"IS THERE SUCH A THING AS 'CHRISTIAN MUSIC'"?
The
question "What makes music (or lyrics) Christian" needs to be pursued,
wrestled with prayerfully and carefully and maybe even eventually (only
post-wrestling)..left abandoned and unanswered,
or at least left uncomfortably open. On the other hand, maybe
it can be..after
the hard theological work and crucible, be dogmatically closed.
(Whatever the ultimate answer,and
meaning of "case dogmatically closed", it cannot ...sorry dear reader...
include either sibling of the following twin reductionist
heresies: 1.) "As long as it's not_____{fill in supposedly "satanic"
genre: rock, rap, Gaithers, opera, whatever}, or 2.) "As long as it
satisfies the minimum count/quota of the 'J-word'
(an actual quota and litmus test by some "Christian labels.")
A quick and cursory “goggle" for this exactly phrased question {'What
makes music Christian?'} Yielded no less than
92 links, representing nearly as many articles and essays asking and
probing the depths and rabbit-trails of this at first all-too-obvious
question. (To start somewhere, try Dr. Thomas
Hohstadt's stimulating "What Makes Music
'Christian'?" here:click
here.
To survey the whole search,
if for no other reason than to resonate in your soul the validity,
urgency, and universality of the question, click the goggle page
here: "What makes music Christian?”
Click here)
Often the very asking of this focused, perhaps
rhetorical, question grows out of the evangelical disequilibrium we
are reeled into upon hearing passionate and bold Christian musicians..from
P.O.D. to Jars of Clay... say things like "We are not a Christian band.
We are a band of Christians." Or "our
love songs are just as Christian as our worship songs...because all
of life is sacred and Christian". Take the following defining
example as a microcosmic window into this forced sacred/secular
dichotomy..and
be prepared then to unashamedly but gently smash the dichotomy and
window..in Jesus
name:
The Christian
in-house debate over ( and at times near ex-communication of ) “ Sixpence
None The Richer's” breakthrough single on
the secular charts "Kiss Me" was both humungous and hilarious; both
necessary on one level and fruitful on one level, and ridiculously
unnecessary on another; both intrinsically-motivated in some, and extrinsically
and Pharisaical-so in others; both appropriately Christian at
points and sub-Christian and unadulterated Gnostic at others ("all matter
is inherently evil", "clear distinction between secular and sacred",
etc).. at others. Said
song may have not mentioned God, or met the
"J' word quota, (but who is to say whether it is
ultimately..or
simultaneously..about a human romantic kiss
, and/or a kiss between our Divine Lover and us), but it sovereignty
led (in a way a "straight-up" worship song couldn't have) to an
amazingly prophetic moment between Sixpence singer Leigh Nash
and David Letterman on Letterman's show, where God convicted Letterman,
and not only literally turned him red in from of millions of viewers,
but momentarily and Spiritaneously turned him into an articulate evangelist,
who theologized aloud about God and salvation through the lens
of C.S. Lewis before his studio and worldwide "congregation".
Is that "Christian"? See John Fischer's article here for
"the rest of the story" and a proposed answer:click
here
To coin oneself a " Christian" band may sound
like a God-honoring thing to do (and it may well be), but nowadays can
get one relegated/ banished/ shelved (literally) in only "Christian"
stores (where few pre-Christians haunt) or the "religious"
sections (ghettos) of secular stores, which "forgets to remember" that
the point of Christianity is to give it away. U2's Bono,
in his liner notes to Johnny Cash's "God" CD, admitted he always
felt like Johnny, .though saved, was "not only singing TO the
damned, he was singing WITH the damned..and
sometimes he preferred their company." The fact that Cash's "God"
CD was one of a trilogy of CDs named "God", "Love" and "Murder",
shows that the late Cash was right on time and in touch with the all-too-often
less-than-honest, pseudo-reality of much "Christian" music. "I
shot a man..just
to watch him die", Cash belts out on the "Murder" disc, not because
he ever did such a thing or sanctions it, but because he was honest
enough..meaning
Christian enough, E. Stanley Jones would add....to say (and thus pray)
publicly that he had flirted with such a thing in his heart. (There
are some wonderful articles on John Cash's faith on our website
here:
Click here)
Bono's own introduction to the Psalms is an amazing
essay which addresses this question
in the stream-of consciousness yet profound and confounding style
only Bono can navigate. It is required reading, and brief
even..So I'd
read it yesterday and respond it… sooner than later, here:
Click here
All this to say; I have a sneaking
suspicion that the great theologian Lucy Crawford, in her post
, has got it right in her tentative proposed thesis: "There is no such
thing as Christian music." Another articulate theologian, E. Stanley
Jones, has often keynoted the theme that reality itself is Christian.
The Kingdom of God is ultimate reality, wherever the
Kingdom is, there is reality;
therefore..hold
your breath and your heresy gun...wherever reality is, there is the
Kingdom (in however a veiled, pre-Christian singer or player;
or no matter even how demonic the wrapping or wineskin.)
Evett Wilson is a splendid and insightful
interpreter of Jones at this juncture:
"Few men in the history of the Church understood this
as well as E. Stanley Jones, who saw the Kingdom as God's way of doing
things-as the way the universe is planned. Therefore, said Jones, the
people of the Kingdom have the whole universe backing them up."
Click here
So, anything that is in essence real; honest, is by definition
or by default Christian/Kingdom, at
least in its purest genesis. Music, no matter how twisted, misused or
tweaked, no matter how later demonized
by anti-Christ lyrics, is, at heart, at first, and at nutshell,
a gift of God. Bono of U2, again, (note the original article,
which triggered this discussion, singles out U2 as the only "Christian”
music that some non-Christians may listen to), is worthy of quoting:
"Songs are the language of the Spirit...the melodies
are how you sing to God. It is a deep language. But they can't explain
everything; because really great songs touch places that you can't explain."
In another interview, he tips his hand..
"All our songs are about God or
women..and sometimes we confuse the
two," he confesses with a casual, almost "throwaway" honesty
which shocks, but which would benefit, traditional Christians.
Part of the honesty of his confession stems from his fear of fans idolizing
him, not just as a rock star, but as a professing Christian (or "Christian
singer"..if there
is such a thing): "I am a believer and I have faith in Christ,"
he is quick to put on the table. "But I am not a very good advertisement
for God." The band in fact, "went into the baptismal
waters..and almost
drowned" when, against their church's advice, they felt called
to stay in the "secular" music industry and eschew the ghetto
of "Christian music" .
I think you will
be glad they did when you read these reports of how intensively God
uses them in the "secular" arena ("arena" meant symbolically), as in
genre, and literally as in stadium..read
Steve Beard's very helpful article here:
Click
here, and Tarry Mattingly's equally penetrating analysis
of how the "Spirit is in U2's house" here:
Click here
"I'm just drawing my fish in the sand",
Bono offers. And "every great song”,
he reflects, in perhaps an ultimately even more accurate quote
than his God/woman confession, "is either about running to God, or from
God". I ask: Is a song about "running
from God" Christian? I
dunno, but try some of the Psalms
on for size. The shoes may fit. How about songs honest and real
enough to be "agnostic prayers"?.Psalms
again.. Also a heartfelt,
heartbroken Bono lyric, responding in part to the death of his mother:"
Jesus! Jesus, help me, I'm alone in this world, and
a f____up world
it is, too." Blasphemy or Christian?
You decide, but to hear Bono pray/ sing it, one does not walk away saying
"Bono swore," but "Bono just articulated,
-psalmlike, something I had
felt..and may
never feel comfortable saying aloud..but
in an odd way..maybe
a God way..I find myself healed and worshipping
afresh as I listen."
For follow-up, you will be stretched by the column that
the editor of Worship Leader magazine wrote, carefully entitled "Why
I Would Follow Bono into Hell", kept here:
Click here
"Turn each song into a prayer," Bono
has outright recommended in countless interviews, and finally even proffers
and commands in the lyric of "Always". He implies that ANY song,
no matter how base, can be so turned.
Very often a song by a person who is likely not a Christian
by our definition (Peter Gabriel, for example), may nail down and articulate
a heretofore-latent worship emotion or expression. Thus: "This
old familiar craving/ Don't know who the hell /I'm
saving anymore/ Let it go, let it pass, let it leave/ from the deepest
place I grieve/ This time I believe..And
I let go.." is a song ("Gabriel's "Love to be Loved" with more passion
and raw honesty than many an official or self-proclaimed "Christian"
song or church "prayer"...yes, depite, maybe
even PRECISELY BECAUSE OF the unedited "h" word...even at the
expense of naming the "J" word, which is in between every line.
And how about his belting out for life
and death, in the song "Supper's Ready" (named after the marriage supper
of the Lamb in Revelation): "There's an angel standing in the sun/Crying
with a loud voice?/ This is the supper of the Mighty One...The Lord
of Lord , King of Kings..
returns to take His children home/To take
them to the New Jerusalem." There is something in Gabriel
that believes this with all his heart
and more. Is he Christian? I do not think he would claim it.
However, his lyric and voice do! Are his music
and lyric "Christian?"
Take a listen. No wonder his songs (like "In Your Eyes": "In Your eyes,
the light, the heat/ I am complete in Your eyes/ I see the doorway of
a thousand churches, the resolution of a thousand fruitless searches"
) have been recorded by "Christian artists" without a need to baptize
the lyrics. Is "In Your Eyes" "Christian”, even if Gabriel
sometimes wonders if the words are
written to God or a woman? Here I can only speak for myself:
I fall on my face and worship Jesus to these lyrics. Do
they come from a flawed even non-Christian messenger? Of course.
But the music and lyric is Christian to the
core and reached and teaches the core of my soul.
Is there such thing as
"Christian music"? I dare to believe the answer may well be yes,
but not in the way the typical evangelical might frame question, or
mean the answer. I don't believe I am "frame-jacking" to
dare to believe there is Christian music everywhere...even from
the mouths of babes, the mouths of backsliders, and
moreoften than we have admitted, the mouths
of pagans. The ever provocative Leonard
Sweet (p 163ff of "Eleven Genetic Gateways to Spiritual Awakening")
makes the case that life is "at its very base" music.:
"Scientists are finding that
they are no different than theologians...They are finding that...Music
does more than help us experience God as spirit as we experience life
as spirit . Music is more accurately the essence of who we are created
in the image of God. If the most elemental and elementary aspect
of life is "energy that vibrates" (as scientists say they have discovered),
then life is at base music...For anything that vibrates
gives off sound..You and I are at base a
song..There is
no one who isn't musical..My
personal definition of Jesus is 'God's perfect Pitch. It is in
our genes to see (God's Words) as musical notes....As
Pythagoras said, ' A stone is frozen music.'"
Whew! Maybe the starting point is now not "Is there Christian
music?", but “Isn’t music Christian? Alternatively "Is life Christian?"
Join me as we pray and explore..and
sing..together