On the first leg of his European tour in 2013, in
Oslo, he was seen wearing an earring in the shape of a cross.
"It's like
Al Pacino in 'The Godfather:' I try to get out but they pull you back
in! Once a Catholic, always a Catholic. I attended Catholic school from
the age of 5 until 18. I got brainwashed as a child with Catholicism.”
But Springsteen said he did not mean this in a purely negative sense.
For a child this is a very poetic, dramatic and spectacular world.
After hearing him sing and talk about this again
and again in his songs and interviews, Rutgers University in New
Brunswick, New Jersey, announced it was launching the first university
course ever in Springsteenian theology.
As of next year, students
enrolling at the university will be able to sign up for Professor Azzan
Yadin-Israel’s course, which will cover the “Boss’s” relationship with
God, from Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. (1973) to Wrecking Ball (2012).
“Theologically, I would say the most
dominant motifs are redemption - crossing the desert and entering the
Promised Land - and the sanctity of the everyday. Springsteen tries to
drag the power of religious symbols that are usually relegated to some
transcendent reality into our lived world. In his later albums he also
writes very openly about faith. In his later albums he also writes very
openly about faith,” said Yadin-Israel, an associate professor of Jewish
studies and classics who usually teaches Rabbinic literature but also
strongly believes in Springsteen, whom he has felt an appreciation for
since middle school.