David Bowie: The Next Day (After We Have Rejected Christianity), or The "Resurrected" Relevance of Christ

"Here I Am/Not Quite Dying/My Body Left to Rot in a Hollow Tree/Its Branches Throwing Shadows/On the Gallows for Me/And The Next Day/And The Next/And Another Day" - "The Next Day", David Bowie

"David Bowie is back, but hopefully not for long. The switch-hitting, bisexual, senior citizen from London has resurfaced, this time playing a Jesus-like character who hangs out in a nightclub dump frequented by priests, cardinals and half-naked women....In short, the video reflects the artist - it is a mess.  [Bowie] is nothing if not confused about religion." was the decree of Bill Donohue, president of The Catholic League, commenting on "The Next Day" music video.  But however large the controversy Bowie's music stirs in religious circles, it is nothing compared to the controversy he rightfully criticizes of organized religion itself.

As always, Bowie's a remarkable wordsmith - painting and forging the picture of our present subjective experience juxtaposed against how we interact with the objective immutable reality underlying it.  And one of the clearest songs in his repertoire that does just that is his eponymous opener for his 2013 album The Next Day.  In the "The Rumpus", Moody (the lucky man to receive a list of 42 words from Bowie himself that influenced the album), wrote of the album, "....[Bowie] didn’t have to make an album, there’s nothing to prove; as the Isolar press office has indicated, his feeling is that he doesn’t want to make an album these days, unless he has something to say, and, apparently, now he has something to say. Indeed. He seems to have a great deal to say..." And in the song "The Next Day", that message is a quite clear: the state of our world rejecting the God is one of violence, lust, greed, hypocrisy, and chaos.  However, try as we might we are unable to completely eradicate Him.

Before discussing the influences and lyrics of the song, however, I want to point out that The Next Day just in the title and album cover do an excellent job at teasing its obvious link to religious thematic work.  The cover was designed by Jonathan Barnbrook (who had previously designed the covers for Heathen and Reality).  It takes a white square and puts it over the iconic "Heroes" album cover. He stated, "'Heroes' is the iconic Bowie album and to do something like put a white square on it or to cross out the title we felt was almost sacrilege but that’s the point of contemporary pop music - it spits on the past."  The relationship between past and present (should we honor the past, what is its role in influencing our present [and future], etc.) is a theme that will go on to be heavily explored throughout the work.  Additionally, the choice of font for the work is called "Doctrine", (which made its debut on the album cover), is a clear tie between the album and its commentary on religion/religious traditions.

If that wasn't enough, the title of the work is similarly evocative.  For instance, if we examine the symbolism behind the word "Day" as Gibbs does in an excellent article:

“I often feel as though a sin is truly behind me only after I’ve put a night’s sleep between that sin and myself. Be careful not to be too evil in the morning, because if you are, it will ride you all day. I find it nearly impossible to get over any wickedness the day I do it, but I find it profoundly easy to forget about the evil I did yesterday. 

All of which might point towards a dull conscience, although I think it speaks more to the mystery of the day itself. 

The day is the first measurement of time given in Scripture. God does not work in seconds or hours or weeks or years, but days. The day is even prior to the “sacred times” (Gen 3:14) which are governed by the spheres and stars. The last measurement of time is also the day. Christ describes the judgment of man occurring on “that Day.” The day is that time frame in which the Lord gives us all we need. He does not give us bread every second or every hour, but every day, and we ask for this food in a daily prayer of His composing. While there are significant Scriptural time frames other than the day (forty days, say, or a thousand years), the day is the most common way of measuring time in Holy Writ. Christ is dead for three days, not forty hours. Christ and Moses and Elijah fast for forty days, not six weeks. Christ is circumcised on the eighth day. 

Why the preeminence of the day? From the morning prayers: “Arising from sleep I thank thee, O holy Trinity, because of the abundance of thy goodness and long-suffering thou wast not wroth with me, slothful and sinful as I am; neither hast thou destroyed me in my transgressions: but in thy compassion raised me up, as I lay in despair; that at dawn I might sing the glories of thy Majesty.” The rising in the morning is an image of the resurrection, just as sleep is an image of death, and death an image of sleep. In the New Testament, “death” is spoken of in the abstract, but the death of individual persons is usually described as “rest” and “falling asleep”. The day is an image of life, and night, an image of the afterlife. What is not included in these two expanses? With God, a day is a millennium and a millennium a day, which is to say the day is a kingly reign, a never ending and perfect reign. There is a First Day and a Last Day, just as there is a First Man and a Last Man. It seems tempting to say that everything that has happened or will happen is happening on a single day.

Thus, the Biblical use of a "Day" is a preeminently clear link that bridges the gap between God, Man, and Creation itself.  It is the temporal function which holds significance for measuring God's work in the world and in us.  So if we use this information to consider Bowie's title, the tantalizing question posed in the title.  It's The Next Day.  The day after...what, exactly?  According to Bowie, it's the day after we have decided to reject God.  Or, more specifically, religion.  He particularly focuses in on the European-Christian tradition and the West's current rejection of both it and God.  As Pegg writes of the religious climate during production:

His target is neither faith nor spirituality, but the oppressive and corrupt edifices of organized religion in general, and of the Christian church in particular.  "I have no empathy with any organized relgions," he once told an interviewer.  During the early years of the twenty-first century, the reputation and credibility of the Roman Catholic Church recieved a succession of devastating blows.  The Vatican stood accused of misogyny and homophobia; of historical involvement with murderous regimes....and, most gravely of all, of not only turning a blind eye to the abuse of children within its institutions, but of actively covering it up.  By the time the Papacy was taken over in March 2013 (as chance would have it, in the same week that The Next Day was released) by an Argentinian cardinal who stood acused of complicity with his country's military junta during the "Dirty War" of the 1970s, it had become increasingly difficult for those outside the Catholic Church to see it as anything other than a discredited anachronism whose continuing influence over millions of lives was nothing short of scandalous.

If this was where the Church stood in the eyes of the world by the twenty-first century, it is no wonder that Bowie took this as fuel to his already considerable burning fire of disdain for the hypocrisy and corruption he perceived in organized religion.

Here, I do want to note that throughout Bowie's condemnation and criticism of the Church, he never criticizes the concept of spirituality or indeed the Christian Faith itself.  I want to make this distinction clear since at first glance his work could be seen as a disparaging mockery of Faith (which many Christians saw it as when it was first released).  However, I believe that what Bowie is actually doing is keeping the Church accountable for its actions.  His criticism regarding the corruption and hypocrisy of organized religion is something that I myself, along with some of my fellow "millennial Christians", have been trying to reconcile with the loving Faith that Christ wants us to embody.

However, back to the album, it was also clearly influenced by the European medieval literature Bowie was consuming at the time (one of his Top 100 Favourite Books is the Inferno).  The song portrays a scene from antiquity.  The lyrics mention gallows for hanging and whips for torturing people, the creation of paper effigies, and priests with both religious and political sway.  However, the violent scene portrayed is reserved for the European interpretation of Christianity.  It is clear that Bowie's song is addressing the spiritual, political, and cultural influence of European Christianity on our modern world.

Aside from his revealing literature choices, this is emphasized by the characters in the music video for "The Next Day".  The priests wear formal clothing, nuns dress in traditional garb, and Bowie himself wears a Messiah-like robe.  Indeed, if you look closely at the characters presented, you can see that St. Lucy of Syracuse is in attendance (her eyeballs gouged out and served on a platter, escorted in by Gary Oldman's priest) along with St. Agatha (with her unusually long blonde hair and veil) and Joan of Arc (in her shining armour).  As Pegg writes, "...if there's a theme developing, it's of female saints who were dragged to brothels as part of their martyrdom."  Thus, all of these character choices in the music video clearly link Biblical times (and figures) with that of European medieval Christian traditions and canonizations.

A sensualised St. Agatha sits with a cardinal attending her

Bowie as the Messiah, Cotillard as a prostitute - turned - Mary Magdelene, and Oldman as a Priest

Not to mention that everyone in the music video is Caucasian.  If you've ever seen a Bowie music video, you know that his casting choices are never coincidental, or that he just so happened to use an all-white cast (like Hollywood tends to do).  Instead, he wields the ethnicity of his actors as another tool to make a point (just look at "Fashion", in which every ethnicity is used to underscore his message that no one is free from falling under the hypnotic power of the celebrity).  And this point is clear: it's the European tradition of Christianity he is calling to task.



If his casting choice and list of characters still leaves you unconvinced, consider the fact that the entire video takes place in a brothel called The Decameron.  This is the title of a 14th-century narrative by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, which aside from being a series of love stories, also included satirical attacks against the Catholic Church.  His work went on to have a significant influence on many works of western literature, including Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.  While the set is dressed to resemble a European gentleman's club crossed with a place of worship.  The paintings adorning all the walls are reminiscent of Italian churches decked with art on every wall, while the darkened walls, tables, and bar resemble a place of sensuous luxury.

However, despite the fact that the song alludes to antiquity (as in the past six hundred years of European Christian traditions), Bowie's song is meant for the present.  This can be supported by the fact that the music video takes place in a club from the modern day.  Current American currency is used to pay the prostitutes, and the electricity and instruments used are all from this decade.  Not to mention that the costumes of the prostitutes are fairly modern to juxtapose the archaic robes of the other characters.  Additionally, the music itself is just as "present".  The rollicking, snarling guitar and marvellously modern drum beats place this song firmly in the Now.  Thus this song, like Bowie, may have its historical roots in the past, but its relevance and message is for the present.  As the Speaker, Bowie's hypnotic voice repeatedly commands you to "Listen" to his tale, and he won't take no for an answer.

The lyrics use only the present tense ("tells", "says", "begs", "thinks", "whip", "ignoring", "chase", "haul", "listen", "live", "die", etc.) despite its imagery and subject matter grounding it in the past.  Consequently, the lyrics of the song work to weave the two time periods together.  The past has not left our modern world, even if we want to pretend it has.  And Bowie wants to show us that a perceived "message for the past" about whether or not there is a place for religion in our world, is really more timely than ever.

His story is clearly both cautionary and prophetic all at once.  There are three different literal scenarios (or scenes/plot lines/narratives) presented in his song, just like how there are three calls to the audience to "Listen", three days the Speaker is left to rot, and the three times the chorus is repeated at the end of the song.  Like any modern scholar, Bowie understands the significance of the number to the Christian faith (the Triune God, Resurrection, etc.), and uses it as a repeated motif throughout the work.

Note: Here the lyrics to the song can be found on Bowie's official website, and below are a copy with the stanza numbers written for reference.

In the first scenario, Bowie paints the portrait of a character called HE (stanzas 1, 3, and 4).  The first line of the song depicts HE telling SHE to look into his eyes as he says goodbye.  SHE begs of HE not to cry while SHE thinks of HE's love.  HE then tells SHE to listen to "the whores" before making paper sculptures of "them".  Due to the placement of the pronoun, "them" could refer to three different parties: HE and SHE, the whores SHE is supposed to listen to, or of the "gormless and baying crowd" (referred to as THEY) that press-gang HE down the streets.  However, no matter which interpretation of the paper effigies HE creates is the correct one, HE then goes on to drag them in a cart to the river bank to throw them into the water.  Yet despite this, their "soggy paper bodies" still come back to "wash ashore in the dark" (presumably he threw them in during the night).

Meanwhile, a PRIEST demands the debauchery to begin of the women he is surrounded by.  This links the women to "the whores" SHE is supposed to listen to from earlier in the stanza.  Therefore, "the whores" serve as witnesses to the hypocrisy of the PRIEST and are the characters with the best insight to the Truth of his character.  The women are further described to be dressed "as men for the pleasure of that priest", therefore underscoring the hypocrisy of the PRIEST.  He is revealed to be indulging in sexually promiscuous (and misogynistic) behaviour as well as a secret homosexual desire.  Thus, he has cemented his participation in what is Biblically condemned to be sexually immoral behaviour and Bowie's depiction of the Church (particularly its leaders) as lascivious hypocrites is completed.

Oldman's Priest asks Cotillard's prostitute for a dance

It is interesting to note here that SHE begs HE not to cry (and not the other way around), and indeed HE's emotional state is shrouded in mystery throughout the rest of the narrative.  HE is described as being chased, whipped, hauled, dragged, and jeered at, but HE's emotional reaction to the actions of THEY and SHE is left unstated.  Indeed, the only active role he has in the song is when HE fashions the paper bodies and drags them to the river bank.  Otherwise, HE is reactionary to the actions of others like THEY.  In contrast, the character of the PRIEST is characterised as being "stiff in hate", an active character who is demanding, and salacious in nature.  His narrative has no room for love, while SHE only thinks of HE's love after he goes away.

This is interwoven with the second literal scenario of the collective character, THEY, hunting down HE (stanzas 2, 6, and 7).  By far the most active (and detailed) character in the entire song, THEY is said to (collectively) be a "gormless and baying crowd" that "can't get enough of it all".  In fact, THEY crave the "doomsday song" that harkens the demise of everyone (including themselves).  However, the characterisation of THEY as a violent, faceless mob doesn't end in stanza 6.  In stanza 7, the Speaker elaborates on their unflattering characterization as beings of chaos and evil.

THEY are a hateful, hypocritical energy galvanized to an insane frenzy by the acts of one another.  This is evidenced by the lines in stanza 7 painting THEY as people who dress like saints while they work with satan, and have knowledge of God's existence because of the devil.  Note that the line says THEY work with Satan, rather than for him, thereby leveraging their position to one of accomplice instead of unwilling servant.  Moreover, the idea of THEY having knowledge of God's existence because "the devil told them so" is reminiscent of C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters and Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.  Like Faustus, THEY seem to know (and care) little about the true nature of God rather than the fact that He, and the Spiritual Reality behind our world, is real.

To further cement their Faustian portrayal, THEY also are cited as having the power to "give you everything that you want" before "tak[ing] back everything that you have".  This adds a layer of characterisation to perceive THEY as demonic beings or sin itself, tempting the audience with desires of the flesh before consuming the spirit.  Indeed, they may "live upon their feet", but they "die upon their knees" like a blasphemous being performing an act of grovelling despair.

Meanwhile, the actions of THEY are predominately characterised by suffering.  THEY ignore the "pain of their particular diseases" while whipping HE through the streets and alleys.  THEY chase HE until they catch him before THEY haul HE through the mud and drag him to the feet of the "purple-headed priest".

St. Agnes dances while a flagellant looks on the background, whipping himself throughout the video

Thus, the previous narrative and this one are interwoven together.  As a result, the story of HE quickly becomes that of a traitor being hunted down by THEY at the behest of the PRIEST from the previous scene.  The detail of the PRIEST being "purple headed" is a callback to the Biblical symbolism of the colour purple representing authority, kingship, wealth, and royalty.  Therefore, the PRIEST is not only an important religious figure but a political one as well.  The reason THEY are dragging HE to the feet of the PRIEST, consequently, must be so that HE can be judged and condemned by the PRIEST (both spiritually and corporeally).  This makes sense regarding the fact that HE told HER to "listen to the whores", thereby supporting the idea that HE knew about the PRIEST's immoral and sinful behaviour.

With this knowledge, the aforementioned characterisations of HE and PRIEST are solidified.  HE is painted as a pitiful figure.  Chased and whipped through the streets and alleys of antiquity, HE's crime seems to be that HE is a religious and cultural traitor.  This conclusion is drawn from the paper effigies HE made (perhaps being perceived as idols [religious treason]), and the love HE shares with SHE (perhaps a forbidden affair both by the PRIEST [religious objections] and THEY [cultural objections]).

Oldman as the Priest in "The Next Day"

Cotillard a prostitute who transforms to become a Mary Magdelene type character in "The Next Day"

Meanwhile, the PRIEST is shown to be powerful, misogynistic, and corrupt by the previously aforementioned lyrics.  His lustful hypocrisy is further evidenced by the music video in which the prostitute played by Marion Cotillard is asked to dance by Gary Oldman's priest.  Mid-dance Oldman's character screams at her before Marion's hands spray blood all over the fellow revellers.  Her hands are revealed to have holes in them, alluding to the holes in Christ's hands after the Crucifixion (John 20:24-29) as well as being a reference to Galatians 2:20 (which calls believers to be crucified with Christ).  At this revelation, Oldman's character is horrified.  He screams at Bowie, "You see this?! This is [his] doing! You call yourself a prophet?!" however, he is immediately pelted with Bibles from the crowd.  This scene confronts the PRIEST with his ugly secret - that his behaviour has not followed Christ and that he is guilty of sinful actions against his fellow human being.  He has not been crucified with Christ, but instead perpetuates a system of greed (evidenced by the money exchanging hands throughout the video), lust (clearly seen by the brothel), gluttony (shown through the amount of sexual and alcoholic appetites indulged), and wrath (supported by the PRIEST's violence against other people).  In fact, to his horror, it is the lowly prostitute that is elevated to be a believer and not himself (reminiscent of Rahab's story).

However, the most important thing to note regarding both scenarios is that THEY is the only character to tie in every figure to one another (THEY chase HE, present HE to the PRIEST, take everything YOU own, and scream The Speaker's name).  THEY are the only characters marked as a threat to the audience themselves (the only two lines where "YOU", the audience, is mentioned when the Speaker warns YOU against them, as THEY "give YOU everything that YOU want and take back everything that YOU have").  However, by the final line of stanza 7 shifts the focus once again back to the mysterious Speaker/"I" when it says that THEY "screamed [the Speaker's] name aloud down into the well below".

This brings us to the third literal scenario - that of the Speaker.  It isn't until the fifth stanza (and the first iteration of the chorus) that we get a more personal sense of who he is.  In the first four stanzas the Speaker acts as an omniscient and omnipotent narrator to the events of the first two scenarios.  He plays witness to the drama of HE and SHE and testifies against the actions of the PRIEST and THEY.  This can be further evidenced by his command in stanza three to "Listen" to his witness and testimony, thereby giving the Speaker's story an underlying prophetic and authoritative tone.

The only knowledge we have of his character comes from the chorus (introduced in stanza five, with three repetitions of it to close the song).  It is revealed that despite his intimate knowledge of the events in the song, the Speaker himself is languishing away, condemned to death as well.  He proclaims the state of himself with the lines, "Here I am/Not quite dying" before revealing that his body has been left to rot inside a "hollow tree".  While the tree itself casts a shadow on the gallows, meant to hang the Speaker, it is made clear that he has been left in the tree for some time and will remain there for at least three more days.

However, because it is Bowie's own voice that is narrating the tale, the Speaker's voice is the clearest of the characters.  We can use his singing to interpret the lines and in fact, it is only through the Speaker's lens that we are granted a picture of what the world looks like (and the characters which inhabit it).  He is the one who casts THEY as "gormless and baying" and the PRIEST as someone who is "stiff in hate".  While the only time we get a glimpse of any of the characters directly linked to the Speaker is when he mentions that THEY "scream [his] name aloud down into the well below", which appears to be an allusion to THEY's link with the chthonic world.

Symbolically, it is clear that the Speaker is meant to be both Bowie and Christ.  On a contextual level, The Next Day is Bowie's last great character album, and the character that dominates it is clearly David Bowie himself.  His own mythos is mired in gossip and rumours about everything from his mysterious Berlin period to his sexuality (and sexual promiscuity) to the characters he portrayed in the 1970s (like Ziggy, the plastic rock star who "really sang" with "screwed-up eyes and screwed-down hairdo/Like some cat from Japan").  Distinct from the ordinary David Jones, David Bowie is an elusive, mysterious rock god who made a surprise comeback album ten years after his last work Reality.  What is this the Next Day of? It's the day after Bowie's musical career resurrection in which he has come back to the forefront of the music scene.

Not to mention lines like "They chase him through the alleys chase him down the steps" evoke a sense of Bowie's status as both pariah and leader (musically and culturally) previously seen in the lyrics of "Teenage Wildlife" ("You'll take me aside, and say/'Well, David, what shall I do?'/They wait for me in the hallway/I'll say, 'Don't ask me, I don't know any hallways'/But they move in numbers and they've got me in a corner/I feel like a group of one/No-no/They can't do this to me").

In fact, "The Next Day" wouldn't sound out of place on the Scary Monsters album, as both utilize an art rock sound with screaming, angsty vocals juxtaposed with a harsh guitar and fantastic basslines.  However, more than that in both albums the artist, Bowie, contemplates his next move.  Scary Monsters was made by a man whose music defined the 1970s and wondered what he would do next.  The Next Day was Bowie's response to that very question over thirty years later (including a decade of silence).  Bowie proudly proclaims, "Here I am/Not quite dying".  He and his career haven't died and - they haven't gone anywhere.  (Although let's take a moment to appreciate the irony since Bowie repeatedly said he didn't want to be doing the "singing-songwriting thing" for the rest of his life).

Meanwhile, framing the Speaker as Christ within the context of the work makes the most sense.  The line "Here I Am" is a clear callback to God's interaction with Moses in Exodus 3:14 when Moses asks God for His Name and God replies with "I AM WHO I AM".  This is additionally supported by linking the phrase with the line "they scream my name aloud down into the well below".  Here, a past Bowie song, "I Am With Name" comes to mind which cements the connection of the Speaker's "Nameless" existence to the phrase "I Am" (as His Name).  If this wasn't enough, as previously stated the Speaker only uses present-tense throughout the song, thereby solidifying the Present imbued in the song much like how God is the Living God of not just the past, but also the Now (and, of course, future).

More evidence for the Speaker as Christ can be seen in the line"My body left to rot in a hollow tree".  The phrase "hollow tree" evokes imagery of: 1) a coffin 2) the Cross and 3) the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and all three images of death play with the preceding line, "Not quite dying".  However, the word "quite" is particularly telling.  Although the imagery of death is literally emphasized, the meaning of the phrase means quite the opposite - here is a Christ clinging to life despite the fact that his body has been "left to rot".  In fact, Bowie's depiction of Christ is clearly meant to embody the emotional side of him found in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34 in which Jesus cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" before his death on the cross.  The cry is one of anger and anguish - of a person clinging to life despite his misery heard in the tonal delivery and words of the lyrics which align with the desperation of Christ in these words.

Additionally, the image of Resurrection can be seen in the chorus.  What is this the Next Day of? The day after Christ has been Resurrected.  This is supported by the fact that the last lines of the chorus list the temporal frame of the Speaker's suffering as, "...The Next Day/And The Next/And Another Day".  These three days alludes to the third day on which Christ was Resurrected after being buried (1 Corinthians 15:3-5).  And note as well that although the Speaker's body has been "left to rot", his spirit has remained untouched.

Even apart from the Crucifixion, the message is crystal clear: that even though we have left Christ to "rot", he is still "not quite dying" and as such His consistency underlies the entire work.  Despite the acts of violence that THEY commit, the attempt of HE to dispose of his paper statues in secret, and the PRIEST's lustful behaviour, the Speaker knows all, and as previously discussed, the Speaker displays an omniscience for all the events of the song similar to God's omniscience.  It is the Speaker's perspective which shapes everything, much like how Christ is the lens through which Creation is shaped (Colossians 1:16).  In fact, more than creating our impressions of the other characters, the Speaker is the only one who seems to have final say regarding the judgement of the character's spiritual states.  He condemns the hatred festering in the souls of THEY and the PRIEST, while he portrays with pity the characters of HE and SHE.

Bowie dressed like Christ in "The Next Day" music video

If all of this isn't enough, then the depiction of Bowie in the music video should serve as indisputable evidence.  Bowie, as the Speaker of the song, is dressed like Christ in the music video, and his message is prophetic (indeed, Oldman's character shouts at him that he "calls himself a prophet"), offering insight into the degraded state of humanity.  Indeed, after Bowie gathers the crowd like a Renaissance portrait, he suddenly disappears, presumably ascended into heaven (visually cementing his legacy as a rock god) at the end of the music video.  This clearly parallels Christ's Ascension to Heaven at the end of the Gospels (Luke 24:50-53).

This is not the first time Bowie has become a Messiah character, although it may be his first literal incarnation of such.  Thirty years previously, Ziggy Stardust was Bowie's most famous Messiah-figure, as evidenced by lines such as those found in Sweet Head ("Till there was rock, you only had God") and Ziggy Stardust ("He was the nazz [an allusion to Jesus of Nazareth] with God-given ass", "like a leper messiah").  Thus, it is not inconceivable that Bowie would once again don the garb of a prophetic messiah figure, coming to tell us about the apocalyptic future.  Only this time, Bowie has chosen the actual figure of Christ, and his message is just as much for the present as it is for the future.

So what do all of these scenarios and symbols add up to? That the state of our world rejecting the God is one of violence, lust, greed, hypocrisy, and chaos.  However, try as we might we are unable to completely eradicate Him.

For a start, I think it is important to note that unlike his contemporaries (see: Lennon's Imagine lyrics, "Imagine there's no heaven/It's easy if you try/No hell below us/Above us only sky"), Bowie's song never denies an objective spiritual reality lurking underneath the surface our subjective experiences of the corporeal world.  THEY are portrayed as having consistent communication with satan, saints are clearly juxtaposed to sinners, and God's existence is confirmed (even if it's through the words of the devil).  There is a thread of absolute morality in Bowie's world - even if it is warped and twisted - and that twisting is the whole point.  The song is about criticising the state of the Church and humanity's overall moral debasement.

In the first two scenarios, Bowie portrays a world that he cheerfully sang about thirty years prior in "Modern Love".  It's a world which we have decreed to have "no confession" and "no religion", and as such, this is the Next Day after we (as a culture/society) have declared that there is no need for religion (or indeed for religion to need God).  However, there is no cheerful facade left over - it has eroded away into a bleak reality.  The song paints a picture of senseless violence: an over-zealous, faceless mob press-ganging a defenceless man, the man is portrayed as a traitor to his religion and culture, the priest is proven to be a hypocritical misogynist, and the Speaker has been left for dead.  One can not help but think of Romans 1:18-32, which describes the state of the world after God gives up the unrighteous to their sinful desires and depraved minds:

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.  For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions....And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.  They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.  Though they know God's decree that those who practise such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practise them.

A graphic depiction of sexual immorality, violence, deceit, greed, and hatred is exactly what Bowie's music portrays, just like these verses.  As such, if we consider that his songs have always been an accurate mirror of society, it is no wonder that we should heed his observations as both cautionary and prophetic.  If we refuse to fix the spiritual collapse of society, this is the type of corporal world we have condemned ourselves to.

Here, it is also interesting to note how both Paul and Bowie use the depiction of sexual immorality to make their point.  In the past (and recent times), I believe the Church has failed in properly addressing what the relationship between a desire for sexual intimacy and the Faith is.  In modern Evangelical Christian culture, sex and sexuality are seen as taboo discussion topics (purity culture, the inability to converse with the LGBTQIA+ community, and a general lack of promoting and understanding sexual health are just a few examples of this).

However, in the Bible the ability to talk about sex and sexuality, in general, is rampant.  This is predominately evidenced by verses which use sexual immorality as the "sin of choice" to illustrate a larger picture of what unrighteousness, wickedness, and general sinfulness is in the eyes of God.  It is not that this type of sinful behaviour "counts" more than any other, rather its repeated references throughout Scripture can be viewed as evidence that sexual immorality is a particular sin every human can understand because we are rather obsessed with sex (both then and now - for instance, see: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20).

Similarly, Bowie uses sexual immorality to make his point about what is proper moral behaviour.  In both the song and the music video the lyrical and visual pictures he paints are devastatingly scandalous.  None of the church leaders or the Church itself comes out unscathed, but rather the humble prostitute who becomes an elevated Christ-follower by the end of the video.  She has been transformed into a Mary Magdalene-like character who has crucified herself with Christ.  Interestingly, this aligns with the Gospel teachings found in Matthew 21:31, in which Christ proclaims that prostitutes will go into the kingdom of God before the chief priests and elders of society.

Indeed, the organized religious infrastructure of the European Church being eradicated is framed as a positive thing for Christianity as evidenced by the violent scenarios in the song.  It is shown to be a chance for the Church to once again embrace the idea of organized worship as that dedicated to God rather than to serve the indulgences of corrupted leaders and condone violence against both members inside its ranks and against the people without.

Thus, "The Next Day" is revealed to ultimately be a song of hope rather than despair.  Bowie offers us a chance to imagine a Faith where corrupted officials, senseless mob mentality, and misogynistic violence are eradicated.  And despite the world's best efforts to be one of nihilistic, chaotic, meaningless violence (as starkly depicted in the song), it's clear that Christ Himself is still "not quite dead".  As previously discussed, if the Speaker is meant to be Christ, then it is He who is singing the song with a strong sense of vitality right alongside a sense of righteous wrath for the hypocritical church leaders and violent crowds.  Thus, a sense of objective order and righteous justice is revealed to be the backbone of the work, (although mired under layers of subjective perception and obscured characters).  And it is this that offers us a message of hope.  It tells us that no matter what we do, even if organized religion "fails", Christ can be found underneath it all - "not quite dying" despite our best efforts as a culture to believe otherwise.  And that He will continue to be relevant to us (individually and culturally) Now, as much as He was Then.