +
++Devin Moss +
++The whole thing was surreal. The whole day was surreal. Even that morning, the morning of the execution, the governor still hadn’t made a decision whether to grant clemency. The execution was scheduled for 10 am, so it was postponed an hour and a half and Phil is strapped to the gurney for an extra hour-plus, which is horrible to think about. And the night before, they messed up his last meal, I can’t even express to this day how angry that makes me and I can imagine what it does to the spirit of someone that just cannot get any demonstration of humanity on any level. +
++Normally, the spiritual care adviser generally gets 30 to 45 minutes with the person that’s going to be executed, but because the governor had delayed, the press corps had already made it through security, and I was just trying to maintain my poise and not get frazzled. And we went through this maze where the head chaplain then left me in this sally port and the corrections officers escorted me up to the front door of the execution chamber. +
++It was there that the masked corrections officer who would be in the room with us greeted me because the corrections officers that are in the room need to be anonymous. And then I could see in his face that he was nervous and that he was scared and that he was also affected by this moment. It was in that moment that I realized that part of my role is just to bring as much calmness and peace into that space as I possibly could. +
++Earlier that morning, I had written an invocation, a prayer of sorts, that I knew needed to be said and I did it immediately because I wanted to claim that space for Phil so that we could make it sacred and not let any time go by without making sure that he felt that this was his time. +
++Sean Illing +
++Do you remember the prayer that you wrote? +
++Devin Moss +
++When I originally wrote it, I wrote something about “I call into the space the spirit of the divine” and then I crossed that out and instead I just wrote “I call into the space the spirit of our humanity” because it was very clear to me that this was a human problem and not a theological issue. And I had the answer to the Philippians riddle, Show me something real, tell me something true. I seeded that within the prayer, I wanted him to know that he was loved and that I was a conduit to that love and that he was not alone. And then I also invoked the spirit of grace, of strength, of surrender, and, interestingly, I ended it with an amen just because it felt right. +
++I also understood too that there were other people in that room, besides Phil and I, that I think needed to hear these words and so I claimed that space for him. And then I followed it up with telling him how our relationship affected me and what it meant to me and that he is a loved human. He died well, with grace. I made sure that he knew that he was loved and he was not alone. And so, in this weird moment of an execution, which is weird to say, there was peace. +
++Sean Illing +
++Part of what interests me about your story is this question about whether we need religion, or something like religion. The fact that you felt called to do this work speaks to this. Do you feel like there’s a God-shaped hole in the modern world that needs to be filled by something even if that’s something isn’t supernaturalism or religion in a conventional sense? +
++Devin Moss +
++I do believe that. I do believe that there is a God-shaped hole in all of us and I do not feel that it needs to be filled with dogma. The question that I get asked a lot in this regard is, “How do you prepare someone who’s dying, who doesn’t believe that there’s something next?” The answer is in the reframing of the question. +
++If there is something next and if that’s what you believe, fine. And if we’re wrong, then great. But what’s more important is everything that you’re doing before that moment — that’s the most important, not after. What happens after is after, but it’s the transition that’s important and how you get there and all these micro-steps tracking back throughout your life. +
++So do we need spirituality as individuals? Yes, I think so. And I would also say, as a culture, whether it’s a collective consciousness or a resonance that connects us to each other and connects us out to something bigger, there’s something real there and we need to make sure those points are connected. +
++Sean Illing +
++I’ve really come to be annoyed with a certain kind of atheist that can only approach religion as a set of epistemological claims, as though scanning the Bible for bogus claims about biology or history will amount to some death blow for religion. And I understand where that comes from. This has always been tricky for me because I do think religion has done immense damage in the world. I think it has caused a lot of needless suffering in the world. I think it still causes a lot of needless suffering in the world. +
++There are people in this country who want to create a theocracy here, who want to chain women to their reproductive cycles because of their religious beliefs, and those people are enemies of liberal democracy in my opinion. It’s important to say all of that. But it’s also important to recognize that religion, at its best, is a near-universal expression of this human need for connection and ritual and meaning and it’s a mistake to not grapple seriously with the implications of that, especially if you’re a non-believer. +
++Devin Moss +
++I see spirituality and theology as two completely different animals. I see religion as an expression of the spiritualities. Because the way it works now is that spirituality is an expression of religion, but I say flip it. I’m a huge proponent of rites of passage rituals, I’m a huge proponent of even making rituals throughout your day and you can develop them for yourself, you can be as syncretic as you need to be just to make sure that it is bringing intention throughout your day. +
++The expression of spirituality can be your lived religion and we can see what that looks like. Even if it’s Sunday mornings, we’re going to sweep up the sidewalks in Brooklyn and have coffee and cake, that’s an important spiritual expression and can be considered religion without the pomp and the history and all of those things. +
++Sean Illing +
++A humanist chaplain may not be able to offer the solace that comes with belief in the afterlife, but what kind of solace can you offer someone as they approach the end? +
++Devin Moss +
++Death is hard for everybody and it’s hard because we avoid it personally and we most definitely avoid it as a culture. How a culture dies is a direct reflection of how they live and we do not die well in modern America. I would probably take out the border between faith and non-faith when it comes to how to die well and I would just say that dying well requires work that is to be done while you’re still very much alive, whether you have faith in a supernatural power or not. +
++To hear the rest of the conversation, click here, and be sure to follow The Gray Area on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you listen to podcasts. +
++A music scholar explains why hell hath no fury like a country diva. +
++There’s a lot to parse through and digest on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter. The 27-track album is a rich, sprawling tribute to various eras and genres of Southern music, from outlaw country to Louisiana’s zydeco to 1960s rock ‘n’ roll — all of which have contributed to our collective understanding of country music. +
++She carries out this hefty task with the help of some lesser-known country artists and some bona fide legends. One of those heavy hitters is none other than Dolly Parton, who makes several appearances, including in a playful audio message on Cowboy Carter’s ninth track. +
++“You know that hussy with the good hair you sing about?” Parton asks Beyoncé, referencing her famous “Becky with the good hair” lyric on her 2016 song “Sorry.” “Reminded me of someone I knew back when, except she has flamin’ locks of auburn hair. Bless her heart. Just a hair of a different color, but it hurts just the same.” +
++The next track is Beyoncé’s highly anticipated rendition of Parton’s 1973 smash hit “Jolene.” Beyoncé is one of many artists across generational and cultural lines to put their own twist on Parton’s heralded ditty. Her remake turns what was originally Parton’s plea to a red-haired bank clerk to stay away from her husband into a more aggressive (and funny) threat. “You don’t want this smoke, so shoot your shot with someone else,” she sings before reminding Jolene that she’s “still a banjee country bitch from Louisiana.” She also calls Jolene a “bird.” +
++Beyoncé is no stranger to singing about infidelity, both as a former member of Destiny’s Child and as a solo artist. But her confessional 2016 album Lemonade was the first time she had not-so-subtly referenced cheating in her marriage with Jay-Z — at least in a way listeners could clock. On the album’s more memorable tracks like “Don’t Hurt Yourself” and “Sorry,” the singer embraces a kind of cathartic and arguably feminist rage before controversially offering her partner forgiveness. +
++In that regard, it’s maybe not surprising that she reimagines “Jolene” as a feistier song, while remaining predictably confident in her own womanhood. Beyoncé’s “Jolene” remake also feels in line with a history of outspoken, scorned women in country music, addressing their men’s misdeeds in a fierce, violent, and often vengeful manner: from Loretta Lynn’s “Fist City” to Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” to Taylor Swift’s collaboration with Haim “No Body, No Crime.” (It’s the premise of many Miranda Lambert songs too.) Sometimes, the victim is the guy. Sometimes, it’s his “pretty little souped-up four-wheel drive.” +
++To get to the bottom of this trend, I spoke to country music scholar Jocelyn Neal, a professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, about the role of infidelity in country music and what it says about the misunderstood and complex role of gender within the genre. +
++Songs about infidelity aren’t unique to country music. But it feels like it has some significance in this genre because there’s a stereotypical image of Southern people as “traditional” and valuing monogamy. +
++I don’t think it solely has to do with one particular demographic. The storytelling and songwriting tradition in country music has always embraced descriptions of real life for working-class people. The other part of it is that it has embraced describing those stories about people’s lives across different age categories — it doesn’t just focus on young people. So we have this long tradition in country music of songs that talk about relationships in very direct terms. +
++Were these songs ever considered controversial? +
++They have been. For instance, when Kitty Wells recorded “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,” which itself was a callback or rebuttal song, it was considered too explicit in its description of cheating to be acceptable, and there was some controversy about whether or not it could be performed. That was 1952. +
++One of the time periods when this dialogue became more common, unsurprisingly, is the late 1960s and into the 1970s. If we look at larger shifts in the social environment in this country, that was a time period when second-wave feminism was really at the forefront. Laws were changing that affected how women could function economically. Laws about divorce changed during that time period. And there was a really large discussion about gender roles and constraints on women, specifically as it was affecting the working-class population. +
++When I think about country songs about cheating, I automatically envision empowered, angry women setting things on fire and slashing tires — is that a common trope? +
++What you’re referring to with those images is a later time period. And they were performed by artists — Carrie Underwood, Gretchen Wilson, and certainly Miranda Lambert — that were really speaking to a bit of a younger life profile. Those song lyrics are always somewhat reflective of the discourse at the time and what audience that music was being directed towards, which was slightly younger. +
++There are also men singing these kinds of songs. And some of that goes all the way back to the earliest traditions that are drawing from old murder ballads from previous centuries. I’m talking about recordings from the 1920s and ’30s. +
++That level of retaliation goes against the well-behaved, “Southern belle” image. But is that archetype really representative of most women in country? +
++The kind of happy, domestically satisfied, good-girl image is something that deserves a lot more careful analysis because it’s only been put forward a couple of times in country music history. There’s a middle-class, feminine ideal that gets cultivated in the American public imagination of the 1950s, the June Cleaver kind of image. And working-class women have never really had that same match of identity. +
++There’s Loretta Lynn songs like “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)” or “Fist City,” which are much more outspoken than the image we’re just talking about. That image gets advertised sometimes, but I don’t think it has ever fully captured the complexities of gender representation within country music. +
++Beyonce’s “Jolene” certainly matches the energy of those Loretta Lynn songs. +
++It’s literally a “don’t you dare.” I don’t think anybody is going to be really surprised that after 50 years of time passing from second-wave feminism to Beyoncé’s era, that she’s going to make that change. I was delighted to hear it. +
++How unique was the perspective of the original “Jolene” then, when it first came out? +
++One of the things that people have written about with “Jolene” is the level of detail that Parton is using to describe the other woman — her hair color, her eyes, her lips. There’s a man involved, and she wants the guy, and the guy wants the other woman, but the entire focus of the lyrics are on this very obsessive kind of womanly connection. +
++But these female-to-female conversations exist in many time periods in country music. Tammy Wynette doesn’t get brought into these conversations because historians haven’t really granted her credit as one of these independent, feisty, forward-thinking women in her lyrics. But even she has songs that are woman-to-woman conversations — “If I were you, here’s what I would do,” and “Have you really thought this through?” etc. +
++Well, Beyoncé ends “Jolene” singing that she’s going to “stand by her man.” Do we think she’s giving Tammy a shout-out there? +
++You can’t deny that’s definitely a textual reference there. Where Tammy Wynette’s song “Stand By Your Man” was basically telling other women to stand by their men, Beyonce, at least, makes it two-sided: I’m standing by him, but he’s also going to stand by me. +
++
++
++The GOP majority is quite small, but a Democratic takeover pre-election still seems extremely unlikely. +
++The GOP’s majority in the House of Representatives was already very narrow — and it’s getting even narrower. +
++But could it get narrow enough that Democrats actually take control this year — before the election? +
++Some political commentators have been contemplating that possibility in the wake of the surprising news that Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) is stepping down early, amid reports that other Republicans are contemplating doing the same given frustration with the chaotic chamber and the temptations of private sector paydays. +
++A closer look at the House math, though, suggests a full flip to Democrats is an extremely far-fetched scenario. Here’s why. +
++Once Gallagher resigns on April 19, the House will be composed of 217 Republicans and 213 Democrats, with five vacant seats. +
++On April 30, there is a special election to fill a vacancy in New York’s 26th District, which Democrats are expected to win. If so, once the result is certified and the winner is sworn in, the House will have 217 Republicans and 214 Democrats (and four vacancies). +
++A 217-214 majority is extremely narrow, making it very challenging to pass partisan measures without total party unity. A mere two Republican defections could sink a bill, if no Democrats support it. +
++But fully flipping control is more difficult. It would require four more unexpected Republican resignations (or deaths). That’s because a new vacancy in a Republican seat puts the GOP down one seat, but it doesn’t add a seat to the Democratic column. +
++So three new Republican resignations would just mean a 214-214 House (which would be pretty wild). But the majority needed to elect a Democratic speaker wouldn’t yet be there. Another GOP resignation would put the House at 214 Democrats and 213 Republicans. +
++There would clearly be immense pressure on Republicans eyeing the exits to not be the one person whose resignation would give Democrats the House, so that number of resignations seems unlikely. +
++A flip looks even more far-fetched once you realize that there’s a short time window for this to happen, because Republicans’ majority is going to get bigger very soon. +
++The special election to fill Kevin McCarthy’s seat in California’s 20th District is on May 21, and the only two candidates on the ballot are Republicans (they won California’s “top-two” primary in this heavily Republican district). So a Republican is guaranteed to win there, and once he’s sworn in, the House would have 218 Republicans and 214 Democrats — raising the number of resignations necessary to flip it by one more. +
++In June, there will be two more special elections to fill vacancies in safely Republican districts — the seats of former Reps. Bill Johnson (R-OH) and Ken Buck (R-CO), so barring shocking results there, the House would be composed of 220 Republicans and 214 Democrats after that. +
++So I’d put the chances of a surprise Democratic majority in the “extremely, extremely, extremely unlikely” range. The best shot for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to become speaker is the normal one — winning in November. +