The Science of Elvis

I was a huge Elvis Presley fan growing up.  In fact, I was Elvis for Halloween for three consecutive years as a kid. My mom made me a sweet replica of the white jumpsuit—cape included. No, I will not post those pictures.  

In 1976, my dad surprised me with a pair of tickets to see Elvis in the old, old Charlotte Coliseum (now Bojangles Coliseum).  March 20, 1976. It was my very first concert. If you need a ringer for the question “What was your first concert?” in a group setting, get your people in touch with my people.

After the warmup band finished that night, the lights when down, and the place started going crazy.  Then he came out and the spotlight went on. I’ve never seen anything like it—before or since. 

There were two teenage girls sitting right in front of dad and me, and at the first glance of Elvis, they both started screaming at the top of their lungs and jumping up and down. Within 30-45 seconds they both passed out and fell down. They never saw the show! The first aid army came and got them (along with a host of other people all over the place), and I never saw them again.  I couldn't believe it.

I’ve often thought about that experience.  What was it that made those girls—and a bunch of other people—go nuts? Maybe it was that, to them, Elvis was bigger than life, and they were overwhelmed by his presence near them.

Every concert I've been to since then has been some of the same.  People want to worship something and/or someone bigger than themselves.  You don't have to be a Christian to want to worship; that's just human nature.  Ultimately, people want to know if there is something out there bigger than us. It’s why Emerson wrote, “Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.” It's simply a question of whether we are going to worship the creator or the created—the idols and icons in our culture and lives. 

So, we are left with Elvis and science. . . worship and wonder. . . Creator and created.

The physicist and philosopher, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, once said that modern science is a "legacy, I might even have said, a child of Christianity." (quoted in the wonderful book, Finding God at Harvard). That may rub some folks the wrong way—which is fine and understandable—but we must at least consider the option that the God  of the Bible is real—all the while recognizing that life is still astonishing, wonderful, mysterious, and sometimes problematic for us.  No matter how much or how little we understand God, there's more adventure into the unknown.

But here’s the thing about a God who is both knowable and also unfathomable: that paradox is a whole lot more real and exciting than hearing about someone showing up at a Burger King in Kalamazoo, Michigan years after their last concert. . .and death.

"If God can be understood and comprehended by any of our human means, then I cannot worship Him.  One thing is sure.  I will never bend my knees and say 'Holy, holy, holy' to that which I have been able to decipher and figure out in my own mind!  That which I can explain will never bring me to the place of awe.  It can never fill me with astonishment or wonder or admiration."

—A. W. Tozer