Bible passages that guide us about secular/unbelieving criticisms of Christian worship music/ministry?

In the interest of on-topic debate, I’ll throw in a few thoughts… and also get myself subscribed to the thread that way.

My own view on the language of music is that it mostly derives its meaning from cultural context. With that as a premise, I’ll add a second one: cultures are ever-changing, and as a result the meaning associated with forms changes as well. Those premises, coupled with observations of how various forms are used now vs. decades ago, suggests that much of the meaning of the form itself has faded away… . but only most of it.

So argument 1 could be summarized under the heading “the changing culture argument.” Gene said what he said quite a while ago.

Argument 2 is basically that Gene et al don’t speak for everyone in the industry, if there can even be said to be a distinct “rock and roll industry” anymore. What we have now are all sorts of subgenres, spin-offs. In any case, no one artist or even a handful of artists speaking individually can authoritatively say what the entire form is “about.” Who authorized them to do that?

Argument 3 picks up on my mention of subgenre. Gene was almost certainly talking about his own genre of rock, the heavy metal popular in the 80’s and early 90’s… admittedly, still liked, kind of nostalgically by many.

As for Scriptures that are relevant… I can’t off hand think of passages that would apply to “what to do with the opinion of an expert who says his own art form is sexually immoral.” But it seems logical that he could speak authoritatively about what he’s trying to do with his own music, at least, if not anyone else’s.

Having said all that, it’s pretty obvious that many of the metal bands were all about decadence of all sorts. Probably don’t need ol’ Gene to tell us that. But what was it about the music that made it a good medium for that selling that sort of lifestyle? I don’t know if Gene ever attempted to explain that but even if he did, see argument 1 above. In a variety of contexts now, I hear metal or metalish music from time to time that doesn’t strike me as “about sex” at all… as movie soundtrack background, advertising background, computer game background. In most cases, it’s not quite “heavy” metal that’s used for these soundtracks, but it sounds similar in a lot of ways, and it’s certainly “rock.” But what it seems to mostly be “about” is action, blowing stuff up, vehicle chases, jumping out of helicopters … When they want to communicate sex, they turn to soft piano and saxophone, seems to me (or various kinds of not-metal club/dance music).

But these are just my impressions.

Add to the mix that nowadays there’s a lot of orchestra music with a bit of drum and guitar thrown in now and then, along with other electronic sounds. So we have new fusions of previously isolated and distinct genres. There was certainly a time when a certain sound meant a certain thing, but now those same sounds, mixed with other sounds and used in a wide variety of very different contexts, doesn’t “work” that way anymore.

I can’t prove any of this from Scripture or anywhere else. These are my observations from watching and thinking about the topic for four decades or so now.

(Having said all that, I’m not in favor of church music being performed in the popular entertainment styles, with the pop vocals, drums, guitars and what not. The reasons why would be another long post… or several.)

Is there a link to the original source of this quote?

Is it possible that the two people in the conversation were both mocking Christianity’s perceived view of pop music and didn’t intend for their statements to be taken as absolute truth?

[Ron Bean]

Is there a link to the original source of this quote?

Is it possible that the two people in the conversation were both mocking Christianity’s perceived view of pop music and didn’t intend for their statements to be taken as absolute truth?

Here’s a link to a video of the comments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MweuGL0e7tA

A verse that comes to my mind when thinking of how an unsaved person might criticize my ministry is Matthew 5:11 - ““Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”

Kevin can clarify whether I’m reading him right, maybe, but perhaps he was trying to answer the part of your original post where you were asking for Scriptures that relate, and one possibility would be if, hypothetically, an expert of that sort were directing his criticism at a believer and/or his ministry.

Valid principle, but its relationship to the question seems a stretch. For my part, I’m sticking for now with “I can’t think of any passages that relate to this sort of quoted material.” But I haven’t had that much time to think about that part of it yet.

[RajeshG]

That’s one possible way to approach these kinds of statements. Do you believe that what Simmons said was something that he knew was false and that he intended to revile or persecute (or otherwise speak evil about) this professing Christian minister/musician with these comments?

He also said this - “The rules are different for country. You can sing Christian oriented lyrics and be acceptable.” Do you believe that statement of Gene’s is true?

In general, I don’t attach a whole lot of value to what Gene says. He’s entitled to his opinions, certainly.

As for the country question, I don’t think my own opinion on these things is of a whole lot of value either. But even the term “country” covers alot of variations. There are sad tunes, energetic tunes, reflective tunes, etc. So I would have to say that Gene seems to be overgeneralizing. There isn’t any genre that you can literally put any words you want with any tune in the genre—if you want to create a piece that makes any sense artistically.

I’ll grant though that country tunes do seem to me to be more flexible than, say, heavy metal tunes…if they can be called tunes. (But my experience with real metal is *extremely* limited. I just don’t find it interesting.)

Edit: just realized you were asking Rajesh probably, but maybe there is something helpful there still.

“If you sing pop lyrics, you are going to have a problem with your ministry

It seems that Simmons is telling the worship leader that “singing pop lyrics” would create a problem in his ministry. In other words, that singing pop music outside of church would create a problem when he sings Christian music in church. I don’t see anything where Simmons is talking about using pop music “in church”.

BTW, I’ve been hearing pop musicians quoted as support for the arguments against CCM for 40 years. I’m sure there are pop musicians who don’t consider their music about sexuality, demons, and long tongues. Are we to consider them reliable?

BTW, I don’t really care what over the hill rockers like Gene Simmons have to say. (Unless, of course they support my position SMILE.)

My position? There’s good pop music and there’s bad pop music.

[RajeshG]

Having just watched the video again, it’s hard for me to sort out exactly what Simmons was saying to him about country music, etc. To me, it seemed like his comments were not a recommendation telling Johnson that using country music in ministry would be acceptable. It seems that he was telling Johnson that he could be a country artist and sing Christian lyrics as a country artist.

[RajeshG]

Actually, my interest is more about what to do scripturally with the recommendation made by a secular/unbelieving musician to a professing Christian musician/minister about what that minister should not do with worship music because it would cause him problems with his ministry.

Number of times I’ve watched American Idol

ZERO

I had to Google Gene Simmons to inform me of his identity

my interest is more about what to do scripturally with the recommendation made by a secular/unbelieving musician to a professing Christian musician/minister about what that minister should not do with worship music because it would cause him problems with his ministry.

I was brainstorming a bit yesterday on the topic and came up with a sort of list but haven’t had time to look up the references.

Off hand, some pretty clear themes come to mind though:

• The head of the church is Christ, and His direction is the only direction that must be headed
• Wisdom cries out in the streets: the principle is that you can find bits of wisdom anywhere and everywhere, but it has to be sifted out and recognized (it makes sense to seek wisdom in places it is most likely to be found!)
• Occasional examples of unbelievers having some insight to offer do occur in Scripture.
• Common grace means God blesses all sorts of humans with all sorts of abilities we can all benefit from
• Every human is made in the image of God and is, therefore, capable of knowing truth and expressing it
• All truth claims have to be weighed and judged by what we know to be true in special revelation

References later if needed. They aren’t hard to find, but I don’t have all of them memorized.

….to the leader of any ministry is that he not use fallacious guilt by association arguments, actually.

Regarding Chaim Witz’s claim to speak on behalf of all rock & roll, there’s actually a fair number of acts that have breached the top 40 with religious and even explicitly Christian songs, so he’s arguably wrong there. There is also a tremendous amount of overlap between country & rock, an overlap that Simmons, who has shared a stage with Garth Brooks, knows very well.

Simmons’ band, KISS, is the rock & roll equivalent of the Rocky Horror Picture Show; it’s a cult act that can keep playing the same set of arenas about once a year or so to about the same half-million people, and those same half million people will generally take their latest album to gold but not platinum. The rest of us know KISS only from one song and their stage presence, which was beautifully spoofed by Berke Breathed in his introduction of “Deathtongue”. (and the Banana Jr. 6000)

Really, if we want to answer the question of whether specific genre might be used to praise God, we need to come up with a rationale for Christian music (I submit “to communicate the Word of God to the People of God in lyric form”) and then ask ourselves whether those vocal, postic, musical, and other techniques lend themselves to that goal.

[RajeshG] \Do you have any specific passages in mind that would apply more directly to comments such as Simmons made?

Do you?

We were asked:

Should Christians care about what secular/unbelieving people say in negative comments such as these about the worship music/ministry of certain Christians? What Bible passages do you think guide us in knowing what to do with such comments?

I Corinthians 4:3-4 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.

I suggest Proverbs 11:14:

Where there is no guidance, a people falls,
but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.

Consider whether your music has holy lyrics, and is conducted in a manner that reflects honor and glory to God. Consider the credibility of the person making the complaint. Don’t make ecclesiastical decisions without gathering careful and considered input from the congregation. Don’t make ecclesiastical decisions based on public perception, or on the sycophantic urgings of people you already know agree with you. Forge genuine consensus, and consider the Scriptures.

Does the Proverb say “believe a multitude of counselors”?

If there is a multitude on both sides of a question, how would that work?

I avoid ζήτησις as the Scriptures teach

[RajeshG]

Aaron Blumer wrote:

Does the Proverb say “believe a multitude of counselors”?

If there is a multitude on both sides of a question, how would that work?

Good questions. Tyler mentioned several other things that would also need to be taken account, especially “consider the Scriptures,” which seems to put us back to my original question.

I believe the answer to the Proverbs questions I posed is that the point of the Proverb is take in a good bit of counsel, then evaluate, then make your decision. What the abundance of counselors does for you is provide a variety of perspectives on the decision, help you see aspects you might not have otherwise, outcomes you hadn’t anticipated, etc. So the assumption of the Proverb is that you are a decision-maker, and the principle is “get a sufficient variety of good counsel” before deciding. It’s not a call to do what the counselors say.

Regarding the notion of fundamentalists in ministry endorsing the vision of a serial adulterer married to a former Playboy “playmate” who routinely wears pancake makeup, a fake tongue dripping blood, metal spiked leather, fishnet pantyhose, and platform boots on stage, it strikes me that the Bible says plenty about taking counsel from a fool.

Let’s be real here; in any genre of music, including ancient hymns, you will find a certain number of performers who are in it for the groupies or the money. If we consistently applied the “logic” Rajesh endorses, we would have silence. That’s where guilt by association leads, because Romans 3:23 ensures that every genre will have them.

[RajeshG]

Here are some related comments/considerations from a current CCM musician that we also should consider how to evaluate scripturally:

Mario Sangermano
I’m a professional musician who has and does work with some of the most well known CCM artists. I’ve done tours, recorded on their albums , etc.. I can tell you first hand that it’s about the bottomline, not Jesus. The hypocrisy is rampant. And I will say many are not believers. I was on a tour bus one year with a well known act and I was mocked for reading my bible. I was yelled at by the drummer for calling out heretics on TBN. Many musicians like myself who work in the CCM market are not believers. They all call themselves Christian’s, but their words and actions betray them. And the biblical ignorance is beyond breathtaking. There ate [sic] true believers players and artists alike, but far and few between.

From the comments to this article: Lauren Daigle Rebrands Image as Non-Christian Artist

This is a data point. Maybe like one data point in a million since about everyone in Nashville and untold other people claim to work in the music industry. To try to use this one “testimonial” as proof or even strong evidence is just beyond silly. How do you know this is just not some bitter washed up musician that can’t get work?

There are plenty of people that say the same things about pastors. Does that mean no one should go to church?

I will give my data point since I have considerable experience and lots of relationships in that world. Most of the people I run across in the Christian music industry are great people that are the real deal and would be considered Christ-focused. They are different in doctrine and practice than me generally speaking but they believe in what they are doing. A lot of them consider me liberal actually. I would not see them as too different than the people that post here on this forum in general. In other words, they are pretty representative of what you find in a typical church. I would say that most of the industry would call themselves either non-denom or Southern Baptists. I was at an industry event a few years ago and Ed Stetzer came in to preach and he preached on the dangers in the professional CCM world harder than anyone I have ever heard. The crowd was all CCM professionals and they ate it up.

https://sharperiron.org/comment/104669#comment-104669

[this is an example of a GOTO statement]

Why CCM and music discussions go no where. [this is an example of a GOTO statement]

Jay’s a programmer. He’ll get this

There are alot of reasons discussions on this and similar topics tend to be unproductive.

One of the biggest is that a real conversation tends to be driven by one of two things:

• Discovery
• Debate

But with these very controversial topics, almost no one is interested in discovery, and quite a few aren’t especially interested in debate either. So the resulting interaction tends to be something other than a”conversation.”

I can tell you first hand that it’s about the bottomline, not Jesus.

This isn’t exactly earth-shattering news to me and probably shouldn’t be for the rest of our readership. Most of the major CCM labels are owned by larger, secular music labels. It’s the same way in “Christian publishing”.

Shai Linne talks about this in his song “Random Thoughts 3”:

Hey Yo I’m back but nobody was asking where I been
Cause Christ-centered music is no longer the hot trend
Logic says well maybe I should just stop then
But I never got into this for a spot in the top ten
I do this for one reason- Jesus, the True King, son
To help God’s elect obey Hebrews 3:1
And though the rap world is ever crowded
If heaven allows it, I’ll keep writing for the seven thousand
I know you’re out there, I still get the emails
Against the church of Christ the gates of hell will never prevail
It’s founded on the Rock and the gospel never stops
So we droppin’ the topic whether it’s popular or not…

…While Tower Records was choosing to carry G-Unit
I was on that Revolutionary Theme Music
The brothers from the Lou held it down as well
But we noticed a big shift in
Around the time Jackie asked me about Calvinism
Christian Hip-hop found a different algorithm
And crossed over without taking the cross over
Made us all sober — years later, is it all over?
Trip asked me if I was still motivated
I was quiet, but I wanted to say “No, I hate it”
Because brothers in your camp causing lots of confusion
I love them as brothers in Christ, but not their conclusions
They wanna reach the world? By all means keep pursuing it
But tell me, why they gotta diss the church while they’re doing it?
That’s what I wanted to say, but I ain’t say it though
But no more laying low, I want them to play it slow
And I ain’t dissing them, my prayers are the proof
Like Boaz without Ruth is unity without truth
CHH is like gorillas in the mist
With no brotherly love, it’s like Philly don’t exist
What’s happening here? It’s a different atmosphere
Cats appear most concerned about a rap career.

[Aaron Blumer]

There are alot of reasons discussions on this and similar topics tend to be unproductive.

One of the biggest is that a real conversation tends to be driven by one of two things:

• Discovery
• Debate

But with these very controversial topics, almost no one is interested in discovery, and quite a few aren’t especially interested in debate either. So the resulting interaction tends to be something other than a”conversation.”