Recent content by John of Japan

Good post! Kind of like, if a tree fell in a forest and nobody heard it.... This goes back to my youth. I rejected the hard rock songs categorically, but not on religious grounds. It just didn't make sense to me to try to understand something that hard to hear. Side note: There is a Japanese...

My son truly hates that song for your stated reasons. I'd call "I'll Fly Away" more of a country gospel song. Amen! But that stuff is really hard to listen to. I never can make out their lyrics. Well said. Cows should never be allowed in a church service. :Biggrin Good post.

Singing with my guitar, that song was my first church special number! Love it! Not CCM, but not really a hymn, either. More of a Christian folk song--and there was some controversy about that in the 1960's. Should we allow folk songs in the church? :Thumbsdown Our youth group had a great book of...

No problem! Here is our college and seminary: Baptist College of Ministry - Menomonee Falls, WI

I asked. I didn't state. It's much more polite to make a query rather than declare, "This is what you believe..." or simply assume what someone thinks. I wouldn't include country music as CCM. It has a much longer history, and has been a genre of its own far before CCM was invented. And the...

We have a Burmese Baptist student in our seminary right now!

I never answered this particular question, but feel I should. When a person becomes a believer in Christ, they come under the care of the Father in Heaven. There are many Scriptures about this, so I don't feel the need to quote them except maybe one: "I have been young, and now am old; yet have...

Not really. It doesn't have quite the right backbeat to be rock. It has an interesting double emphasis on the 1 & 3, then the 1nd & 4th notes of 4/4 time. But it is certainly repetitive, a characteristic of rock. The words are nice, theologically correct. However, they don't hold a candle to...

So, you can't define rock. And again, stop putting words in my mouth. You did it again!!! I have not yet defined rock until this post. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but you don't seem to have any music education, though you are pontificating as though you were a musician. Do you play any instrument...

That's semantically what you said before. Please define rock. What are the musical characteristics?

This is insulting. You have absolutely no factual evidence to say this. You weren't there. It was not your supporting church. You don't know what the building was like. You didn't hear the group. It was not your wife who suffered physically from the "music." So apparently you think it glorifies...

Very true. In fact, I seem to recall that for a while in the early church they did not allow musical instruments. But I have no trouble saying we can follow Psalm 150 as is. In our church we have an orchestra, including various stringed instruments (sans guitar, which however has appeared...

Japan closely follows any American trend. In medicine, for example, they are usually about ten years behind the US, and they send doctors to the US to learn the latest science. Just so in Christianity. I remember when CCM started to become popular in Japan, and it took a while for them to figure...

One of my favorite Japanese of all time was Togo San. He came into our service in Yokohama one day wearing a military jacket. He loved war, the military, even Hitler. After coming for some time, Togo San borrowed Hal Lindsey's Lage Great Planet Earth, and reading it till 3:00 in the morning, he...

Okay. You missed the point completely. I DID NOT SAY THAT THEIR CLOTHES SHOWED THEIR SPIRITUAL STATE. It does not. Often a new believer (whatever their clothing) is closer to God than some well-dressed saint. My point was that spiritual growth can result in a better situation for a person after...