Posted on 09/14/2011 9:19:22 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
While some have sought to make Christian music more relevant by adding an electric guitar or a hip-hop beat to it, others prefer to listen and worship through more traditional forms of music, such as hymns. But should Christian music be limited to a designated genre, or can faith-based themes be effectively portrayed through any number of styles?
Though people may disagree on which style they like best, there's no denying that Christian or Gospel music is widely sought after.
A 2009 report from the Gospel Music Association indicates that Christian music sales total about half a billion dollars per year. In 2008, the Christian music industry sold over 56 million units in the form of CDs, cassettes, digital tracks and digital albums.
But a recent article by Will Edwards, which appeared in University of Alabama's student newspaper, The Crimson White, describes Christian music as being “unoriginal” and “genreless.”
Edwards' article, titled “Guitars killed Christian music, no resurrection in sight,” argues that Christian music, in the form of hymns and classical music composed by the likes of Mozart and Bach, made an impact because it once led the musical culture. With the rise of rock-and-roll and the increased use of broadcasting technology, however, Christian music was left behind and has been playing catch-up to secular culture ever since.
He accuses Christian music of lacking in originality, saying, “Many Christian songs have a near-identical equal in the secular music industry. It’s a knock-off of the original ... For the past 50 years, Christian music has been playing copycat to whatever is popular on secular radio. They haven’t changed the message, but the music that delivers it has become stale and unoriginal.”
Musician and minister Jimi Calhoun agrees with Edwards in many ways.
"There's a considerable amount of people who think that music hasn't been original since the '70s,” Calhoun told The Christian Post in an interview.
A resident of Austin, Texas, Calhoun previously worked as a professional bass guitar player, playing with a number of famous musicians including Jimi Hendrix, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Etta James, Lou Rawls and more.
He said that, from his experience, Christian music is not well-respected in the broader music industry.
"It sells a lot of records ... if I were an executive I would want to try to get market share in this,” he said, but “from the player's standpoint ... it's not looked up to."
Calhoun's journey to Christ began on a trip to England, where he started his search for God and for inner peace. He studied both Buddhism and Metaphysics, but eventually ended up at Christianity and later became an ordained minister.
Though he has worked in several other ministries before, he is currently planning on starting his own church with the goal of bridging the gap between art and spirituality.
Calhoun pointed out that Christian music as an evangelism tool is “noneffective” and that “it's never utilized in an arena where people are going to hear it and make a decision for Christ.”
"It's an art form that goes directly to the choir. It's an edification thing, even though we tell ourselves that we're witnessing,” he explained.
Edwards doesn't just criticize Christian music for its lack of creativity, however. He also suggests that Christian music should be confined to a specific style of music.
“Christian music is genreless,” he writes. “Turn on the Christian radio station and listen for 30 minutes. You will hear two piano ballads, three pop/rock songs and one pseudo heavy metal thrasher. It doesn’t sound like anything specific. When I put on the pop station, I know what I’m getting. There’s a genre there, but Christian music lacks that.”
But Patrick McGuire, associate of Music and Worship at the Florida-based First Baptist Church Merritt Island, argued that Christian music doesn't have to fit into a particular style. To create a Christian-specific genre would be to limit the impact that Christian music has on the world.
"We're really called to be in the world and to serve the way that Christ did, and for us to have music that is explicitly religious and therefore not accessible to outsiders ... I don't really think that's the call of Christ," he stated.
McGuire has been working at the church for about a year and serves as its leader of the rhythm section. The church has a choir and orchestra, but they also play more contemporary music as well. First Baptist's worship team spent last summer writing and recording original music, which he says lends authenticity to corporate worship experiences.
"The most important thing that I relate to ... is just how powerful it is to see a twenty-something standing next to a 70-year-old in the choir and to hear them in one voice proclaim the Gospel,” he said.
I once invited a young secular immigrant from Bulgaria to a Christian Youth Fellowship Group ( mostly composed of dozens of late teeners and college students ).
After the fellowship, the Bulgarian told me that the songs being sang (including the lyrics ) sound like love songs he heard in Bulgaria ( and remember, Bulgaria is secular and was under atheistic communism for many years ).
He said the love songs to Jesus ( e.g. repeats of “Jesus I Love you, Jesus I need you” ) gave him the impression that the girls wanted Jesus to be their boyfriend or something....
I once invited a young secular immigrant from Bulgaria to a Christian Youth Fellowship Group ( mostly composed of dozens of late teeners and college students ).
After the fellowship, the Bulgarian told me that the songs being sang (including the lyrics ) sound like love songs he heard in Bulgaria ( and remember, Bulgaria is secular and was under atheistic communism for many years ).
He said the love songs to Jesus ( e.g. repeats of “Jesus I Love you, Jesus I need you” ) gave him the impression that the girls wanted Jesus to be their boyfriend or something....
I’m trying to remember where I heard about the program director for a Christian music station talking about “JPM’s. JPM’s are supposedly “Jesuses per minute”. It was told to make the point that the music was generally so bad and the lyrics so vapid that he felt that if there wasn’t so many JPM’s in a song the audience wouldn’t realize it was supposed to be “Christian music”, whatever that means. I don’t know if the anecdote is true or not.
All I know is that every time I turn the station to “Christian rock” it is pretty lame, but to be fair most of the new “regular” rock that gets played on the radio is lame too.
Freegards
I totally agree. Satan has taken over church music. The church can no longer heal the deaf, but it sure is trying to cause deafness in many churches.
I prefer traditional Southern Baptist hymnal and traditional Christmas music
the sort of things one would find in the 1960s when I grew up
I can’t do youtube here right now.
Is it ‘The Benzedrine Monks Of Santo Domonica’?
Some of the contemporary music is very wonderful (that which sticks to a Biblical message-the message of the Cross and empty tomb! However some of it is very blah-feelings oriented, or really no meaning.
I think you really have to judge each band/artist and lyric individually!
J.S.
Since lyrics speak to a person's soul, I think it is hard to convert based on a song. I have seen a strong impact through certain older films on a contemporary audience and I believe that has to do with story that encompasses several senses. A song sung pure and lovely with God shining through has the power through its shear beauty to convert the heart. It hears God. It is not in the words. It is in the beauty of God.
“Christian” is a theme, not a genre. Christian music can be rock, pop, A/C, jazz, classical - that’s its broad appeal. Those who say only classical sacred music or hymns are “Christian” forget that Charles and John Wesley (and others) set Christian lyrics to popular drinking songs of the day - many of which eventually made it into the hymnal.
FWIW, I write and perform Christian music in multiple genres because different folks are attracted to different styles. I haven’t gone hip-hop yet (my daughters would DIE), but somebody will listen to Holy Hip-Hop (a real genre) and find Christ.
AFWIW, I get tired of overly repetitive praise tunes in our worship services, too.
Colonel, USAFR
You're WRONG!
It's the music I don't like that is bad!
;-)
The best I can come up with is the Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_%28band%29
They have no site of their own, and the one fan site I found kind of sucked.
Apparently not real monks, but they can chant like nobody’s business.
***most modern praise songs are like commercial jingles, except more simplistic!****
Yet you can’t whistle the tune, you can’t feel lifted in spirit by them. the songs just set ther and do nothing except moan and groan take up time.
At church, one canned song I particularly hate has a final refrain of “Thank you lord, thank you Lord, Thank you Lord...” Then it begins to fade out and people begin to set down.
SUDENLY the music comes back loud, and everyone jumps back to their feet...”THANK YOU LORD THANK YOUR LORD thank you lord...” then fades out.
You start to set down and her it comes again! “THANK YOU LORD THANK YOUR LORD thank you Lord..”
Then the song fades out and everyone remains standing because they are not sure if it will start the refrain over again. It is kind of rough on us old people.
Several years back I was trying to listen to a Christian radio station. they played the same song over three times within 20 minutes. The “singer” was moaning and groaning with as much pieity as he could muster. I felt that someone should shoot him just to put him out of his misery.
Give me the good old hymns from the OLD Baptist hymnal or other older songs, or a good dose of THE CHUCK WAGON GANG any day!
Victory in Jesus.
On Christ the solid Rock I stand.
or some Issac Watts songs.
No moaning and groaning in these!
What Christian music lacks is talent. Thirty minutes of “He Loves Me” sung through the nose of a “prophetic worship leader” is akin to waterboarding. There is no excelence in it because it’s performed for God and nobody is going to say it’s bad. I call it Christian Hip-Hop or “Yeah God” music because the crowd hops around like a Zumba class on meth, while the band plays the same three cords as “Gloria” by Van Morrison.
Christian music is a contradiction. What is the rest of music, non-Christian, demonic, worldly, secular etc. There is good music and bad music. The fact that you take a lousy song and ganish it with slurred or screamed Christian catch phrases doesn’t make it good.
It’s too bad that most of Christian music is either terrible or mediocre, but as long as you are doing it for the Lord, nobody is going to tell you you can’t sing. At the Pearly Gates they may find Simon Cowell instead of Saint Peter.
What Christian music lacks is talent. Thirty minutes of “He Loves Me” sung through the nose of a “prophetic worship leader” is akin to waterboarding. There is no excelence in it because it’s performed for God and nobody is going to say it’s bad. I call it Christian Hip-Hop or “Yeah God” music because the crowd hops around like a Zumba class on meth, while the band plays the same three cords as “Gloria” by Van Morrison.
Christian music is a contradiction. What is the rest of music, non-Christian, demonic, worldly, secular etc. There is good music and bad music. The fact that you take a lousy song and ganish it with slurred or screamed Christian catch phrases doesn’t make it good.
It’s too bad that most of Christian music is either terrible or mediocre, but as long as you are doing it for the Lord, nobody is going to tell you you can’t sing. At the Pearly Gates they may find Simon Cowell instead of Saint Peter.
I’d like to weigh in on this discussion. I’m a musician/singer/songwriter. I came to Christ in 2000 at the age of 40. I was started writing and recording gospel songs.
I was looking to market them and spoke to a contemporary Christian music reviewer in New York who told me that I can’t say “Jesus” too much in my songs. It turns people off.
I also had an opportunity to have my first CD reviewed by an A&R guy at a Christian label. He loved the music (folk/country/bluegrass blend), and said he might personally want to use some of the songs for his own personal project, but since I wasn’t a 23 year old rocker with a goatee, I wasn’t what they were looking for. It was disappointing to say the least.
Currently, I’m a worship leader at a cowboy church. We do a variety of music from old hymns to country gospel to CCM. The music is done well, with a tuned voice and a tuned guitar. The guitar itself didn’t kill Christian music. It is a finely tuned instrument that I use to communicate, just as I pray that I am for God’s use.
Much of CCM is taken from Psalms. It’s all praise, no theology. The hymns that are being forced out of churches are teaching tools and, I believe, are powerful tools for leading people to Christ. I agree that so much of the current Christian music is devoid of any soul or feeling.
I have a three piece band. We love to do gospel concerts, but our main performance venues tend to be in the secular arena. We ALWAYS play gospel songs. It’s amazing to us how well received gospel songs are received in secular places. It opens up hearts and opportunities and is often the only time many people are exposed to the gospel.
A couple of weeks ago, we played at an out door event in Prescott. We included several gospel songs in our set, as usual. When we finished, a homeless man came up in tears thanking us for playing those songs. They had touched him deeply.
My husband and I have been participating with a homeless ministry for many years now. They picked one of my songs, Daddy-O, as a theme song for their web site. Here’s a link:
http://www.youmatterministries.com/You_Matter_Ministries/Home.html
Bottom line - good music is good music. The subject matter of God cannot be exhausted. His word never comes back void - so put it out there.
What Christian music lacks is talent. Thirty minutes of “He Loves Me” sung through the nose of a “prophetic worship leader” is akin to waterboarding. There is no excelence in it because it’s performed for God and nobody is going to say it’s bad. I call it Christian Hip-Hop or “Yeah God” music because the crowd hops around like a Zumba class on meth, while the band plays the same three cords as “Gloria” by Van Morrison.
Christian music is a contradiction. What is the rest of music, non-Christian, demonic, worldly, secular etc. There is good music and bad music. The fact that you take a lousy song and ganish it with slurred or screamed Christian catch phrases doesn’t make it good.
It’s too bad that most of Christian music is either terrible or mediocre, but as long as you are doing it for the Lord, nobody is going to tell you you can’t sing. At the Pearly Gates they may find Simon Cowell instead of Saint Peter.
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