Christian Music for Jewish Souls

On loving gospel because it's not mine.

“What would you give,” sings a rough tenor, and then another responds with falsetto keen, “in exchange!” Then they harmonize together, the voices intertwined, stretching for heaven.

What would you give in exchange for your soul?
Oh if today God should call you away
What would you give in exchange for your soul?

The song is an old Monroe Brothers number from the 30s, but my favorite version is a 1963 duet; Doc Watson provides the slow, delicate guitar strum and Bill Monroe adds distinctive crystal mandolin runs and high tenor. It’s a song of almost unendurable longing, which manages to be both delicate and ragged, dreamy and bleak.

It’s also a song about how I, personally, am going to go to hell. When they sing, “Mercy is calling you, won’t you give heed?” my answer is pretty clearly, “no, thanks.” I’m a Jewish atheist; I don’t believe Christ is lord, and I don’t even think I have a soul. Watson and Monroe are singing lovely harmonies to my wrongness and my eternal damnation.

You’d think it would be off-putting to have people tell you that your life choices are going to lead to such catastrophic consequences. But I’ve long been a fan of both white and Black gospel music, and of other Christian performers as well.

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