Taylor Swift & the Universal Problem

The Universe

Deep down, the whole world knows it. We’ve built great cities with skyscrapers that reach the heavens. We can video chat with our loved ones across continents. We can order food and have it show up at our door in fifteen minutes. We can even tell a computer to write a research paper for us. In the midst of how far we’ve come, we still have not advanced beyond the problem lurking in the human heart. No amount of property, popularity, or power can medicate this moral malady. This universal problem holds no prejudice: it infects every person, regardless of race or social status. Billionaire Taylor Swift rightly summed up the human condition in her hit song "Anti-Hero:"

I should not be left to my own devices

They come with prices and vices

I end up in crisis (tale as old as time)

I wake up screaming from dreaming

One day I'll watch as you're leaving'

Cause you got tired of my scheming (For the last time)

It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me

At tea time, everybody agrees

I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror

It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero

Later in the song, Swift asks, “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism like some kind of congressman?” Even an attempt at being a good person is counter-balanced by an underlying self-centered motivation. Concerning the universal problem of the human heart, Taylor Swift gets it. Unfortunately, her song offers no solution to this age-old affliction. The problem, as Swift describes it, is what the Bible refers to as sin.

Among the world’s major religions, only the Christian faith paints an accurate picture of the human condition and provides the solution to this problem as well. At the beginning of the Bible, we read that the first humans rebelled against a holy God. This insurrection introduced sin into the world, and death came in on its heels (Romans 5:12). The Original Sin in the garden, as Christian theology puts it, permeates every human heart (Jeremiah 17:9). Since the beginning, sin and its consequences have imprisoned mankind. So, we have our vices and our fears that these will make people want to leave us. Yes, Taylor Swift understands this problem.

Muslim man in white

In contrast, the Islamic faith teaches that people are basically born good. For Muslims, the main problem is not sin but ignorance or forgetfulness. Therefore, one doesn’t need a savior but a guide. But, in light of the pervasive existence of evils like war, racism, and injustice, not to mention the immoral torrents of our own hearts, does the problem lie in a lack of knowledge or in a failure to remember God’s ways? Or is there something deeper?

The Bible depicts the human experience for what it is. But it doesn’t stop there. When the very first people rebelled in the Garden, God could have wiped the slate clean and started over. He didn’t do that. He pursued them (Gen. 3:9) and covered their shame (Gen 3:21). And He told the evil snake that one of Eve’s descendants would crush his head, an early prophecy of God’s plan of redemption (Gen. 3:15). Indeed, the universal problem of sin requires more than a guide. We need an inner transformation of our hearts. We need a Savior!

For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Romans 3:23

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:23