Christian Music

There was a long time during which I refused to listen to any music by anyone who called themselves a Christian musician that wasn't hymns and such - I still find it hard. As far as I could tell, there were only three kinds of Christian song - the incredibly distorted guitar song where you couldn't understand the vocals (which were usually the best by way of lyrics), the generic soft rock song (with lyrics that could be sung by anyone about how awesome 'he' was but never saying who he actually was) and the unfortunate, but all to common, dross that appears in all music (which was by and large the kind that you heard the most). My refusal got to the point where there were a few cases of me getting rid of music that I had liked as soon as I found out that the musicians called themselves Christians. Bands like Kutless, Anberlin and Skillet never stood a chance once I learnt their origins.

Since then, my situation has changed. I am still incredibly wary of so-called Christian Music. However, as I am living with aficionados of certain Christian bands, I have been forced to rethink and explain my policy. Many Christian bands are indeed good musically and as they can now gain credibility and a wider audience while still actually singing Christian lyrics, they in many cases do. Many still disguise their words under a layer of symbols or hidden meanings but it is getting better.

The default setting for many Christians is to automatically assume that since the band calls themselves Christian, their music will therefore be quality and their lyrics worth hearing. It may be that we decide that it is important that we support the industry, but this doesn't seem to be the main reasoning. So it is interesting that even without the demand for improvement or any real skill a growing number of Christian bands have a high quality of both musical proficiency and performance ability, making them worth listening to for the music and worth going to see as well.

So the question arises, What is it that is making Christian music good? There are two things I think that are doing this. The first is industry and audience related, and the second is deeper.

Firstly, with a large number of mediocre bands that achieve the qualifier of good by some means unknown to me, it is harder for bands that are actually good to gain any notice. For this to happen, they either need to be or do something incredibly controversial (which won't really work in the semi-conservative Christian market) or be really properly good. This has driven bands who want to achieve things with their music to greater heights seeing as they have to be quite good in order to be noticed by either the publishing companies (who would rather keep on squeezing proven bands until they are dry) or the audience (who already have favourites and aren't overly willing to change)

The second comes down to the nature of music. Music in its purist form is about emotion and passion. The greatest albums ever came out of a deep emotional connection to the music and the band or the artist; look at Face Value by Phil Collins of Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, both of them came out of massive emotions held by the bands in question. As the return to Grace-based Christianity continues, people are returning to the passion that is, or should be inherent in Christianity. Since this passion is becoming more and more real, bands are funnelling it into their music and performances. This is what is driving the music to be better and the lyrics to be truer.

Post Modern Amusement

One of the most common responses that I have ever had to cold evangelism (eg door knocking) is "I'm not interested," followed by the quick closing of the door and a phone call to everyone else in the street warning them to not answer the door. The second most common response essentially boils down to "Sure that might be right to you, but it isn't right for me." In some cases, everything you say might be agreed with, and the response will still be one of apathy. This is almost directly due to the post-modernist movement which says that "what's right for me is right for me and what's right for you is right for you"

This line of thinking is a real problem when it comes to something like evangelism of any sort because it denies logic of any sort. Now some of you might be saying that when it comes to religious evangelism you don't want logic to be the major factor in what you are saying. However without some level of logical background in what is being said, all sorts of stupidities can come out in arguments or discussions. For example everyone accepts the logical assumption that you get older as time goes on. If you find someone who denies this assumption at your birthday, you will have a hard time explaining to them the reason that you haven't already enjoyed your 50th birthday and why you won't be turning 15 again. When you deny basic logic, all sorts of things fly out the window. Which is why this line of thinking is a real problem for evangelism.

You say, "If you don't accept Jesus, you will go to hell; but if you do, then you will go with him to heaven" (which is a basic explanation of the gospel - there are better ones but this covers the bare essentials). The response comes back, "That might be right for you, but I don't believe it", close door and never hear from them again. Your line does not depend on whether it is believed or not, similar to "If you don't get out of the way of the bus, it will hit you and you will die; but if you do get out of the way, it will not hit you and you will not die". One person's denial of the existence of the bus doesn't mean that they can't be hit by it and die, on the contrary, it makes them more likely to get hit by the bus because they won't get out of it's way.
If you take the logic that an effect follows a cause, then you know that to avoid the effect, you need to avoid the cause.

Which is why this argument is so annoying. The fact that they won't accept it doesn't make it any less true, but it means that they won't accept anything that you say in regards to it and so you can't take any line of reason to get to the point where the simple assumption is accepted.
It is an obvious fallacy that people can't accept is a fallacy.

But the good news is that there is a fairly simple counter to it. It takes the form of a second line. The conversation so far has followed the basic form from above but as the door is about to be closed, you have to tell them that they don't actually believe that. Here is where it can be tricky as you've just told them that they are flat out Wrong and people are always Right. From here you need to point out the logical fallacy in their thinking gently since aggression in this form of evangelism almost never goes down well. However if they don't mind doing a bit of thinking about their thinking, you at least have them listening.

The Sun Is Burning: Part 2

So here is part two of the other day's post, correctly titled this time since you know what the song is now.

Read the first three verses again.

The sun is burning in the sky
Strands of clouds go slowly drifting by
In the park the lazy bees
Are joining in the flowers, among the trees
And the sun burns in the sky

Now the sun is in the West
Little kids go home to take their rest
And the couples in the park
Are holdin' hands and waitin' for the dark
And the sun is in the West

Now the sun is sinking low
Children playin' know it's time to go
High above a spot appears
A little blossom blooms and then draws near
And the sun is sinking low


Now, without knowing what happens in the next part of the song it appears to be a nice, sappy song about everyone having a nice time. They're all going to get up in the morning and go back to school or work and then enjoy the afternoon sun again. So what does happen next? Warning this part isn't the nicest thing you will hear in a song.

Now the sun has come to Earth
Shrouded in a mushroom cloud of death
Death comes in a blinding flash
Of hellish heat and leaves a smear of ash
And the sun has come to Earth

Now the sun has disappeared
All is darkness, anger, pain and fear
Twisted, sightless wrecks of men
Go groping on their knees and cry in pain
And the sun has disappeared


So to answer yesterday's question, the people were Japanese. And no, they didn't get up in the morning.

So what's my point with this section?
I suppose all I really want to say is that the framing or context of something that is said is possibly the most important part of what is said. When we take it out of context we read our own meaning into what ever it is. This is something that all people have to be careful of. I've complained about it many times when other people take my words out of context and misinterpret them.

Now in this case, you are forgiven. It was intended to be like that.

The other thing that I wanted to say was not that humanities ability to inflict cruelty on itself is one of our defining characteristics.

What I wanted to say was that it is amazing how we can change things so quickly. A simple line like "the sun is sinking low" is just that, a simple line that only gives a time frame. In the next verse however "now the sun has come to earth" does that and then almost pours on the irony - yes, life is going on.
It went from happy sappy music to everyone is dying in pain in the space of three words. The last verses wouldn't be out of place in a Death Metal song. This comes back to the last part where I said that fear comes from the unknown. In this case we reverse engineer again. We don't know the outcome and so we make it something that we don't fear. While it is a logical assumption that the song won't go in this direction, it is an assumption nonetheless.

?: Part 1

The title is because I don't want to play all my cards at once. You will get the actual title later.

This being part one, it needs to introduce what part two will talk about and then discuss it's own stuff.

These are the first three verses of a song by Simon and Garfunkel. Picture it in your head as you read. Pay special attention to everything that you see as there will be a test afterwards.

"The sun is burning in the sky
Strands of clouds go slowly drifting by
In the park the lazy bees
Are joining in the flowers, among the trees
And the sun burns in the sky

Now the sun is in the West
Little kids go home to take their rest
And the couples in the park
Are holdin' hands and waitin' for the dark
And the sun is in the West

Now the sun is sinking low
Children playin' know it's time to go
High above a spot appears
A little blossom blooms and then draws near
And the sun is sinking low"

So what was all that about? (That was a Rhetorical Question - don't answer it).
I have one question. It's only for people who don't already know the song and therefore the answer.
What racial background did the people come from? Simple question. For me, they were almost all caucasian, a couple of others in there as well.

So what was the point of that. This question tells you how deeply ingrained racism is.
In 95% of cases, the people that you saw were of the same ethnic background as you. In 4% of the remaining cases, they were of the dominant ethnic background of the place you grew up or reside in. The remaining 1% of people are lying.

Fear comes from the unknown. From that we can reverse engineer and find that the known is what we prefer to associate with. This is why we imagine people (unless told otherwise) to be the same as us. In a Science Fiction book I once read, the front page said "In most cases of Science Fiction, all humans are white unless told otherwise. In this book, all humans are black unless told otherwise." Think about it - in the original StarWars trilogy, there is only one black person in the entire universe. In the more recent they included more - most notably all of the un-named clones (who were all wearing white...).

The real problem with racial barriers is that they can't not exist. Even saying "I'm not racist, some of my best friends are [insert descriptor here]" means that you've defined those people by that descriptor. It is inherent in Human nature.

For any one who was wondering, the Song is called "The Sun is Burning".
The next post will be about the next verses.