Media-Gorged Series: Click | View Series

Music and the Message

Fundamentalism traditionally demands a strict moral code when it comes to engaging media. Holiness and a consistent witness notwithstanding, a hard-line "don't taste, don't touch" ethic would seem to dictate that 95 percent of the Bible is inappropriate for daily devotions. For some reason, when we put the same kind of mature subject matter that appears in the very pages of Scripture into a song and discerningly engage with it, it suddenly becomes a moral issue.

Blood, Gore, and the Infallible Word

For reasons not always entirely clear, God saw fit to include stories full of blood, gore, betrayals, murders, infidelities, and other bodily fluids in his holy, infallible Word. With this in mind, mature Christians in step with the Spirit can cautiously engage thematically raw music, while not allowing a blank check mentality for sin. This, to me, seems to be a much more faithful way to walk out these issues, rather than rely on a Spiritless dos and don'ts checklist.

Legalism + Faithful Gospel Witness = Oxymoron

Paul's "I become all things for all men, so that by all means, some might be saved" (1 Cor. 9:22) is a good lesson to all Christians seeking to live out a consistent witness while remaining missionally-minded. Living from a dos and don'ts checklist puts us in danger of falling into the following two traps:

• Relying on an automatic rule system that doesn't require thought or the leading of the Spirit
• Lacking understanding of a culture's narrative

What if, for instance, Paul thought that under no circumstances would he ever pollute his mind with pagan poetry? Well then, he wouldn't have had sermon material to work with when he spoke on Mars Hill in Acts 17.

So What's the Point?

The point of all this is not freedom for freedom's sake. But if we follow Paul's lead from the aforementioned 1 Corinthians 9 passage, then prayerful, discerning, and thoughtful contextualization is important so that we can more effectively understand the cultures around us. We use their points of reference to build bridges of gospel communication.

Practically speaking, if a coworker one cubicle down is really into avant-garde jazz, new country, or noisy Japanese punk, I've got some ethnomusicology homework ahead of me with Ornette Coleman, Toby Keith and Melt Banana on my iPod to the glory of God.

A Book You'll Actually Read:

Clear, biblical answers to some of the most common questions—all in concise books you'll actually read! Mark Driscoll boils down the big ideas into little books. Find out more.

Media-Gorged Series: Click | View Series

The Superstitious Christian Listener

As a teenager, I had a respectable record collection. Then I became a Christian. Yup, you guessed it: I got rid of all my music in favor of Christian music. It's silly thinking about it now, but in my spiritual immaturity I was trying to please God. It took me years to figure this out, but basically I'd attached more significance and power to the music than it actually had. In short, I'd become a superstitious idolater.

Carved Wood, CD Liner Notes, and Other Objects of Worship

Stuff—like flowers, lampposts, and MP3s—doesn't possess truth. Artifacts (i.e., handiwork or stuff in the world) may be able to communicate truisms about the world and point in the direction of the Creator (i.e. natural revelation), but if we want to get to capitol "T" truth, we look to God for revelation. This is plain common sense. But somehow, Christians have been tricked into some kind of spooky voodoo when it comes to music.

In relation to your CD collection, morally questionable song lyrics and screechy guitars have about as much intrinsic power to cause a kid to act out in anti-social behavior as a black cat has at giving you bad juju. In other words, "things" only posses as much power as we're willing to endow them with, and the problem isn't with the music, it's with the kid's wicked heart.

Whenever causal power is given to "things," we've strangely entered into idol territory. So even though that well-intentioned Southern Baptist youth leader back in the day was really trying to spur the kids toward deeper devotion by smashing their AC/DC records, he was in fact walking the fence of idolatry. Another word for it would be superstition. Idolatry is generally seen as devotion, but if we see it in terms of what created things we assign power to, we're closer to understanding how idolatry works.

Objections

I can already hear the objections: to be completely clear, I'm not arguing for an "anything goes" ethic when it comes to engaging media. Christians are called to use discernment about what they're "entertained" with, and as Paul says, if eating meat causes your brother to stumble, don't eat meat. Likewise, playing Public Enemy during children's ministry time would be inappropriate.

The point is that we are called to think critically about these things. If we find ourselves blindly trusting a Disney movie without actually reviewing the content of its message, simply because there are no bad words spoken in the dialogue, but we get bothered by the evilness of loud guitars, something is wrong.

To be continued.

Death By Love:

Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears tackle some of the most serious redemptive aspects of Jesus' work in these twelve letters of counsel to individuals. Find out more.

Media-Gorged Series: Click | View Series

Christians Aren't Allowed to be Music Snobs

Respecting and enjoying diversity in music is important, in part, because it gives honor to the diversity of God's creation. Cultivating wide listening habits is noble because God has his loving sights on the people within the culture that the music is tied to.

There is a missional aspect as well. Faithful missionary evangelism and the resulting gospel transformation of a culture happen from the inside. The missionary is an outsider that joins a culture and discerningly embraces the good things within it. And this is why, in part, I believe Christians aren't allowed to be music snobs. Harold Best puts it this way in Music Through the Eyes of Faith: "How fitting it is for Christians to want to join the creative ways of other cultures, if for no other reason than to fill out their praise!" Amen.

Be a Professional Appreciator

So get on with the noble purposes of being a professional appreciator of God's good creation. Give it some time, and let it sink in. Listen to music on its own terms. You can't listen to death metal through a country lens any more than you can listen to classical through a techno lens. But if you learn to love the language of once-unfamiliar kinds of music, you might learn to love the people who are tied to it, whom God loves.

To be continued.

Trial Study Guide:

Get the companion study guide to Pastor Mark's latest sermon series in downloadable PDF form. Find out more.

Media-Gorged Series: Click | View Series

Narrow Listening Habits = Bad Eschatology

If your listening habits can be summed up in the statement, "I like all kinds of music—country and western!" you should probably repent. Maybe you're thinking to yourself that you're off the hook because you exclusively listen to U2 and Coldplay. Well, you should probably repent too.

Sorry, I'm overstating my point. I'm not picking on genres, tastes, or preferences, but just narrowness in general. Pasty white guy culture is only one of thousands—if not tens of thousands—of microcultures that will be present in the glorious anti-Tower of Babel, the new Jerusalem.

It's going to be quite a party in honor of our great and glorious King, so you might want to familiarize yourself with the jams of your multicultural brethren. That way, you won't be caught with your hands in your pockets when it's time to stomp your feet and clap your hands when the music comes in.

Thinking God's Thoughts After Him and Musical Diversity

Faithfully imaging our Creator God means, in part, that as image bearers undergoing sanctification, we think God's thoughts after him. In addition, just as he has created a vast diverse world, we can't help but think up derivative creative works in the process. Now out of the billions currently on the planet, there's a whole mess of musicians with a whole mess of derivative works, and that equals a whole beautiful mess of musical diversity.

To be continued.

Resurgence Podcasts:

Get all the latest audio sermons, interviews, and lectures delivered straight to you as soon as they are released. Find out more.

Media-Gorged Series: Click | View Series

All Music is Worship Music

All music is, in a sense, "worship music" in that it points to something or someone that the singer (or the narrator of the song) deems worship worthy. An object of worship could be any of the following: sex, romance, power, prestige, money, resentment, nihilism or even disaffected pseudo intellectualism.

Band T-Shirts: The Personal Billboard of Pre-Packaged Identity

At the risk of totally stereotyping the average music appreciator, band T-shirts can say a lot about a person. Wearers of the following band T-shirts tend to represent these things about themselves:

• Grateful Dead = Recreational drug use, a taste for granola, and fear of soap.
• Coldplay = Some college education, solid day job, and a non-fat double tall latte dude who's not afraid to say when he likes a "chick flick."
• Sharp, indecipherable, and jumbled font band name printed on a black shirt = Favorite pastime is watching horror movies and thinks Nietzsche was a genius.

Obviously, I'm just having a little fun. But whether you bristled or laughed at my descriptors proves the point that music culture goes much deeper than the sound of a given genre. Genres are a sort of tribal language that embody the shared values of whole people groups. And shared hopes and values will always be an indicator of what is seen as of ultimate worth (i.e. worship).

The "Near" and "Far" Idols of Music

Idolatry isn't just one sin among many. Idolatry is the root of all sin that gives ultimate significance to anything or anyone other than God in Jesus Christ. Idols have a near and far aspect (No God But God), meaning there is an underlying motivational drive (i.e. power or need for approval) which makes the near idol visible (i.e. successful career or relational spinelessness). Take for instance a self-congratulatory hip-hop song:

• Far idol = The need for success, fame, and to be respected among peers.
• Near idol = Flashy clothes, jewelry, or a car with hydraulics and spinner rims.

Or consider a witty, acerbic, self-deprecating come-here-go-away indie rock song:

• Far idol = The need to be the center of attention and to control others.
• Near idol = A tumultuous on-again-off-again, love / hate relationship.

In the next article, I'll discuss the importance of engaging "secular" content.

Recommended Books:

A collection of fantastic reading material on various important topics, used and shared by Pastor Mark Driscoll. Find out more.

Media-Gorged Series: Click | View Series

Music: As Accessible As Tap Water

Music can be heard in virtually every public place, as well as in your own little universe via the iPod. But rather than passively absorb our surroundings, we ought to intelligently engage our culture. Like the well-worn passage in Acts 17 that tells the story about the Apostle Paul in Athens, we ought to mine the culture intelligently and use what we can for the sake of faithful gospel communication.

Going Beyond Consumer Guide-ism

Reviews may be helpful—occasionally. But single paragraph synopses rarely do justice to music. Besides, the world doesn’t need more cheap consumer guide-ism, and I’d like to encourage Christians to engage more deeply. With that said, I’m not going to recommend “must hear” CDs (my tastes are suspect anyway!), but hopefully I can offer a starting point to what I think thoughtful engagement of popular music might look like.

Learning to Listen Well

• All music is “worship music”

We are all worshippers all the time; it’s not an issue of if we will worship, but who and or what we will worship, and music is ripe with worship / idolatry language.

• Christians should discerningly engage “secular” content.

We shouldn’t passively absorb music anymore than we should necessarily allow a “parental advisory” sticker to be our guide for listening appropriateness.

• Develop culturally generous listening habits

Worshippers from all cultures of the globe will be represented in the new Jerusalem, so we ought to be good students and appreciators of those cultures.

In the coming articles, I’ll unpack each one of these bullet points in more detail.

Vintage Jesus:

A theological journey chasing Jesus through Scripture and pop culture. Timeless answers to timely questions about the most important man who has ever lived. Find out more.