Saint David Bowie? Not yet, but faith leaders pay respects to dead rocker

[rug]

Two women stop at a mural of David Bowie in Brixton, south London, January 11, 2016. By Stefan Wermuth courtesy of Reuters

David Gibson | Jan 11, 2016

(RNS) The legendary musician and showman David Bowie was as mutable and enigmatic about his religious views — such as they were — as he was about his music and art (and gender-bending fashion choices).

Yet his death from cancer on Sunday at 69 brought tributes from religious leaders who knew talent when they saw it, and perhaps recognized that Bowie’s crossover style would inevitably touch the ineffable as he constantly looked for meaning — and novelty.

“I’m very, very saddened to hear of his death,” Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, leader of the Anglican Communion, told the BBC. “I remember sitting listening to his songs endlessly … and always really relishing what he was, what he did, the impact he had.”

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So where was Bowie on the religious spectrum? Apparently everywhere, just as he was on the aesthetic spectrum, from the time of his youth in England where he was born David Robert Jones:

“I was young, fancy free, and Tibetan Buddhism appealed to me at that time,” he told comedian and talk show Ellen DeGeneres in 2007. “I thought, ‘There’s salvation.’ It didn’t really work. Then I went through Nietzsche, Satanism, Christianity … pottery, and ended up singing. It’s been a long road.”

http://davidgibson.religionnews.com/2016/01/11/david-bowie-cancer-vatican/

[Melurkyoulongtime]

1. So glad I got to see him in person before he passed

Superb artist. He will be missed

[yeoman6987]

2. It's nice that everyone from religious to atheists could enjoy his music

Nothing wrong with that.

[goldent]

3. For pop music, he was my favorite artist.

His hits were pop, but really good pop.