KALAMAZOO —

When musician

broke onto the music scene in the mid-1990s as the frontman for the subtly Christian rock band Pedro the Lion, the honesty of his lyrics quickly made him a voice of sorts for those Christian rock kids who needed someone to tell them it’s OK to be a Christian and still struggle with everyday problems.

Now 34 and a father five years out from the final Pedro show played in Seattle, Wash., where he’s lived since 1991, Bazan is producing solo work that takes the questions he had with his own evangelical Christianity a step further, disassociating himself with his former faith and

.

In a phone interview from New Jersey while en route to a show in Washington, D.C., Bazan, who will appear at 7 p.m. Tuesday at The Strutt, said the process that led to his disassociation with Christianity began with “some stones that needed to be turned over and looked under.”

“For most people, I think that Christianity and the decision to become Christian isn’t at the end of years of research about the claims of Christianity or the nature of Christianity; it’s usually an emotional decision that happens because of some dealing with despair or whatever,” Bazan said. “And I realized as I was trying to piece together my understanding about Christianity in the world that there were so many assumptions that undergirded my entire belief system that I had never examined, and it dawned on me that I needed to go and examine all the things that I had always assumed my whole life that were the premises on which I based my faith.”

If you go David Bazan



What: Alternative rock/folk with mewithoutYou

When: June 29

Where: The Strutt, 773 W. Michigan Ave.

Time: 7 p.m.

Cost: $15

Contact: 269-492-7200, www.thestrutt.com



Connect

www.davidbazan.com







The pursuit of examining those religious assumptions eventually led to their unraveling, and Bazan’s thought process, as well as glimpses of the fallout that has resulted from his religious decisions, is directly addressed on his first solo full-length, “Curse Your Branches” (Barsuk, 2009), his most personal and autobiographical album to date.

On the album, Bazan addresses theological questions ranging from those associated with the concept of biblical creation (“If you knew what would happen and made us just the same / then you, my lord, can take the blame,” he sings on “When We Fell”) to those questions of biblical sin and free will (“All fallen leaves should curse their branches / for not letting them decide where they should fall / and not letting them refuse to fall at all,” he sings on “Curse Your Branches”).

In recent years, Bazan has described himself as an agnostic, but is quick to point out the term is a kind of loosely defined shorthand he uses to describe where he’s at in terms of his personal beliefs.

“I don’t know what I believe about what we can or can’t know,” he said, “but I don’t know currently.”

One thing he does know is that he is still searching, even if he’s not quite sure what it is he’s searching for.

“I kind of am involved in a very, maybe lifelong exit interview from Christianity,” Bazan said, “and I find it very fascinating.”