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Why are Christians so easy to please?

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grant
Apr 05 2006
05:06 pm

My frustration with fellow Christians continues.

Frustration #1

Giving God credit for shitty music. I’m sure you’ve heard the sentimentalizing talk that goes on at Christian concerts: "Hey guys, I just wanted you to know that we do this for God. He writes our songs. He is the reason that we’re up here" (stage directions: assume humble-face then apologetically go into rock star stance; launch into the WORST rock song anyone has ever heard, leaving audience with the impression that God is a really crappy songwriter). The band might really suck, but man are those guys humble! And Christians eat it up.

Frustration #2

Then there’s those who are so starved for good Christian music that they’ll praise anything that’s anywhere near talking about God and lift it up as the closest to heaven that music can get without using the name of Christ. Sure Bjork is a pagan and her music is increasingly more and more self-indulgent, but it’s a good reflection on what sin is like. Ptah! (that’s the sound of me spitting the word "Ptah!" out of my mouth). Now I like Bjork too and NIN and Snoop Dog etc. but there’s no need to try to fit them into Christian theology if they just don’t fit. If the Flaming Lips care about human beings, that doesn’t mean they’re Christians. Humanists care about human beings too. Let’s just say what’s good about good music and what isn’t. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves for being so easy to please with shoddy ‘Christian’ fare and Spiritually antithetical ‘secular’ stuff. But…

But, but, but…we are free, really truly FREE, to eat from the table of popular music whether it’s been baptized in our Christian minds or not, because it all belongs to God!

That’s what I think, anyway, and you should too!

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anton
May 17 2006
06:04 pm

Wait a minute, isn’t the problem precisely that music and (contemporary) Christianity have been mushed together into one mediocre mass? How can you say Christians should learn good music in church?

Christians are so easy to please, in part, because they have recourse too easily to the name of Jesus. Efforts toward excellence are shortcircuited. Mention Jesus (or drop some clever, veiled reference to him) and your music has been "redeemed." I don’t think fundamentalists/evangelicals are reacting against liberalism, nor does it have anything to do with written-word-idolatry. It seems more likely that they simply believe cultural activities don’t have value unless they serve some explicitly spiritual end. As you said, music has to be evangelistic. The result is, as the old adage goes, bad theology and bad music. I think you were on the right track when you said the problem is quality of music, plain and simple. You see if music is pursued only as a means to some other end, music is bound to be mediocre. As I’m sure you know better than I do, developing genuinely creative, interesting music is hard work! Why kill yourself when the point is really evangelism, not music. If, on the other hand, music has value as part of God’s good creation, you will expend time and energy in pursuit of making good music, not because it furthers some explicitly spiritual end, but simply because good music is a pleasing and very satisfying part of God’s good creation. Music pleases the ear immensely. Obviously there’s a lot more to music than mere sound, but it starts there and with that basic assumption.

I guess in part the question is what exactly "Christian" means when it refers to music. What is Christian music? Why not rather simply speak of music?

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grant
May 19 2006
12:54 pm

Certainly taste needs to be taught outside church worship settings, in the home, the school etc. But I think bad theology is somewhat dependent on bad taste. When people read the Bible as a science or as a morality reference guide, they are missing the emotional nuances in the text, which is also the meaning of the text. Text has become so intellectualized (and Protestantism can take much of the blame for this) that people no longer hear the human struggle, urgency, anguish, etc. that is in it. Maybe part of the reason for that is because after the Reformation the Bible was no longer sung in church to convey the feeling in the text.

If we lose this sense of the emotional landscape or moods of the Bible, bad interpretation is sure to follow. Paul’s irony is completely lost on people who are only looking for moral lessons. Parts of David’s Psalms—the parts where David calls for revenge—are chopped out of readings (Michael W. Smith does this in one of his worship concerts). As a result, churches are dull and lifeless or monopolized by only a few "holy" emotions. How often do you hear an ironic tone used well in church? How many bad jokes are plopped into sermons because they’re "clean". Saturday Night Live knows how to spoof our culture better than Christians who actually have a better reason to do just that. Films often do a better job of communicating God’s truth than sermons. Sermons put many people to sleep. But maybe boredom is one of those God-ordained emotional states the church thinks is Biblical.

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anton
May 22 2006
01:54 pm

Grant, I see your point now, and I agree bad taste can and does sometimes dispose one to embrace bad theology. Of course I’ve known people who have great theology and bad taste as well, so go figure.

Do you have any ideas about how the church could do a better job teaching good taste? Do you have anything in mind, practically speaking?

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grant
May 24 2006
04:25 pm

Yes. I think good music in worship services is a start. But my favorite idea is that churches would host music "tastings". It would be like a bible study but even more like a wine tasting. People would listen to songs that they never thought they’d like and they’d listen over and over again in the right context with a trustworthy guide(s). The lover of the music would explain why they like it, not just academically, but experientially. They’d point out what you’re supposed to notice and then play it again until others start to hear what you’re hearing, feel what you’re feeling.

When I saw people singing along to songs about losing a good truck or a good dog in a honkie tonk bar, it made sense to me. When I heard Johnny Cash singing "Get Rhythm" through the very speakers he was recorded through at Sun Studios in Memphis, I got it. When you hear Madonna singles played on the dance floor, they make sense. I think some interesting things could happen if a group of believers from all walks of life start to listen to music together. So far, I’ve seen that kind of taste-changing occur in movie groups I’ve been a part of, and of course in my own experience working in a band. Why couldn’t that happen in a church?

As far as the theologian with bad musical taste example, I think this is just a matter of a person who has developed good theological taste but not good musical taste. You can’t expect someone to develop good musical taste without actually listening to music. It doesn’t magically carry over from one field to another. This is experiential learning. I believe that if Christians heard really good music all the time, they wouldn’t settle for CCM. Once you’ve tasted the good stuff, there’s no going back to the box wines of old.

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anton
May 24 2006
06:19 pm

I know the sort of group you have in mind, and I enjoy them. Let me press you a bit, though. Why such a class in a church specifically? Why a Sunday School class, for instance, as opposed to just a meeting of Christians in an unofficial group setting (even if the location of the meeting happens to be the church building)? What I’m getting at is this: How would you answer someone who said you’re fusing the spheres (church and art) inappropriately? Someone might say, "Sure…if you’re teaching people to discern and evaluate underlying worldviews, but music taste…in church?"

I know on one level this is an unimportant question, and I think you’ve made a good point. Still, on another level, there may be something significant here. Perhaps this will only take us afield, but is this an example of fusing spheres where they should remain distinct, and if so, what is at stake in fusing the spheres? Does this question make sense? The answer may help explain why CCM is so mediocre, and why despite this Christians are so easily pleased.

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grant
Jun 09 2006
01:53 pm

I’m not suggesting that music tastings would be part of the worship service or anything. But I think it would be important to keep such things close to the church environment. Doing such things in church sends the message that taste is important in and out of the church worship setting. It’s not something just for outside the walls of the church building. I do agree that art has its own independence from church authority, but if church services have become so dull and artless, maybe churches aren’t respecting art’s authority enough in those realms where theology is too often king.

Examples of the need for proactive taste-bending? If children grow up with parents who treat alcohol as a forbidden fruit, the child will think the only way of using alcohol is as "the world" uses it—to get drunk, to pour down the throat without tasting it, to self-medicate, to act as a krutch in social situations etc. etc. That’s the only model they see. But if a father goes out to a pub and shares the pleasures of a glass of La Trappe with his 21 year old, a new message is conveyed and a new standard for beer goodness is set. Coor’s Light just won’t cut it after such experiences. The same thing happens with music. If parents are not pro-active with shaping the musical tastes of their children, those children might be perfectly satisfied with Britney Spears and Rascal Flats. Parents can rebuke their children all they want for listening to bad rap and rock’n’roll, but if they only give their kids a steady diet of CCM sentimentality, they are not meeting the developmental needs of their children and so Ludacris will of course sound like a better option to them than Public Enemy or Common.

ps. I’m not a parent, but I am drawing from my own experiences with parents and friends who have shown a better way of watching television and movies, enjoying good food and drink, listening to music etc.