Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Should Christians Listen to Secular Music?


I was having some fun surfing around Twitter and read a comment that sparked some great conversation that I want to share with you. A person asked the question: "Why would Any Christian be a FAN of Any Secular Artist or Any1 Who Does Not Sing about God? Well, the conversation went from the actually idea of being a FAN of a person who may sing or promote secular music to whether or not it is okay for a Christian to listening to or sing secular music at all.

My first thought and response was to point out that it seems to be the case that in an effort to be "in the world, but not of it" the church was too quick to trade off certain ideas like children playing marbles in the playground. You (the world) get the secular, we (the church) get the sacred; you get reason, we get faith; you keep love songs, we keep gospel. My problem is, I don't think the world should be giving exclusivity to sing about something they really know very little about. Who knows better about expressing true love and intimacy than God's people?

I believe that the proper object of our affection is God, but He has also given us an example and expression of love in the context of marriage. Did you realize that the Bible begans with a wedding and ends with one? and in between is a love story written in blood about God's love, trust and faithfulness, in the mist of our unfaithfulness. In fact, the imagery of God in the OT is one of a husband and in the NT Christ is seen as the Groom who will present his bride without spot or blemish. If we don't teach the world what true love, intimacy, faithfulness, and yes, ..sex is suppose to look like ... who will?


Here is the one problem I find: media and music in our world today (generally speaking) feeds our flesh and appeals to our appetites. So that (generally speaking again) the music today is creating (or helping to create) in young people and in single people, who have no "proper object of their affection" a desire that they cannot fullfill righteously. Hate to say it, but there is a lot of junk out there, that only promote clubbin, drinking, sex and bad behavior (whether you are young, old, married or single) and I believe it should be avoided.

The Bible instructs us to not be conformed to the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:1ff). Think about this carefully: What you are INFORMED by, and CONFORM to, will TRANSFORM your life. Be discerning in all things. Test all things, hold to that which is good (1 Thess 5:21), not all music is good music, but its not all bad either. Let us not only teach what it means to love God, but let us model that love in the context of marriage and I don't think it is wrong to sing about it either. My Mind, My Thoughts, My Heart, My Words

Your Thoughts?