This last week I was watching The Jesus Music, a documentary chronicling the rise of Christian music. It traces its inception from the 1970s hippie movements, through the glory days of rock and roll in the 1980s, to this day. Famous faces, names and songs brought back memories, invoking nostalgia from my youth into my late 40s. I love(d) music, rock and roll had me dancing and singing along, worship music had me in tears, and I relished the experiences…
and then I stopped listening…
what happened…?
Part of the reason is that I started going through a bit of a denominational deconstruction (another blog later), and I didn’t trust my spiritual experiences anymore. Another part of the reason is that I got a bit older, and noticed that loud music – because how else does one listen to it except at top volume – was starting to irritate me. So, as I took pause, with every intention of going back to listening, then this documentary exposed what was really at the root of the issue.
After the documentary was finished, I started thinking how our music is a reflection of our culture. It forms us, it says what we don’t even know we are thinking, and it pushes boundaries. Our very souls are touched. This is true of all genres, even the Christian one. We feel deeply when a song exposes our feelings and thoughts. We cry, we worship, we dance and we sing along. We recommend songs and bands to others, and we discuss what we love about their music. We really can’t get away from it, it’s in every commercial, every bit of entertainment we consume, and in our churches on Sunday morning. And we love it.
But have we ever stopped to think of what it has done to our faith? This is where I started reflecting on the music I have consumed and recommended. Has it changed with the times, or has it shaped the times? Has it shaped my faith? That’s why I stopped listening, something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t define it.
At this point, I have come to realize that it is because music shaped my faith in so many ways that I had to take a step back. Music defined how I worshipped and it defined what I thought worship was supposed to look. Over the last few decades, we have become so self-absorbed that our music reflects that. We sing about how God must be so lucky to have chosen someone like me because I am special. We sing about abstract ideas that make us believe that we are being deep. Scripture verses are often taken out of context. We sway and sing with our hands in the air, really just singing about ourselves and our feelings. Lost is the awe of our what our Saviour did for us on the cross. New age is more likely to be in the lyrics than actual Biblical truth. The Holy Spirit is called “Spirit.” Many songs sound like love songs one would sing to their boyfriend instead of the Almighty God. And this is what our culture has become…the endless pursuit of ourselves, our feelings, and our happiness.
But is that even Biblical?
Jesus told us that to follow Him we are to take up our cross. Paul reminds us that we will face persecution. David’s lament and praise in the Psalms reflect his awe of the almighty God…
Owen Strachan says, “The greatest threat to biblical Christianity today is not atheism, militant Islam, the sexual revolution, or a hostile public square. The greatest threat to biblical Christianity today is weak, soft, man-centered, sin-affirming, ear-tickling, flesh-pleasing, self-help theology.”
As a Christian movement, we are weakening ourselves from within, all we need to do is to go where unbiblical culture takes us, and follow their music and theology…we don’t need persecution when faith becomes so diluted that we do not read God’s Word, speak the truth, or preach the gospel anymore.
Something to mull over more later…