Friday, May 23, 2008

Music Rant

Something has been bothering me for a while. Specifically, what has been bothering me has to do with a song being played on "Christian" radio. Now I don't listen to music radio very much, but occasionally I will have it on while driving, etc. I do have my alarm clock set to wake up to our local Christian station, but other than the few seconds of the song being played before I hit the snooze button, I don't really listen. However, I have heard enough of it recently to pick out a new song that really irritates me. It is the new song by Point of Grace, "How You Live (Turn Up th Music). It bothers me because I can see absolutely no reason why it should get airplay on Christian radio. Now I know that there are other songs that have not had an implicit gospel message to them, such as "Butterfly Kisses" and even Steven Curtis Chapman's current hit, "Cinderella". But "How You Live" is not only lacking a Christian message, it is actually heretical in its lyrics compared to Biblical teaching.

For example, look at these lyrics.

"So give to the needy
And pray for the grieving
E'en when you don't think that you can
'Cause all that you do is bound to come back to you"

Sounds a lot like Hinduism's teaching on karma if you ask me. Yet that is not the part of the song that bothers me the most. It is actually the last few lines of the chorus that get under my skin. "'Cause it's not who you knew, And it's not what you did, It's how you live." Excuse me?!?! How does this get played on any station that claims to be Christian? "It's not who you knew, it's how you live?" The lyrics should be just the opposite. Actually it not about how I live, but it is all about who I know in the person of Jesus Christ. I know the song is along the lines of "carpe diem" yet can't we seize the day and still adhere to accepted Christian orthodoxy?

3 comments:

c.w. goad said...

Wow that's a great point. I hadn't caught that. That's scary. I love Christian music, but we definitely need to be cautious and at least make sure what we're listening to is above reproach and biblical.

Thanks for pointing that out man.

jeannette said...

A while back we were listening to that song and Tyler said 'What is the point of this song?' (out of the mouths of babes). Tim was recently quite irritated with it as well. The line 'make peace with God, make peace with yourself' set him off. It seems to get quite alot of air-time also. Sad, because there are many other better songs we could be listening to.

Melodie said...

So I'm not the only one who thought something was wrong with this song! It has bothered me, but I didn't know if I was just being too technical about how some things were phrased.

The "it's not who you knew, and not what you did, but how you lived" line honestly makes no sense. How can you LIVE without KNOWING Christ and DOING his commands??? I don't know...wearing the red dress and making a mess don't seem to sum up what's important in the Christian life to me..