How Twenty One Pilots Hijacked My Theology

Why “Tear in My Heart” Hit Me Harder Than It Hit My Teenagers

There are some songs you discover in a beautiful, meaningful way.

And then there are songs that are weaponized against you by your own children before 7:30 in the morning.

This is one of those stories.

I wrote about this moment in my book, A Theology of Bohemian Rhapsody, because honestly, it was too ridiculous not to include. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized this song deserves a little more attention than a funny family memory.

Because somehow—through sleep deprivation, teenage mockery, and a car stereo loud enough to register on the Richter scale—God snuck in.

And He did it through Twenty One Pilots.

My Car Was in the Shop

Which Apparently Meant My Children Took Control of My Life

A few years ago, my car was in the shop for the week.

I don’t remember why. Probably something expensive and disrespectful.

What I do remember is this: I needed a ride to school.

Now, we had two perfectly capable teenage drivers in the house who shared a car, so naturally I assumed I would simply take their vehicle for the week.

You know.

Like a father.

Like a man with authority.

Like someone whose name is on insurance documents.

My son immediately informed me, “We’ll give you a ride.”

I furrowed my brow and said something fatherly like:

“That’s not how this works. My car. My rules. I drive.”

At which point my daughter walked into the room, my son repeated my sentence back to me in a deep caveman voice, and they both laughed and walked away.

This should have been my first sign that the week was not going to go well.

Tuesday Morning: Humiliation Begins

The next morning, I lost the battle for the car.

I climbed into the backseat like a defeated Uber passenger while my daughter got behind the wheel and my son claimed shotgun like he’d just won a military campaign.

Everyone buckled in.

She backed out of the garage.

Shifted into drive.

And then…

nothing.

We just sat there for a second.

I looked up from my coffee just in time to see both of them turn around with the kind of smile usually seen on minor villains in low-budget action films.

Then my son hit play.

And the car exploded.

“An-nyong-ha-se-yo…”

Now, I had no idea what that meant at the time.

Later I learned it means “hello” in Korean.

At the time, it meant:

“Welcome to hell, Dad.”

The speakers detonated.

My coffee jumped.

Birds fled trees.

Deer likely changed counties.

Children at bus stops started dancing.

And there I was in the backseat, jammed against the upholstery while “Tear in My Heart” by Twenty One Pilots blasted through the vehicle like a hostage negotiation soundtrack.

It’s only a seven-minute drive to school.

But under the right conditions, seven minutes can become an eternity.

Wednesday: Same Song. Same Ritual. Same Suffering.

The next day?

Same thing.

Thursday?

Same thing.

At this point I started wondering if I was living under a generational curse.

So, that night I did what any mature adult father would do.

I stole the key fob and hid it in my backpack.

The next morning I strutted toward the garage like William Wallace.

And there they were.

Already in the front seat.

Grinning.

My son held up the spare key and yelled through the glass:

“Get in the back, old man!”

There are moments in fatherhood where grace is required.

This was not one of them.

But I got in the backseat anyway.

Only this time, I didn’t cover my ears.

Mostly because the volume had already made that strategy irrelevant.

So instead…

I listened.

And that’s when the whole thing changed.

The Line That Got Me

Buried under the chaos, I heard this:

“Sometimes you gotta bleed to knowThat you’re alive and have a soul…”

And then:

“She’s the tear in my heart…”

And then:

“Take me higher than I’ve ever been.”

Now hold on.

That is not just random indie-pop poetry written by a guy in a beanie.

That lyric has teeth.

And if you want to find the theology in this song, it’s wise to look at the place where the singer is happily shedding blood for the one he loves.

That’s where it gets interesting.

Because love—real love—always costs something.

Always.

A Good Place to Look for Theology: Blood

One of the easiest ways to know whether a song is scratching at something deeper is to ask this:

Where is the wound?

Not because love is miserable.

But because love always opens us up.

Love stretches us.

Love exposes us.

Love tears us in places we didn’t know could hurt.

And yet… somehow… We still want it.

That’s why this line matters:

“She’s the tear in my heart.”

That’s not just romance.

That’s revelation.

The singer isn’t saying:

“She makes me mildly happy and emotionally stable.”

No.

He’s saying:

“This relationship has opened me up.It has wounded me in an incredible way.And somehow, I’m more alive because of it.”

That’s not weakness.

That’s love doing what love does.

Tyler Joseph Wasn’t Just Writing a Cute Love Song

Once I started digging, I found out something that made the whole song land even harder.

Tyler Joseph, the lead singer of Twenty One Pilots, wrote “Tear in My Heart” while he was courting the woman who would become his wife.

And suddenly the whole song changes.

Because now this isn’t just some catchy, quirky, slightly weird alternative love song.

Now it becomes a song about the kind of love that is willing to suffer.

And that’s where things get really interesting.

Because real love—actual love, not Instagram-caption love—always bleeds.

That’s what real love does.

It costs.

It opens us up.

It wounds us.

It stretches us.

And if it’s real enough, it makes us say:

I would endure pain if it meant I could be with you.

That’s why this lyric is so important:

“She’s a butcher with a smile,Cut me farther than I’ve ever been.”

That is not a Hallmark card.

That is not soft, harmless, safe little romance.

That is a man saying:

“Loving her has opened me up in ways I’ve never experienced before.”

And if you really listen to it, there’s something strangely beautiful there.

Because when a man is deeply in love, especially when he is pursuing the woman he loves, he becomes willing to follow.

Willing to rearrange his life.

Willing to sacrifice comfort.

Willing to look foolish.

Willing to be inconvenienced.

Willing to suffer.

Whatever she does, he’ll go.

Whatever it costs, he’ll pay.

Whatever awkward social situation she drags him into, he will somehow end up there wearing a nice shirt and pretending this was his idea.

That’s love.

At least the beginning of it.

But if we stay there, we miss the deeper thing this song is brushing up against.

Because there is a kind of love far deeper than romance.

Far deeper than courtship.

There is a love that says:

I would be wounded for you.I would be torn open for you.I would suffer if suffering was the road that got me closer to you.

And now we’re not just talking about Tyler Joseph.

Now we’re standing at the foot of a Cross.

What If Christ Himself Is Singing This?

This is where the song gets wild if you turn it around and listen differently.

What if, just for a moment, we hear this song as if Jesus Christ Himself is singing it to us?

Not in some cheesy, Christian-radio way.

But seriously.

What if the one singing:

“She’s the tear in my heart…”

is Christ?

What if He’s looking at humanity—at you, at me, at every stubborn, distracted, wounded, wandering person on earth—and saying:

“Cut me farther than I’ve ever been.”

That changes everything.

Because Christianity makes a claim so outrageous most of us stop hearing how insane it really is:

God is not just our Creator. He is our Lover.

He is not distant.

He is not cold.

He is not merely tolerating us from heaven while waiting for us to get our act together.

He is courting us.

Pursuing us.

Drawing us.

Calling us.

Wanting union with us. Intimate union.

And if that sounds too intense, it’s only because we’ve made religion too tame.

Scripture doesn’t describe God as mildly interested in humanity.

It describes Him like a Bridegroom.

Like a Lover.

Like Someone willing to do whatever it takes to bring His beloved home.

And what did that love look like?

It looked like wounds, nails, scourging, and humiliation.

It looked like being beaten, mocked, pierced, stripped, abandoned, and lifted up for the whole world to see.

And if you can handle the image for just a second…

it’s almost as if Christ hangs there, looks down from the Cross, and says:

“Cut me farther than I’ve ever been.”

Not because pain is good.

Not because suffering is romantic.

But because love is willing to go where comfort never will.

That’s the point.

The Cross is not just torture.

The Cross is proof.

Proof that God would rather be torn open than lose us. Just like the lead singer of 21 Pilots. Just like my wife…even to this day.

Every Wound Means Something

And if we dare to hear this song through that lens, then suddenly the theology gets almost too big to hold.

Because now the wounds of Christ are no longer abstract religious symbols hanging on a church wall.

Now they become deeply personal.

Now each wound says something.

Each lash.

Each bruise.

Each nail.

Each drop of blood.

Each piercing.

Each torn place in His body becomes a declaration:

“This is how much you mean to Me.”

In other words:

“Each wound I have is a representation of the love I have for you.”

That is Christianity.

That is divine love.

That is what we are talking about when we say God loves us.

Not generic kindness.

Not spiritual encouragement.

Not “thoughts and prayers.”

A love so intense it is willing to be butchered with a smile if that’s what it takes to get His beloved back.

And the wild part?

We are the ones wounding Him.

That’s the part nobody likes to sit with.

We resist Him.

Ignore Him.

Wander from Him.

Mock Him.

Replace Him.

Use Him when life falls apart and forget Him when it’s going well.

And still…

He keeps coming closer.

Still He courts.

Still He pursues.

Still He loves.

Still He draws near.

Even though we wound Him, He doesn’t run.

He stays.

Because that’s what love does.

This Song Might Be Saying More Than It Knows

No, I don’t think Twenty One Pilots sat down and said:

“Let’s write a subtle theological meditation on sacrificial love, divine pursuit, and the mystery of the Cross.”

Probably not.

But I do think they stumbled into something true.

And that’s what great songs often do.

They tell the truth before the artist even fully realizes the truth they’re telling.

That’s why the songs we already love and already listen to keep circling back to the same things over and over again:

• longing

• ache

• desire

• sacrifice

• heartbreak

• pursuit

• surrender

• blood

Why?

Because we can’t escape it.

We are all created by the same God.

Formed by the same Love.

Drawn from the very beginning toward the same kind of communion.

That means even when a songwriter isn’t trying to be theological, he is still writing out of a heart that was made in the image of sacrificial Love itself.

That’s why so many songs—whether they know it or not—keep wandering back toward the Cross.

Not because every songwriter is consciously religious.

But because every human heart was made by Love, for Love, and cannot stop reaching for it.

That’s what makes songs like “Tear in My Heart” so interesting.

Because if we really listen to it, it’s not hard to hear this:

Real love will wound you.Real love will cost you.Real love will open you up. Real love will ask something of your body, your pride, your comfort, your control.And real love, when it is true enough, will gladly bleed.

That is not just romance.

That is something much older.

Much deeper.

Much holier.

And once you hear that…

this song stops being cute.

It becomes sacred.

Because from the very beginning, we were made by sacrificial Love—and no matter how far we drift, our songs keep trying to get back there.