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April 22, 2008
Does Christian Rock Suck?
Here are several links that I was made aware of courtesy of Jeffrey Overstreet's blog. On this page, Daniel Radosh, a self-described secular Jew and humanist, has posted a debate that he had at a bar or something like with Mr. McCard who is described as someone who believes in God. The debate is fascinating.
Mr. McCard, in essence, defines both Christianity and rock music fairly rigidly and proceeds to make the case that Christian rock by definition must suck because it is incompatible with the ends of rock and roll. He defines Christianity as being basically ascetic and/or fundamentalistic and rock and roll as basically, pardon the crude quote, "coming from the crotch" and in essence designed to stimulate the passions nested therein. This is a good place to note that this debate has some sexually charged language that may be offensive to some of you. Mr. Radosh rightly argues that these are rather too narrow definitions of each, and that they were, in essence, the same arguments proposed by the fundamentalistic opponents of rock and roll in the 1950s and onward. He also comes up with some helpful categories for types of Christian music. One he labels "Separational," the other "Transformational," and I do not remember the third category but basically it is between the other two and might be considered "cross-over" territory, to borrow a buzz word from a Christian music debate of the 1980's.
I must say, Radosh is very surprising in many ways, in that he has fairly good bead on the pulse of some aspects of evangelical culture, though this perhaps makes his analysis of Christianity necessarily narrow. Though, to be fair, I do not believe that he is claiming to describe more than the Evangelical subculture. Mr. Radosh gets it right that Christianity need not be limited to an ascetic world view, but I believe gets it wrong by viewing this as simply an accomodationist posture to the world. From the Reformed world view everything in this world is a good, though human sin has warped it on some systemic levels and the world groans under this. And sin also conditions human culture, though not all aspects of human culture, as many of these glorify God and his good world.
Also, Mr. Radosh several times notes that he is describing Christianity phenonmenologically, i.e. that Christianity is what Christians practice, that Christian music is what Christian people listen to and like. I think that such a view, particularly regarding Christianity itself, is inadequate. I think this, well, because I am believer, and that belief is nested in the trust that Christianity is a revealed religion and we cannot simply make of it what we will. Nonetheless, I think Mr. Radosh is very perceptive. However, I wonder why he is so interested in evangelical Christianity, whether it is simply research interest, whether he wants to see how it does and does not accord with humanism, or whether he is simply "playing" in the postmodern sense? I do not know how he would answer these questions, but I suspect it might be a little of each.
I was really getting to like him and then he called John Piper an asshole. Once again pardon my French, as my mother would say.. I have not read any Piper and know I have some theological differences with him, but I wonder whether this assessment was because Piper did or said something personally to him or whether it is because Piper draws lines about truth and salvation which are not acceptable to him as a secular humanist or whether Piper simply did not cooperate in his program of studying Christianity. I don't know. Nonetheless, even though I think Mr. Radosh is very intelligent and intriguing, this remark was off-putting.
Finally, these questions have long and continue to be an interest of mine. Below are two links to previous articles in Catapult on the issue, though the first is more specifically about the topic. In brief though, I would like to divide Christians making music into two simple categories, and at a fundamental level one would not even have to be a Christian to contribute to each, though it would be sadly hypocritical if one contributed to the first category and did not believe.
The first category I would call Sacred music, and in this category I would place music, of whatever genre, whose express purpose and lyrical content is intended to bring people to participate in the worship of God. We might have debates about whether a particular song achieves these ends and what freedom we have to express praise with certain genres, but I think that is a pretty good working definition.
That is not to say that one cannot be moved in a spiritual sense by music that does not lyrically fit this category or even which is simply instrumental. One may indeed be moved worship God through listening to the lush, ethereal sound scapes of Sigur Ros. Or one may turn to God in either repentance or plea upon hearing brokenness expressed in a folk tune (though this song expressly mentions God).
Yet, I would still put music made by Chrisians that is not expressly sacred in the same category as Sigur Ros and Norah Jones, i.e. people making music either reflecting their world views or which they appreciate artistically. Thus, such a category would really not be a Christian music category at all. Instead, Christians would simply be excellent participants (or not, if they just suck musically) in whatever genre in which they are skilled. This would parallel Mr. Radosh's transformational category, but I would prefer not to call it a category at all. Though, fair enough, such Christians are being transformational, just as a Christian who is a painter, a plumbler, a neuro-surgeoun, a writer as a Christian can be excellent and, consequently, transformational, offering the world to God and God to the world.
I would encourage you to listen to the debate linked above and listen two the songs Mr. Radosh has chosen as the 10 best Christian rock songs. Here is description of why he chose these songs, with comments by readers following.
Here are my articles from catapult:
*Returning to the Why of Music
*Concerning the Sighting of Aliens in the Cornfields Near Bushnell, Illinois
Or The Way in Which Neil E. Das has an Ecclesiastical Epiphany in the Great Cornerstone Labyrinth
Finally, finally here is the classic from the father and iconoclast of Christian Rock himself, Mr. Larry Norman. In this version, Larry gets a little crazy in the middle, but it is worth listening to to hear his change of the chorus at the end. Here is a more polished version from Cornerstone 2001.
Church Life and Theology | By jackdas | 8:37 PM
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Comments
As an aside, Lewis wrote in Surprised by Joy:
“When I idly turned the pages of the book and found the unrhymed translation of Tegner’s Drapa and read
I heard a voice that cried,
Balder the beautiful
Is dead, is dead –
I knew nothing about Balder; but instantly I was uplifted into huge regions of northern sky, I desired with almost sickening intensity something never to be described (except that it is cold, spacious, severe, pale, and remote) and then, as in the other examples, found myself at the very same moment already falling out of that desire and wishing I were back in it”
"What I had seen was one of Arthur Rackham's illustrations to that volume. I had never heard of Wagner, nor of Siegfried . . . Pure "Northernness" engulfed me: a vision of huge, clear spaces hanging above the Atlantic in the endless twilight of Northern summer, remoteness, severity . . . and almost at the same moment I knew that I had met this before, long, long ago . . . And with that plunge back into my own past there arose at once, almost like heartbreak, the memory of Joy itself, the knowledge that I had once had what I had now for years, that I was returning at last from exile and desert lands to my own country; and the distance of the Twilight of the Gods and the distance of my own past Joy, both unattainable, flowed together into a single, unendurable sense of desire and loss, which suddenly became one with the loss of the whole experience, which, as I now stared round that dusty schoolroom like a man recovering from unconsciousness, had already vanished, had eluded me at the very moment when I could first say It is. And at once I knew (with fatal knowledge) that to "have it again" was the supreme and only important object of desire . . ."
All that is to say, that I think Lewis would like Sigur Ros :)
Posted by: Neil E. Das at April 22, 2008 9:41 PM
If you liked the Sigur Ros link, you must watch the movie of which this is the trailer. There are some absolutely amazing visuals and sounds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZYIfUdIyfs&feature=related
Posted by: Neil E. Das at April 22, 2008 9:53 PM
