Good-bye melody. Harmony, you probably shouldn’t come around anymore.We need rhythm and texture more than we ever needed you. Crystal-clear voices with those wonderful vibratos aren’t necessary, we have screaming and growling to convey our message.

I must admit that I understand why people freaked out when the Newsboys or whoever it was began making contemporary Christian music. I know why rock and roll was originally never accepted by the majority of Christians. The genre itself was birthed in the midst of rebellion, as a means for revolutionary thinkers to express the thoughts of their time, many of which were contrary to Christianity. I’ve already expressed that Jesus’ theme song (if He ever had one) should come in the form of rock and roll, because He really was a rebel, but I’m going for something different now.

Music is nothing more than a neutral medium. It is neither good nor evil, but is colored by the message that it carries. Pop music is the greatest example ever, because so much of it is built around conventional means of composition including harmony and melody, with rhyme and all that lovely stuff, but we all know that there are some songs out there that in spite of their “clean” sound and appearance, carry with them messages of lust, hatred, anger, depression. . .that negative list could go on for a long time!

What then, makes a genre of music more acceptable than any other? It’s “affiliation”? Please, I fight people over that type of ignorance. I realize that this idea is nothing new, but honestly, people still struggle with anything that has the “appearance of evil”. There are people in my own church who I love and respect, who absolutely think that anything like hardcore music is straight from the Devil. It makes ME want to scream.

I think that my issue is more with people who fear what looks like evil than people who don’t like hardcore music, because ruling anything out based on appearance requires little or no thinking. Discernment isn’t necessary to live like that, which I think is incredibly unfortunate. Consider making judgment calls on a person’s appearance. . . it just doesn’t work like that!

I have to admit that much of what I say and do, I do because it requires people to think, and sometimes I probably cross the line, and I sort of have a reputation for doing this kind of thing, but I’m glad to do it, if it can make someone think.

I remember driving somewhere with a bunch of interns in the car once discussing how sheltered they were when it came to understanding certain cultural things, and I had to tell them,

“I will un-shelter you all!”

I wish God would do this to us, because we need to be exposed not to evil, but to the things that have been branded as such to be liberated and to freely enjoy things that we should be able to, like rock and roll, hardcore music and people who we might just think are “too bad” for us all. Beyond that, think of the people that Christian rappers, rockers and other “alternative artists” are reaching! Emery, one of my favorite bands has a wonderful reputation for preaching during their shows, which glorifies God and brings joy to my heart! Bless them and their screaming selves, because it’s worth it even if only one person gets saved! *Side note, they sing incredibly well too, so perhaps not the BEST example. . .

The church has made leaps and bounds in this area, but there is always room for improvement, because who knows when another musical genre is going to come out?