Reflecting on Anthony Bourdain
It was my wife who got me into Parts Unknown, and who later led me deep into the archives of Anthony Bourdain’s work to watch The Layover and No Reservations. We listened to the audiobook of his breakout memoir Kitchen Confidential. She loved his irreverent humor, I enjoyed his compelling writing, and we both appreciated his openness to new places and people.
This weekend, we watched Roadrunner, Morgan Neville’s new documentary about the late chef-turned-TV-host. It was beautiful. If you are at all a fan of Bourdain, I highly recommend this honest, heavy, multivocal reflection on his legacy.
“I try to be more like Christ.”
The movie caused me to think about Bourdain’s spirituality, and it pointed me to larger questions about which faith (and whose faith) counts. I’m certainly not the first person to think about Bourdain and faith. After his death, World Religion News released an interesting piece about his (lack of) religion. He was irreligious for basically his whole life but was very respectful of religious belief—provided the believers practiced what they preached. He was not okay with religious hypocrisy.
But I thought about this theme during the film because of a fascinating conversation it documents between Bourdain and his longtime friend, chef Eric Ripert. Sitting in the picturesque French countryside sipping wine, Bourdain remarks, “I try to live more like Christ every day.” Ripert (himself a Buddhist), looking truly surprised, asks, “Really?” I think this moment was cut from its TV episode (Parts Unknown S6 E2), but it’s from the same sitting as their hilarious discussion about reincarnation.
After hearing this brief exchange, I was taken back to the early 2000s, when U2 front man Bono gave an interview with Rolling Stone where he identified as a Christian (unlike Bourdain, for the record, who said he did not believe in God). I remember my circle of evangelicals being very uncomfortable with Bono’s self-designation. That’s no surprise, if you’re familiar with that culture: in the interview, Bono quotes one of his own songs, “Wake Up Dead Man,” which starts with these words: “Jesus help me / I'm alone in this world / And a fucked-up world it is, too.”
I can almost hear my young self with my friends, saying (or at least thinking): “Bono isn’t really a Christian.”
Depending on your background, you may find this kind of long-distance policing of people’s faith identities blasé or absolutely shocking. Either way, it’s very real. In that tradition, to be a Christian meant to be our kind of Christian. To conform to the expectations of belief and practice laid out in our interpretation of the Bible. We didn’t just get to decide who could be a member of our church, or who could be considered a conservative evangelical Christian; we thought we had the rights to the entire global religion.
Celebrating the journey of the “other”
I suppose this reflection is simply a reminder for us all to stop gate-keeping and start seeing and celebrating people for who they are. Anthony Bourdain was many things. A chef, a traveler, a celebrity, a father, and a guide. He was deeply flawed, and the end of his life was marked by loneliness and pain. He was a complicated and beautiful person.
Part of the complication—and part of the beauty—is that, while irreligious, he was inspired by the way of Jesus. How will we respond to this fact? Will we laugh or mock or scold or try to undo his own self-understanding? Or will we be grateful that he, like all of us, was on a spiritual journey?
In the words of my cousin, who posted just after the news of Bourdain’s suicide in 2018: “I selfishly wish that I could have watched his adventures for 10-20 more years. His stories, travels, and perspectives on culture, politics, social justice, and food resonated deeply with me. I wish that I could have shared a meal and had a beer with this human being.”
For those of us who wish to celebrate Bourdain, perhaps the best way we can do it is to have our own adventures, to give and receive our own stories, to have meals and beer together, and to keep learning from the “other.”
We’d love to adventure with and learn from you. Click here if you’re on board.
