Just a note about Christian Contemporary music. I personally am disgusted by the vast majority of music in this category. As Mr. Tollefson has often told us students at Providence, the medium must fit the message. So often Christian contemporary is just Godified paganism. They hear the secular music of the day and set out to mimic it, only with Jesus lyrics so the Christian kids can feel cool too. What they end up with is a dumbed down, lamer version of secular music with cheesy words intended to convey a warm, fuzzy feeling, but instead give out nauseous, luke-warm vibes. Not good.
Is this what we want the world to think of our Christianity? Do we want people to see us as a cheesy, fuzzy, group of people “keeping it real with Jesus?” Should our music portray a sappy, over-baked “Jesus is my boyfriend” style or shouldn’t we rather portray what Christianity really is, the blood of Christ, the raging struggle of spirit against flesh, flesh against spirit, the persecution, the wrath of God, the (not sappy, not cheesy, but overpowering) love of Jesus when we were unlovable, wallowing in blood, sin and misery, the burden lifted from our shoulders by His sacrifice, the battle that He calls us to join, our victory against the power of Satan forever…now there’s something to sing about.
A lot of Christians would argue with me and say that using that kind of language doesn’t win people to Christ. If they hear about the bloody, gory, humiliating, overwhelming and rather harsh story of the Bible they will be repulsed. Therefore we should give them a mushy, half-hearted depiction of Jesus as a meek, Bambi-eyed, white-robed figure, trying to relate to people, begging them to just hold hands with Him, sway back and forth a little, throw a pine-cone in the fire, slip up their hand…? I think not.
People are desperate. People are miserable. People are wallowing in blood and tears waiting, searching for someone brave enough to make war on the misery of the world, someone strong enough to turn the world right side up, someone they can admire, love and fear. Someone awesome. They’re not ready to put the world in the hands of plastic, hippie-Jesus, but perhaps they would place the universe in the hands of the bloody but triumphant Son of God, one who has faced death and spat in it’s face, one who has crushed the head of sin and misery and sent it howling with it’s tail between it’s legs, one who is so beautiful, so holy, so awesome, so glorious we cannot look at Him without falling on our faces, one who loves us in our dirt and invites us in to eat at His table. This is what the world is looking for. Perhaps it’s time to start portraying our story in our music. If we’re going to make “Christian” songs, let’s at least do it right.
You can subscribe by
So…what bands would you exactly classify as contemporary Christian?
Third day, Worth Dying For, Mikeschair, Superchic[k], Hawk Nelson, Thousand Foot Krutch, Thrice, Josh Groban, Kutless, Fireflight, Chris Tomlin, Casting Crowns, MercyMe, Natalie Grant, Newsboys, Steven Curtis Chapman, Hillsong, Fernando Ortega…to name but a few. Of course some of these are better than others. Some are actually pretty decent, but taken as a whole, they’re pretty repetitive, blah, and not particularly profound.
Haha, some of those I might listen too, the others not so. None of my favorite stuff there, though, or anything I would strongly recommend.
I could get into a discussion about what I think about this, but it might take up a lot of room. :) If you want to talk about it somewhere else, perhaps, maybe we could figure it out? Of course, I know people have their opinions on this subject, and from what I can tell, mine differ from yours. But I would like to maybe explain my take on it. :)
Blog comment discussions are certainly allowed to take up a lot of room. By all means continue here if you wish.
Yeah, some of those I’ll listen to, but in limited amounts. An occasional praise song is good, and some of those are better than others, but as far as powerful music, I sing psalms from the psalter when I’m driving somewhere or working. It’s the old thing about the medium fitting the message. If you’re looking for good worship music, look mostly elsewhere. If you’re looking for good not-particularly-sacred music, also look elsewhere. The problem is that too many Christians treat this as the only kosher kind of music, and inundate themselves with KMBI 24/7. But not 24/6. Their worship music is dragged down to this quality. And then kids push the envelope within those boundaries. It’s about attitude, not appearance.
I’m not a big fan of most contemporary Christian groups, but there are some I listen to. And, having spent 4-1/2 years in undergraduate and graduate music work (at a Baptist university) I learned something that comes as a total shock to most Christians who are appalled by the fact that contemporary Christian music sounds much like secular music. And that is that many of our hymn tunes started as bar tunes. That’s right. Around the time of the reformation there were many hymn writers, who, in an effort to appeal to the masses, put hymn lyrics to bar tunes–and they survived as hymns rather than the bar tunes that they originated as. So, I guess that translates into the same thing that many are trying (and often failing) to do with today’s contemporary music. The theology in those hymns was certainly much better than that of most contemporary songs, but sometimes the history of things we find to be “superior” isn’t entirely as pure and rosy as we like to think…
Sorry, I felt that I should add a wee bit more.
I guess my point was that this very struggle is nothing new to music, or the church. In the medieval period church musicians were sneaking secular tunes into the bass lines of the masses they composed, and the clergy were none the wiser. Of course, they were outraged when they learned, but they didn’t learn until these things had been being sung in the churches for sometime. While there are certainly arguments that are very good and valid regarding the theology of contemporary music, others start to fall flat. Some contemporary music isn’t pleasant to listen to at all. And though the quality of the harmonic structure of most of the older psalms and hymns is typically vastly superior, some of them do, quite frankly, just stink in the musicality department. Though I’m sure I’ll raise a few hackles here, and I’m not going to mention names, some who are attempting to write new psalm and hymn tunes are falling rather flat as well. The tunes are terrible, unsingable, and just plain unappealing–even if the theology is right on. Yet, when others use the same psalms, but write variants on Hebrew tunes, or use Hebrew melodic structure, they are critized for sounding “gypsy-ish” or too contemporary, when in reality, ir sounds much more like it would have when those Psalms were written. Okay, I’ll get off of my soapbox now!
Bar tunes… hmmm I’ve heard it associated with Martin Luther… look here for a very complete explaination of that error:
http://www.av1611.org/question/cqluther.html
scroll down a bit a good discussion…
That’s a good point about the secular tunes. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using tunes like that for worship. Sneaking popular folk tunes into classical music produces some brilliant stuff, and snippets of Holst or Brahms have translated into some glorious hymns. Strictly speaking, secular music.
I’m just concerned that much of the Christian Contemporary genre is neither good secular music or good sacred music. Oh, and I like some of the Hebraic or gypsy-sounding melodies for psalms.
I agree that much of what is out there isn’t good in either the Christian or secular genres. There are those jokes about I-IV-V-I that are absolutely true, among other flaws. But many Christians, particularly those in Reformed circles, seem to think we have the corner on the musical market and that we’re fighting something entirely new on this front. And we simply aren’t. I did appreciate something pastor Wilson said awhile back in an exhortation. I don’t remember an exact quote, but the gist was something like this. Many of us inreformed circles have the appropriate music for expressing great faith in and love for Jesus, be don’t actually have it. Many who are into the more contemporary music have that faith and love, but lack the means to express it. And I’m sorry to say that all too often I see folks in my circles (people I know and love) getting all riled up, condemning and criticizing those in the latter category.
Oh, and I had actually never heard of bar and folk tunes being associated with Luther, but more with the Wesleys. And even if the “bar tune” part isn’t true, the folk and secular part can be concretely attributed to many hymns. I don’t want to come across as defending CCM, because I don’t approve of most of it, but I do think that those who criticize it most harshly often need to examine themselves for attitudes that come across as superior, unloving, and frankly, un-Christlike. And Anna, on a side-note. I don’t think you are any of those things!
One more, and I’m all done. After some more research I would be very willing to concede that the “bar room” claims may well be unfounded. However, the folk and secular ones aren’t (though the music was often undeniably better then, not all composers/lyricists did, and there are a whole host of other musical and historical arguments that could be made surrounding musical culture in the past). I just get a wee bit tired of some of the inward-focused discussions I see circulate among the reformed (as reformed as I am). We often fail to regard the “others” as brethren or to realize that this is (among other things) a very, very old problem in the history of the church. Now I’m really, truly finished!
Again, I think that’s a good point to keep in mind. I’m all in favor of faith and love, and I’m blessed to be in a church where we can sing a selection of somewhat more reformed-influenced music, but retain that. But I have heard that some churches lose that, and sing what’s supposed to be powerful, worshipful sacred music, but don’t do justice to it. I agree it would be better for them to sing Third Day in a true spirit of worship. Er…I think I believe that. Well, at least if they just sang praise choruses from the 70s, that would be better than stiff, ungrateful Psalms by the reformers or something. Anyways, I don’t mean to come across authoritarian or bigoted, but I do think improving the aesthetic of church music is worth it. I think it’s worth maturing from KMBI 24/7.
I didn’t think you were authoritarian or bigoted at all. I just think we need to be careful when we present our opinions on such issues. I’ve discovered more and more recently that we who are reformed seem to have a greater reputation for completely trampling the “weaker brother” than do many. And yes, it worth maturing from, but I think it can be done is such a way as not to do as much trampling as we often do.
The spirit of our age (which many Christians drink heavily) says that anytime someone is “stricter” than me in a certain area, or has stronger convictions on a certain point and is not afraid to defend their view, then that person must be hateful and unChristike, no matter how generous and loving the person may actually be. The evangelical church in the U.S. is full of this mindset. I think that, for the most part, the stereotype that Reformed people are hateful is an unwarranted overreaction to the fact that people can’t handle being disagreed with.