<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Eric B:
...so Christians always remained several steps behind the rest of society, and would gradually accept a style after the world had long moved into even more radical forms. Now we look up, and raves and mosh pits are being accepted in the church, and once again, we react with horror. But this is what happens when we put so much emphasis on our rejection of the world. The opposite of the desired effect happens: we, trying to be so "separate" from the world) actually define our whole existence around the "world" ("whatever they do, we will do the opposite"). Then our children see through this phony spirituality and rebel, and follow the world, albeit two steps behind. (now trying to catch up, though).
Michael Horton's Beyond Culture Wars covers this tendency well. While he has much to say about modern evangelicalism and its music, slogans, bumper stickers, etc. He shows that this whole "Christian ghetto" approach actually stems from the world-rejecting old-line fundamentalism with it's radical "separationism". All we're doing today is updating the approach.
Once again, when lines aren't drawn reasonably, people will cross them quickly, and then not know where to draw another line.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
What do you do? Do you make up your own history just to support your arguments?
But to refute your blasphemous railing against separation from the world, I will quote our Lord and His apostles:
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
Luke 16:15 And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.
John 15:19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
James 2:5 Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?
James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
1 John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
1 John 3:1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Oh, wait a minute! These guys were just over-reacting!! That's why it took nearly two thousand years before the line between Christian music and worldly music to be completely erased!
There is nothing new under the sun, and the trends in "popular" music have happened before. Don't procede on the false premise that rock music and the rejection of moral standards are mere coincidence. A quote from Plato is worth considering:
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>From The Laws:
And then, as time went on, the poets themselves introduced the reign of vulgar and lawless innovation. They were men of genius, but they had no perception of what is just and lawful in music; raging like Bacchanals and possessed with inordinate delights-mingling lamentations with hymns, and paeans with dithyrambs; imitating the sounds of the flute on the lyre, and making one general confusion; ignorantly affirming that music has no truth, and, whether good or bad, can only be judged of rightly by the pleasure of the hearer. And by composing such licentious works, and adding to them words as licentious, they have inspired the multitude with lawlessness and boldness, and made them fancy that they can judge for themselves about melody and song. And in this way the theatres from being mute have become vocal, as though they had understanding of good and bad in music and poetry; and instead of an aristocracy, an evil sort of theatrocracy has grown up. For if the democracy which judged had only consisted of educated persons, no fatal harm would have been done; but in music there first arose the universal conceit of omniscience and general lawlessness;-freedom came following afterwards, and men, fancying that they knew what they did not know, had no longer any fear, and the absence of fear begets shamelessness. For what is this shamelessness, which is so evil a thing, but the insolent refusal to regard the opinion of the better by reason of an over-daring sort of liberty? . . . Con-sequent upon this freedom comes the other freedom, of disobedience to rulers; and then the attempt to escape the control and exhortation of father, mother, elders, and when near the end, the control of the laws also; and at the very end there is the contempt of oaths and pledges, and no regard at all for the Gods-herein they exhibit and imitate the old so called Titanic nature, and come to the same point as the Titans when they rebelled against God, leading a life of endless evils.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>