a broken mold

Just a note about Christian Contemporary music. I personally am disgusted by the vast majority of music in this category. As Mr. Tollefson has often told us students at Providence, the medium must fit the message. So often Christian contemporary is just Godified paganism. They hear the secular music of the day and set out to mimic it, only with Jesus lyrics so the Christian kids can feel cool too. What they end up with is a dumbed down, lamer version of secular music with cheesy words intended to convey a warm, fuzzy feeling, but instead give out nauseous, luke-warm vibes. Not good.

Is this what we want the world to think of our Christianity? Do we want people to see us as a cheesy, fuzzy, group of people “keeping it real with Jesus?” Should our music portray a sappy, over-baked “Jesus is my boyfriend” style or shouldn’t we rather portray what Christianity really is, the blood of Christ, the raging struggle of spirit against flesh, flesh against spirit, the persecution, the wrath of God, the (not sappy, not cheesy, but overpowering) love of Jesus when we were unlovable, wallowing in blood, sin and misery, the burden lifted from our shoulders by His sacrifice, the battle that He calls us to join, our victory against the power of Satan forever…now there’s something to sing about.

A lot of Christians would argue with me and say that using that kind of language doesn’t win people to Christ. If they hear about the bloody, gory, humiliating, overwhelming and rather harsh story of the Bible they will be repulsed. Therefore we should give them a mushy, half-hearted depiction of Jesus as a meek, Bambi-eyed, white-robed figure, trying to relate to people, begging them to just hold hands with Him, sway back and forth a little, throw a pine-cone in the fire, slip up their hand…? I think not.

People are desperate. People are miserable. People are wallowing in blood and tears waiting, searching for someone brave enough to make war on the misery of the world, someone strong enough to turn the world right side up, someone they can admire, love and fear. Someone awesome. They’re not ready to put the world in the hands of plastic, hippie-Jesus, but perhaps they would place the universe in the hands of the bloody but triumphant Son of God, one who has faced death and spat in it’s face, one who has crushed the head of sin and misery and sent it howling with it’s tail between it’s legs, one who is so beautiful, so holy, so awesome, so glorious we cannot look at Him without falling on our faces, one who loves us in our dirt and invites us in to eat at His table. This is what the world is looking for. Perhaps it’s time to start portraying our story in our music.  If we’re going to make “Christian” songs, let’s at least do it right.