On a recent broadcast of The Paul Edwards Program, I asked Jay Swartzendruber, the editor of CCM Magazine, if he and his staff had arrived at a philosophical definition of what Christian music is or isn’t:
It’s a very difficult thing. For one thing – Christian music – we’ve really made it this thing where it’s a genre in our industry and if you look at it honestly, Christian music is not a genre. It’s a description that we use to describe music made by Christians in all kinds of genres, from hip-hop to jazz to hard rock to soft pop, and so it’s not really a genre. If you want to call it a genre, then it’s the only one defined by its lyrics, which is a really odd thing. And we can’t say truthfully that we’ve defined it by who’s making it because what about all the Christians making music that aren’t distributed into Christian bookstores. So we’re saying, “It’s Christian worldview music.” It’s music that has a biblical worldview of life reflected in the lyrics and created by believers.
The thing that I dislike the most about labeling music with a Christian worldview as Christian music is that it is further separating the Church from the world.
Jesus said “Go and make disciples of every nation.” He didn’t say “Go and start your own little Christian community with your own religious labels and hope that somebody from the outside will wander in and somehow understand it all.”
We are the light of the world. The light is supposed to go into the world, not vice versa.
Henry
Point well taken…
The choices are not the best..
A Mormon, who’s doctrine denies the Deity of Christ and leaves Him lower than the angels, or a RC, who believes in baptismal regeneration, and the sacraments as a miens of salvation.
These last two are some of what the reformers forgot to reform, IE, Augustine, Zwingli, and Calvin.
How about purgatory?… According to Loraine Boettner, Augustine gave this heresy its first definite form. “Immortality” (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1956) p.135.
So here are our choices, …Momon,… RC, …Infidel, …or Hillary. Its your bat, go ahead, give it your best shot.
We can try to affect what leadership we elect in this country, but there seems to be little to choose from.
The solace I find is that God is able to accomplish His work in spite of world leaders.
The music we chose to listen to and allow in our home is an entirely different matter. We can make a difference here.
As the world goes, so does the church. As the secular music gets more carnal , the church has followed suit.
Remember when Elvis was sin?
Now we have “Christian Rap”.. fashioned after a godless image. Whats next? …. Perhaps the sound of a trumpet! ( oh, I forgot, some of them were amillennial also.)
1 Corinthians 15:52
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound, ( COME..UP..HITHER ) and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed!”
Since Chirstians are being encouraged to vote for a Mormon, because of his worldview being very similar to ours, then we could be seeing Mormon music artists in CCM.
Jay is right, there are more important things for me to spend your money on than CCM, and I think they are off the mark with their new focus. Lyrics are the most important part of music, and must be done to the glory of God, and that cannot be done by an unbeliever!