Spiritual Mad Man,
"I have heard some very good Christian Rap lines...
Unfortunately, they have been few and far between...
What is troubling, irregardless of the genre, is when a band purporting themselves to be Christian parades around like the world...
When a Girl band parades around with bare mid-riffs and deep vee tops doing dance moves that would make an adult actress blush... That's not right...
I am not against correography in a 'show'... But, keep the body parts modestly covered and the dance steps without the 'grind'...
As for Hip Hop... Some groups are dressing in the persona of the secular gangsta rappers...
And, I know I have used Pauls all things to all men argument many times...
But, Christian Music should show a clear delineation in dress and actions from their secular couterparts...:
I agree completly.
Its
not just this rap stuff.
I saw some videos recently on one of the christian networks, and this one group was, as best as I could tell, a "christianised" version of "grunge". They were obviously trying to be a christian version of something like Nirvana.
Everything I have said about Rap also applies to this noise.
1st...I couldnt understand
one word they were screaming. I assume they were christian lyrics, but I have accept that by faith because 95% of the screaming was unintelligible.
Rather than to simply
stand there and play and sing, they...like the rappers lurching around like goons and thugs...these kids were lurching like some kind of
demoniacs on speed or something.
Thats the problem with so much of what I...and you obviously...see in contemporary christian music.
Ordinarily I am a huge huge huge
advocate for CCM. There are no acceptable vs unacceptable musical forms given in scripture. We have
absolute freedom in the area of music.
But, as you said, some of us are going too far...waaaaaaay too far...with it.
Rather than simply
use a current musical form to communicate gospel and/or godly messages, we are making the step to deliberatly
so closely mirror this hellish world and its music, that we become
indistinguishible from it.
It didnt start out that way.
When the Jesus people (converted hippies) first began bringing "worldly" rock music into the church, they did it while
maintaining a clear difference between them THEN, vs them NOW.
Before, they were stoned on stage and acted like it. They covorted themselves on stage lewdly and sinfully. The looked weird and sinister.
After being born again all of that
stopped. They were
different now...and
it showed.
They cleaned up. They brought the volume down. No more lurching around like animals on the prowl. demoniacs, or goonish thugs.
They simply
stood there and
played their music..(and you could understand all the lyrics. After all...thats the whole point! duh!).. and they
witnessed conversationally in between songs.
And there are groups doing that today...THANK GOD...but there are way too many who are taking this freedom we have musically and using it as a
liscence to sink to the lowest of the low levels that the worlds hellish musical groups sink to.
May God help us to make the distinction between
freedom of musical style and
imitating hell itself.
God bless,
Mike
I undestand what you are saying, although I don't agree with it. I think it is a cultural/age thing. I have no problem understanding the alternative/grunge/rap/Hip Hop/R&B stuff, but then again I grew up with it. I think you will find that there are many people, who also grew up with this stuff, and have no difficulties understanding it at all. People are really getting a message from it. That much is evident from what I have seen. "Night of Joy", at Disney, has produced some really great concerts, that were very fruitful, in that I have personally witnessed many getting saved or renewing their life for Christ. I have heard the same stories about other CCM concerts. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this one.