A Study of

By Joel [Thunder Angel]

    There are some people that I have encountered who disapproved of my taste in music as a Christian. Some who have been subtle, and some who have been blatant. But, there is something about this subject that many opponents fail to recognize, either purposely or innocently. Music is a language that everyone recognizes. Even a song sung in another dialect than english can be "Felt" by it's dynamics. You don't have to understand the words to know if a song is mournful or joyous. That is why many people go to operatic performances, because they love the depth of feeling from the music, even though they might not understand the words being sung. Music is a God given language that even transcends day to day communication. It touches our emotion instantly when we hear it, either inciting disgust, fear, sadness or joy... or a complex combination of the four. Music cannot be ignored, no matter what one thinks about the issue.

Christian music is a very sensitive topic, because music is such a powerful thing. We protect our musical tastes violently because it is such a deeply embedded identity to us. We fashion much of our lives around music. Even Christians do this. That is why at Church gatherings the musical service takes first place over the sermon, because it prepares the heart for Spiritual realities to be revealed.
 

Hymns are widely regarded as the most traditional form of Christian worship, but there are other congregations who are opting for contemporary worship services, and still others are choosing ancient Celtic styles in their worship services. Then there are a few congregations that go beyond soft to mid-range contemporary into heavier styles... Hip Hop, Hard Rock and even Heavy Metal. Some Christians however disapprove of heavier styles of  music. Even those who enjoy contemporary Christian music find harder styles repulsive, and even dangerous. But, is Rap, Hard Rock and Heavy Metal really beyond redemption?

In virtually every article that I have read refuting the idea of Christian Contemporary Music (CCM), the refutations usually revolve around few things... Christianizing something considered worldy, emphasizing rhythm over melody and harmony, lyrics that are not always focused on Biblical passages, and the way music with a beat thrills the flesh.

As far as the first refutation goes... Christianizing something considered "Of the world"... What about the sword of Goliath? After David used it to cut off Goliath's head, it became a "Holy" instrument, as seen later on when the adult David needed a weapon, and discovered that the sword of Goliath was found in the Holy sanctuary behind the prayer shawl?

If Goliath's sword were incapable of being used for God's glory because it originated in a pagan culture, then why was it found in God's house?

Furthermore, since every single one of us after the fall originated in sin... why would God save us and place us in His Kingdom if He were not in the business of redeeming "Worldly" things?

The idea that "Christianizing" something that is said to originate in the world is not that different from God taking the gold of Egypt to overlay the Ark of the Covenant.

      The second refutation involves the emphasis of rhythm in contemporary music. The idea suggests that CCM is all about making a person "Feel" good. Well then, if music is not supposed to make us feel good then I suppose sex should be abolished, because the Bible makes clear in 1st Cor 7 that sexual intimacy between spouses is not all about having babies. It is meant for physical pleasure as well.

How about cutting off our tongue so we don't enjoy the taste of food, or cutting off noses so we can't enjoy the scent of roses, or the smell of a freshly fallen rain? If physical pleasure is really a godless thing, why did God make physical pleasure?

God created rhythm. We all move rhythmically. Rhythm is not chaotic, there is an order to it. There is a certain rhythm even to creation itself. The stones in a stream move the waters into a particular babble. The (Healthy) heart beats with a steady pattern, even when it's pace is quickened. Even language requires rhythm. So, the idea that rhythm is not of God is stupid. Actually, music with a beat can contribute to the health of the human body. It naturally increases blood flow, and is good for the cardio-vascular system. When the body feels good, it contributes to physical health.

There is no creation that did not originate with the Creator God who created all things. If rhythm was not of God, it would imply that we or the devil created something that God did not originate. Actually, if there is any perverted music at all (Which there is)... it did not "originate" with the evil one, or with fallen humanity. It was once good, but became perverted.

Remember in Ezekiel 28 when Tyrus [Lucifer] was condemned? What perverted him?... His self worship. He saw the matchless beauty that he was, and thought that it earned him a special place in Divinity. Lucifer perverted himself by reason of the beauty which was given to him. In other words, God made Lucifer in part to delight in his beauty... not to worship it. His beauty was not what corrupted him, it was the attitude that he developed because of his beauty.


     The third objection to CCM is that lyrically, a lot of it focuses too much on human experience and not enough on God. However many of the Psalms focus almost entirely on human experience. Lamentations dwells so much on the element of human suffering that reading it leaves one almost drowned in despair. Song of Songs focuses so much on two lover's passion for one another that God isn't even mentioned anywhere in the entire book,... yet, it is still found in God's Word.

So, if God lets an entire book be placed in the Holy Scriptures that doesn't even directly mention Him, why would He be incapable of sanctifying a song that does not mention Him?

What this means is that... just because a song does not mention God does not mean that it is not God's song.

The forth objection has already been dealt with. A song that has a beat does not equate to "sinful." Just because it feels good to listen to it does not mean it's not sanctified.

So, Christian metal is not an "oxymoron" as one objector put it, nor is it "blasphemy" as another objector claimed. It has real benefits. There are pastors today who came to Christ because of the music of Stryper back in the 80's. That is the real substance of taking a musical form rejected by religion and sanctifying it to reveal God to the world.
 

     All music comes from God, but it can... just like the heart... be twisted. Does this explain the existence of hard forms of music then? Are such hard styles actually a twisted version of their original glory? I will say... Yes, they are. As well as the hymns of old. Did I just say that? Did I just say that the old Christian Hymns are twisted? Yes I did. And, here is why they are twisted... because many Christian Hymns tell not only of God's Glory, but human struggles as well. You see, even the old hymns put imperfect human beings and their struggles in the picture, just like the Psalms.

But, consider this with me for a moment. God's Word is perfect. So, why are there firsthand "imperfect" human struggles recorded in His Word then? In the Psalms there are not only struggles of pain and sorrow, but actual seething hatred and prayers for vengeance. Does such imperfect human struggles make God's Word tainted? Why did not God come back and rebuke David and the writers of the Psalms for their blatantly "Human" emotions? Furthermore, why did God allow such twisted human emotions to be recorded in His Word without rebuke for all of us to experience today, who read them?

You see, the Psalms testify of God's willingness to allow us to "Feel" as human beings. We see in the Psalms a very "Human" expression that goes through incredible highs and lows. And, ironically this is the very thing that many Christians condemn today. Those who seek to silence the human side of us and say "Focus only on God". But, while that sounds like a noble statement, the (Reality) is that we simply cannot shut off our feelings and pretend to be happy when we are not. And, many Christians think it's "Idolatry" to emphasize emotion. If that is true then God Himself is guilty of evil for giving us the ability to inwardly feel. And, He is also a liar as well because the Bible clearly says that God "Tempts no one". Yet, we are tempted every single day to feel. The only possible way we can think of our emotions is to understand that they are a Gift to us rather than a curse. And, to reject that Gift is to do nothing more than unknowingly spit in God's face. And, that is exactly what many Christians do these days when they preach that Christian music should be "Void of Us" and solely about God. If that is true then God made a boo boo for letting the Psalms be recorded in His Word.

Sarcasm aside, I can tell you with absolute certainty that God makes no mistakes. He allowed the Psalms... (Un-rebuked)... for a special reason. He was showing us that to "Feel" is important. We are creatures of emotion. And, emotion is integrated in everything we do, say or think. God Himself is emotional. Yet, He is "Perfectly" emotional. He has no highs and lows like we do, yet He understands pain and suffering well. Jesus was "A Man of Sorrows, Intimate with Grief." God Himself went through untold agony in the Old Testament at the rejection of His people. He even said numerous times that He would avenge Himself upon them horribly. But, even still He restrained Himself rather than wiping them out.

 
Such an "Emotional" God seems blatantly offensive to many people today, even to many Christians. But, He truly is emotional. Many think that anger makes one imperfect, so they assume that if God is "Perfect" then He would not be given to anger, but that is not so. How can im-perfect human beings judge what perfection truly means? We can't! That is why we struggle to understand God. Having never known perfection ourselves, we are sorely incapable of explaining what it is. Remember that God in the Old Testament called both David and Job "Perfect", yet they seem to us like completely imperfect men. David committed adultery and had the woman's husband murdered, and Job talked as if he knew everything about God, yet was shown in the end how little he really did know about Him. But, God called these two men "Perfect" nonetheless. So, that in and of itself actually destroys our concepts of perfection.

What does all this have to do with the subject of Christian Metal and other blatantly emotional forms of praise and worship? It actually shows that God thinks very differently than we do. Many traditional Christians think that Hymns are the only "Worthy" forms of Christian music, yet they fail to realize that even many of the Hymns themselves are tainted with bold human emotion. Yet, this generation, while many of them love the hymns (I Do)... many of them simply do not speak the musical language of the Hymnal style. They have no problem with the words in the Hymns, but the style in which they are presented. It is as though the Hymns are presented with real human emotion, yet they are unfelt because many people cannot "relate" to the style in which the Hymn is sung.
I remember when I was smaller there was a song that used to come on the Christian radio station that Dad and Mom listened to a lot. It had beautiful words to it, but the "Style" in which it was presented was almost repulsive to me. Later on however the same radio station began to play that same song by another group who sang it with a more potent and emotional style, and I absolutely fell in love with it. It was the same song, but two different groups did it in different styles. One group "To me" literally flattened the song's beauty by the style in which they presented it, and the other made it so beautiful "To me" that I literally craved to hear it over and over again.

Does that make me "Un-spiritual" for hating the less emotional song while loving the same song presented in an emotionally deep way? No, it does not. As a matter of fact we are told in the Bible to "Quench NOT the Spirit." Now I know that this is referring to Holy Spirit. But, one cannot help but to see in this scripture that in order to quench the Holy Spirit one must reject His fire. God is s "Consuming Fire." That means He is passionate. And, that also means that in order to be "Like Him" (We) must be passionate. And, I'm sorry, but one simply cannot be passionate about something they are not passionate about. Telling me that I am un-spiritual for not being passionate about the old style Hymns is to actually exalt your own musical language over mine to the point of blatant discrimination. Who am I to say that my style is better than yours, or vise versa?
Many Christians argue that it is the lives of Christian rockers that make Christian rock unacceptable. Yet, they fail to realize that if the way a Christian lives their life is to determine the message they preach, sing etc. then Apostle Peter's epistles must be thrown out of the Bible, because in the book of Acts Paul called him on the carpet for showing blatant favoritism to the Jews over the Gentiles. Even Apostle Paul's letters must be condemned because he admitted in Roman's chapter 7 that he did many things that he knew he should not do, and the things that he "Knew" he should be doing were the very things he failed to do. Yet, we have no problem preaching great sermons on Paul and Peter's epistles, even though they both at times did foolish things.

So, why condemn Christian rock entirely because Christian rockers don't always practice what they preach? You would have to condemn Paul and Peter with them if you take that attitude. And furthermore, you would have to condemn yourself with the whole lot, since you yourself are not entirely free of hypocrisy.
Yes, many Christian rockers suffered addictions of one sort or the other. Many of them did and do inappropriate things. Many of them had and have problems with cursing, drinking, drug abuse etc. But, that is "Personal" issues between them and the Lord. It is Not up to us to condemn them when we have glaring logs sticking out of our own eyes to deal with.

The above example is the one most often used in attacks on hard Christian music. "Their own sins mean that the music is bad" is the most common argument used. But, David's own sins did not keep Christ Himself from singing out of the Psalms. In actual fact, David's sins did not even exempt the Spirit of Prophecy from inspiring many of the Psalms he wrote, some of which Jesus Himself often quoted.

Psalm 22 is a beautifully detailed Prophecy of Christ's crucifixion... written by a man who committed adultery and needlessly murdered a woman's husband. Yes, God punished him for his sins, but He still worked through David to write some of the most profound truths in Scripture.
So, to say that a Christian rocker's sins exempt him/her from having his/her music inspired by God is to put one's self in the position of casting out the Psalms as being written by an adulterous murderer. And, I am sure that most Christian rockers never committed sins anywhere near as bad as what David committed. Yet David's Psalms are taken to be God inspired while Christian rock is said to be satanic.

Rap, Hard Rock and Heavy Metal are not beyond redemption. They are languages that many in this generation speak and know well. Yet, to put this generation into the position of having to "Choose" the language they know well... at the rejection of God... or to embrace a language that they simply cannot relate to in order to be accepted by Him is what turns most of them away from Christ. Like C.S. Lewis said, Christians have this terrible tendency to "Castrate the gelding, then demands him be fruitful." It just won't work.

In Acts chapter two when the different cultures were addressed by Peter, he never told them to reject their own cultural mindsets. He simply said to repent. And, it was the Holy Spirit who "Revealed" to every man and woman just what it was they needed to repent of. Peter never told the Alaxandrians to adopt the mindset of Judeans. He never told the Phrygians to adopt the mindset of the Samaritans. As a matter of fact, you don't find anywhere in Acts two where another language was imposed on anyone but Christ's disciples. The Disciples showed the exact opposite of what modern Christians believe. Rather than forcing the cultures into speaking "One" language, the Disciples (Themselves) spoke the languages of all who were present that day. In other words, modern believers have it backwards for trying to impose one traditional language on sinners. Rather those Christians themselves should be speaking the languages of the cultures present. Otherwise they are not doing things like the Apostles of old did,... even though they claim otherwise.
 

At times I have come across Christians who have looked at me and wondered if I could be a Christian at all. I remember not too long ago taking my CD player to Church with my Narnia and Stryper CD's. One day after Church gathering, as people congregated out in front, I was feeling a bit shy because of my appearance. I was the only one there that looked like I did. But, a good guy by the name of Gary approached me and asked me what kind of CD's I had in my hand. I gave him the CD's and he laughed with me as he saw Michael and Robert Sweet, Oz Fox and Timothy Gaines on the back of the Soldiers Under Command album. I was pleasantly surprised by his reaction. He actually got a kick out of it. I thought that he would chew me a new one for bringing those "Heathen" CD's into Church. But instead, he showed me the love of Christ by not humiliating me in front of everybody. He acted as if he himself (In his 50's) were a heavy metal fan.

However, I have also had bad reactions from people there, not only because of my appearance, but because of the music that I love. Some objections have been downright abusive. What is it about Christian Metal that many Christians object to?

The problem with Christianity today is it's almost total lack of innovation. Jesus was right when He said "The children of the world are (Wiser) than the children of Light". Christianity spends all it's time playing "Catch Up" with the times rather than (Re-defining) the times.

I have noticed how that people who object to things like Christian Metal are mostly pew-warmers. They have this idea that "change" is the enemy. It usually isn't the Pastors who object to innovation, but the congregation. So, they spend all their time sitting on a well worn path, expecting the world to come to them, but they never embrace the Call of Jesus to "Go into All the world and make disciples of every nation." Jesus would not have said "Go" unless He wanted us out of the comfort zone of tradition.

The problem with Christians today is that they won't "Go" without taking their traditions with them, and parading them like banners. In order to even be (Embraced) by another culture, one must be willing to (Embrace) that culture. That is why Paul made it clear that he became all things to all men. He understood the importance of embracing a person's culture before he preached to them. That is why in Acts 17 Paul spoke to the learned Greeks on Mars Hill as one who (Knew) their culture.

Back in the 80's, Stryper was perhaps the Only Christian Rock group that ever went platinum. Their' album To Hell With The Devil was a potent chart climber. They even got the number one MTV air-time for forty straight weeks with their video (Honestly). Yet, in spite of this it was "Christians" who persecuted them at almost every concert. What was so offensive to believers about Stryper? Everything. Their look, their sound, their stage show. In other words, Christians thought that the only way the Gospel of Jesus could be revealed was with short hair, suits and ties, and quiet conduct. Yet, here was this Christian metal group. They had not only long hair, but actually one of the "Biggest" hairstyles of any 80's metal band. They wore tight leather, ear-rings, and they had a sound that blew many of that era's metal bands to bits. What was Stryper all about? Going into the world with the message of Christ. And, they were truly blessed for their time.

Holy Soldier came along about the time of Stryper's break-up. They were actually a far better group than Stryper, but their problem... (Or Blessing if you want to see it that way)... was that they came along at the wrong time. That's not to say that they were not well received. Holy Soldier came onto the rock scene around the time when Grunge was taking it's deadly hold. Yet, in spite of their bad timing, the band soared up the charts with numerous hits. While Stryper proved that Christians could blow away the competition, Holy Soldier proved that Christians could blow away popular trends without embracing them. So, while most Christian rock groups were "Getting with the times",... Holy Soldier remained true to it's Heavy Metal roots, and utterly wasted the competition.

Nevertheless, another group came along and literally (Re-defined) Christ-centered music. Their name was Saviour Machine. When the redone first edition came out in 1993, Saviour Machine proved once and for all that Christians did not have to be limited to one genre,... but that they can set their own standards. And, you will hear the innovation in every one of the band's CD's. None of them sounds the same. Saviour Machine was one of the few Christ-centered groups that focused on combining "High Art" with the message of Jesus. Their' sound has been labeled "Gothic Metal", but it's actually a very broad and distinctive sound,... even having haunting chants, and Middle Eastern themes mixed into some of their songs. It's a very beautiful and impacting style.

And, while neither Holy Soldier, nor Saviour Machine made the impact on culture that Stryper made, they both are in every sense "Progressions" of the Christian music era. Stryper proved that Christians could do it "Just As Good" as the world. Holy Soldier proved that Christians could do it "Better" than the world while still remaining (Old School). But, Saviour Machine proved that Christians could sail un-charted waters, and do things that would be considered virtually impossible... namely, put Bible Prophecy to musical drama, i.e. the (Legend) trilogy.

If Christians would dare to step out of the box and become innovators rather than (Followers) we could really make an impact. As it stands right now, we are making very little impact. Why is that? Because, we don't like the idea of embracing culture. So, we wait a few years... finally see that we are getting left behind... then we start playing "Catch Up"... only to find that the things we adopt to become more "Relevant" has already been discarded by the world.

Few can do what Holy Soldier did, as in becoming a chart topper in the world while remaining old school. Yet, even fewer are willing to do what Saviour Machine did. Become "Innovators".

In order for Christians to become innovators in music, we have to be willing to cut some trails and follow strange paths. The world is not coming to us,... we have to go to them. And, what is most important is that we be willing to leave our "Traditions" behind. Or at least, cover them up so they won't be noticed. Because, the world is sick of hearing the tired clichés about Christ. They want to (See) Jesus. And, lest we forget, Jesus Christ was so much of an "Innovator" that He is STILL relevant, even today. No one could simply (Ignore) Christ while He was here. He either inspired intense hatred or intense adoration. And ironically, the people that hated Christ the most were the religious people. His greatest lovers were the lowest of the low. That says something that we often fail to hear. That Jesus was actually (Popular) among sinners, and (Despised) by the Church. Why then don't we "Get It"?

The only reason the world hates Christ today is because the Church has made Him (Popular) among religious people, and (Despised) among sinners. I don't know if anyone here has noticed, but some of the most offensive people I have ever known has been Church people. Not offensive in their appearance, or their tastes... but in their attitude towards people. It's no wonder people hate Christ. His own Church makes it happen so easily.

There are a few Christians who have seen that there is a real need for Believers to not only get with the times,... but for Christians to actually re-define the times. When believers can become innovative in the arts and in all other fields then they will be listened to.

Until then, people like Gary will continue to inspire young believers by letting them know that there are a few in the older generation who support the interests of the younger generation. That is such a needed thing. People who want to impact their times need to feel like they have spiritual mentors on their' side.

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