I
love Christian music. You know Christian music don’t you? Christian lyrics set
to music. Lyrics that talk about God, Jesus, salvation and Heaven. At times
there might even be a mention of Mary. I love Christian music because it’s
uplifting and it focuses my mind on things about God. Like his love and
goodness and Jesus coming to die for me. And it helps in worshipping and
praising God. And it doesn’t glorify drugs, sex or the objectification of
women. However I must confess that I’m hooked on Christian rock and hip-hop. I
remember watching One-Cubed all those years ago and watching the video for
Consume Me by Dc Talk. After that I was hooked. Just the other day, I went to a
store and bought The Hurt and The Healer, Miracle, Gravity and Believer, the latest
albums by MercyMe, Third Day, Lecrae and Kutless respectively.
The
other day I read an article in TIME magazine in its religion section where it
did a report on how Christian artistes were breaking into the mainstream
charts. As an aside, it’s quite interesting that TIME has a religion section. I
love news magazines but if you read a lot of magazines like TIME, Newsweek or
The Economist, you get the feeling that the editors are of the opinion that
people of faith, especially Christians are kooks, people who are crazy and
causing all the trouble in the world. If they had their way, they would
incarcerate all people of faith. They regularly refer to God as a myth so its
therefore something that smacks of hypocrisy that they have a section devoted
to religion in their magazine.
In
the story, there were talking about how Lecrae and TobyMac had topped the
iTunes album charts with music with Christian music. In a particular week,
Lecrae had the number 1, 2 and 7 songs on the singles charts. This was achieved
in spite of the fact that people normally steer clear of songs that are deemed
to be Christian or mention God. However, there were other artistes and groups
who were Christian like Switchfoot, who refused to be labelled as Christian
artistes. According to one of the members of Switchfoot, they make a point of
not mentioning Jesus or God in their songs. They also make a point of leaving
their lyrics open to the listener’s interpretation. Which then led me to the
question, is Switchfoot a Christian musical group or a secular musical group
made up of Christians?
As
a lawyer when I started out, my main motivation was winning cases. However, my mind-set
changed when I talked to a colleague of mine. When I asked her whether she
normally prayed to win cases, she told me no. She explained that while she
would do her best in preparing for and prosecuting the case, she would not pray
to win the case. Rather, she would pray that God’s will be done. That changed
the way I saw what I do. I have no problems with Christians being in a secular musical
group. After all, we all live in a secular world. But as Christians we need to
bring a Christian persuasion to all we do.
My
devotional the other day was talking about how all that we do has to be about
Jesus. Even when we do things that edify us like preaching, it has to be about
Jesus. However it bothers me when someone says he doesn’t want to be identified
as “Christian”. It’s almost as if they are saying that they are ashamed of
Jesus and would rather achieve fame and fortune on their terms. So when someone
says that the lyrics of their song are open to whatever interpretation the listener
wants to give them, I wonder how that is about Jesus. If we can’t say we belong
to Christ in song and in our everyday lives, when can we?
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