I find myself agreeing with most all the sentiments so far expressed re the Gaithers. I am not primarily an ardent SGM fan; however, there are a few songs here and there that I do enjoy.
I was saved when I was in the military back in 1966. I didn't grow up in what I guess you'd call a "Bible believing fundamentalist" environment. Consequently, some of the "human" themes in a lot of SGM I can not identify with (ex: "seeing my mother pray for me," "looking forward to meeting my momma in heaven," "those old timey revivals of my childhood," etc.)
My parents and friends were not "vile sinners" (as we humans might rank them [of course, ALL of us were/are vile sinners compared to the sinless Son of God whose blood was shed for our redemption!]), but neither were they the personification of Bible loving born again children of God. We attended a very, very liberal church, so, as a consequence I grew up "outside the circle" so to speak.
At any rate, my musical preferences even today trend more toward the classical end of the spectrum (i.e., give me a good English baroque oratorio like "Messiah," or "Israel in Egypt," etc., and I'm "good to go!").
However, there is another part of me that enjoys SOME of SGM, and the "Gaither Sound" in particular.
Let me give you an example of how one familiar Gaither song has impacted me (and then I'll quit babbling!).
I early 2003, I was deployed with my TN Air National Guard unit to the desert area of NW Saudi Arabia in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. We were located at what the military would classify as a "bare bones" base right outside the Saudi city of Tabuk in NW Saudi Arabia.
We were informed that none of us GI's were permitted to go beyond the barbed wire perimeter of of the base because the area in which we were situated was known for being stridently anti-American, and the city of Tabuk was probably (to borrow an American expression) the "Buckle of the Koran Belt" in that part of the Islamic world.
However, within the confines of our base, we were American military personnel doing what we were trained to do and following orders that ultimately originated from the Commander in Chief. We could, for example, have chapel services wherein the Bible was presented. We could also conduct Christian worship activities so long as they didn't interfere too much with the military reason(s) for our being there in the first place.
Anyway, when it was time for Easter to roll around, we were permitted to use a small area just off the edge of "tent city," and right at the very edge of our base wherein Easter sunrise services could be conducted. Keep in mind where we were then--only a couple hundred miles from Jerusalem, but right smack dab in a very ardently Islamic region.
Those Arabian cars we saw headed into Tabuk that Sunday morning weren't filled with little Arabian girls sporting their brand new Easter bonnets as they eagerly awaited being dropped off at a church wherein they would hear the resurrection story. If they were headed to any place religious there in Tabuk that Easter morning, it would have been to some Islamic mosque.
Anyway, our chaplain directed us to sit not towards the east so that we could see the sun rise, but rather towards the northwest--in the direction of Jerusalem which was only about 250 or so miles away over a couple mountain ranges from us--so that we could focus our hearts in the direction of where it was that THE SON rose that first Easter morning some 2000 or so years ago.
Then, at the conclusion of this Easter sunrise service, this group of rag tag GI's were directed by our chaplain to all stand facing Jerusalem and hold hands with your neighbor and sing these these words that went with an old familiar Gaither tune:
Because HE lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because HE lives, all fear is gone.
Because I KNOW who holds the future,
And life is worth the living just
Because HE lives!!
My friends, after that song was sung we all sort looked around at each other and quickly realized that there was not a dry eye in that congregation of tired and weary GI's.
The next time you're some 6,000 miles from home in some remote and forbidding Islamic country following the orders from your Commander in Chief to be in a hazardous duty area and engaged in a wartime environment, whether it's Easter or not, try singing "Because He Lives," and see if it doesn't have pretty much the same impact on you as it did for us---and STILL does for me some two years later...right now I'm fighting back tears when I think about how when Jesus Christ rose from the dead on that first resurrection morning, HE defeated the greatest terrorist known to mankind..the very one who was controlling Saddam Huessein and Osama Bin Laden and those terrorists at the controls of those planes on 11 September 2001...Jesus Christ completely liberated mankind from the clutches of Satan that morning when Operation Human Eternal Freedom was launched from that empty tomb and is still in operation today for all who will call upon His saving name.
And it still works for us today....
Because HE lives!
