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 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
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| The Nashville Statement
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Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
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Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
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| The Music Christians Make... |
I don't listen to a lot of "Christian" music.
Even as I write this I am listening to an eclectic mix of non-Christian music; so eclectic in fact, I had to turn away from that old root of pride in myself that began to want to share the very eclecticity (not to be confused with electricity) of it with you; for who doesn't want to be respected and admired as a musical dilettante?
Don't get me wrong, I will be the first to stand on my roof, pitchfork and burning torch in hand, to point in learned condemnation at whole swathes of secular music and boldly and lucidly pontificate alongside the pious and shrill alike, declaring that this song or that song is not fit to ring in the ears of any who claim to bear in themselves the Spirit of Christ.
So when I say that I don't listen to a lot of Christian music, I do not mean to imply that I have tossed all discernment out the window, and that I now openly embrace, and encourage the embracing of all things carnal and secular.
Good gravy, no. I only mean that when I sing "twinkle twinkle little star" I am not denying Christ in doing so.
Did you ever admire the beauty of a thistle in flower? I have. How about a Dandelion? What of the rich smell of a field overrun by clover in flower? My fondest memories are almost all outdoors, and rich with the sights and smells that were all around me, many of which were simple weeds. I can't look at one of these without remember two things: They in their beauty declare the glory of God, even as they declare the curse that God cursed the world with on account of sin.
Even something that only exists because of sin - declares the glory of God. It has a beauty, not because sin brought it into being, but rather because all things exist to give God glory, and those who have eyes and ears to hear and see it, do.
That kind of thought can easily be appealed to by those who want to justify all manner of clear and obvious sin. They will appeal to the admiration of creation when in fact they just want to lust after naked women. They will appeal to an admiration of the human creative spirit, when in fact they just love their music more than they love God. I put forward something that is so easily twisted, it is almost folly to set it out there - and yet truth is often subtle, and we ought not to back away from it just because that is so.
The truth is, my heart melted the first time my daughter sang "twinkle twinkle" or the complete alphabet. Not because the song itself glorified God - but because I could see the glory of God in His creation through the singing of those songs. Had my children been singing their way through songs that were obviously corrupt in their language, or suggestive in their genre, I would still have admired the beauty of God's creation in that He created people who are able to express themselves in ways that are musical, and creative - but I would never suggest that just because a thing that openly or suggestively dishonours God can still bring Him glory, that it makes all things acceptable to and for the believer - because I don't believe that for a second.
I just think that a discerning Christian can listen to music that isn't labeled "Christian" and do so without sinning or even compromising.
Now all that is actually an aside.
I didn't write this post to justify my eclectic taste in music, nor to make a case for those who would follow my example. Rather as I was absently perusing the Christian music section of iTunes, and having wandered a few paces from the Keith Green section, I soon found myself sampling 30 second musical pericopes from various "Christian" bands that I can only describe (charitably) as an all out carnal assault against all things holy. Apparently angst filled young adults panting out vaguely spiritual, cow-eyed and breathy lyrics over the obligatory cacophonous drone of the moment is all you need if you want to sell music to people who purchase Christian music.
I am being intentionally sharp here. I don't think there is such a thing as "Christian music" - though I do allow that there are such things as Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual songs. A lot of what I find under the label "Christian Music" is not the sort of stuff I would ever want to listen to - even if the lyrics were lucid and doctrinally sound;
I get more out of an old secular tune that strikes me as inoffensive, even if it doesn't overtly give glory to God, than I do out of so called Christian music that makes me recoil from it for all its worldliness.
That isn't to say that there are not shining and wonderful exceptions - there are and those who listen to "Christian" radio probably avoid the rest and go straight to these when they are on iTunes. But I stopped listening to the radio when I moved out from home long ago (1985), so I have no pressing desire to listen to Christian radio just for the novelty of it, and early efforts to do so were more than a little disappointing.
I don't think Christian music is going to get better either. If anything it will just continue to ape the world in its music, and continue to drop increasingly weightless lyrics on top of that. Perhaps a day is coming when we may find more of God in the secular catalog than in the sacred.Labels: Christian music, secular music |
posted by Daniel @
11:41 AM
 
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| 1 Comments: |
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Thanks for sharing that Daniel.
I used to listen to WRBS, my hometown "Christian" radio station. But you are so right that the "breathy" singing of insipid lyrics is worldly, in the name of Jesus.
WRBS used to have RC Sproul, Alistair Begg, Chuck Swindoll, and John MacArthur on their afternoon broacasts, but they removed them so that they could play that uch more music. Crazy.
And they play the same tunes over and over. And the owrse part is that the audience for this is huge. I don't get it.
Thanks again for posting your heart. It helped me with mine.
I do pray for WRBS. They do want the Gospel to go forth, but they have a moral gospel that says: God loves all people, and sees the good in us, and wants to help us with our problems, and make us better persons.
They miss the truth of God's wrath is being stored up against a world of sinners who live their own way, and deny Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is the only hope for sinners like us.
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Thanks for sharing that Daniel.
I used to listen to WRBS, my hometown "Christian" radio station. But you are so right that the "breathy" singing of insipid lyrics is worldly, in the name of Jesus.
WRBS used to have RC Sproul, Alistair Begg, Chuck Swindoll, and John MacArthur on their afternoon broacasts, but they removed them so that they could play that uch more music. Crazy.
And they play the same tunes over and over. And the owrse part is that the audience for this is huge. I don't get it.
Thanks again for posting your heart. It helped me with mine.
I do pray for WRBS. They do want the Gospel to go forth, but they have a moral gospel that says: God loves all people, and sees the good in us, and wants to help us with our problems, and make us better persons.
They miss the truth of God's wrath is being stored up against a world of sinners who live their own way, and deny Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is the only hope for sinners like us.