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I'm not saying there's anything wrong with singing the Psalms. It's just that God has called us to praise Him with our own unique gifts as songs of praise. We don't have to literally praise Him with the harp and lyre and flute, but with whatever He's given us.

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On a tangentially related note, my cousin's band decided to be Christian Rock because they thought they'd get more chicks that way.

That deserves a Fruity Oaty Bar Guy.




Perhaps, but I do think we can learn an awful lot about worship by studying the Psalms. For one thing, the worship of the Psalms honors God, is directed toward, and centers around Him for who He is and what He has done. If you can remove the names of God and Jesus from the song and replace them with like "Laura" or "Brianrietta", then they are not appropriate worship music. I honestly think that most Christian Rock suffers from poorly articulated theology (which might be a sign of a lack of sound theology), which is one reason I tend to dislike most of it.

Second, most Christian Rock sounds too Wilson Phillips/Rick Astley for me. And I absolutely despise that kind of popcorn rock music.

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Kef once again wins this battle.


I respect those that do like Christian Rock, but personally, I'm not a big fan of it. It's like they're using Jesus to become famous and rich.

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I just think that most of it is crap. Not because it's Christian Rock, mind you, but a lot of it just happens to be subpar.

Yeah, I think people here seem to have the misconception that Christian rock is just like hymnal lyrics put to rock music... but the Christian bands I like seem like just music that was inspired by the artists' faith. Some examples of the bands I like are mewithoutYou, Anberlin, and Switchfoot. To quote Anberlin's lead singer, "[My faith] affects every single aspect of my life, but I'm not a preacher, I'm an entertainer."

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Anyway, yeah. One example I can think of as "legitimate," non-corporate form of "Christian rock" is that there are a lot of straight edge hardcore punk kids who are Christians. A good lot of songs vaguely reference their faith, but not a whole lot of theology is present in their songs.

I mean, really, It's just the nature of rock to be a folk music that is, excepting boring subgenres of metal and prog, dealing with short-term, worldly things close to the people as opposed to things larger than the people. There's also a big difference between a rock song which affirms and represents Christianity, and a rock song which is wholly intended to be a vehicle for praise. The latter usually doesn't work out because of "the nature of rock," while the former allows Christianity to fit within the confines of folk music because religion is obviously something that is a part of the people's lives.

Mod edit: flamey posts below/before this one removed. Back to discussion plz. -Inv

And the fact that you have a weird hatred for ANYTHING even REMOTELY religious. -_-

For the record, Five Iron Frenzy rocks out loud, and they're Christian ska.

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I have a hatred for anything religious that is blind. KIND OF LIKE A LOT OF CHRISTIANS, AMIRITE? NOT OPEN TO ANYTHING ELSE? ANYONE?

But Five Iron Frenzy is the shizzle.

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Now, the real question is, who rocks harder: Pagans, or Satanists?

Actually I've seen more close-minded non-religious people in my time than close-minded Christians.

And some Christian music is a'ight.

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I've seen more closed minded Christians.

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tobyMac, Relient K, Hawk Nelson, Kutless, Seventh Day Slumber, Falling Up, MxPx, Family Force 5, and a few other bands in particular, and a few individual songs by many others.

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EDIT: Retract'D!

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OH SNAP RUSTY ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE THAT FROM DIDY

But to be fair, he didn't say that all Christians weren't open to anything else, just "a lot" of them. : /

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Warned me about giving my opinion? Oooh, yeah, I'm a bad boy.

No, I'm actually very open minded. I'm just thinking you're saying that because of what I sad and what it means to you personally. How is it an example of closed-mindedness? I'm saying that most Christians I know are just closed minded to everything else. They don't even take it into consideration.

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Sort of like you in the Hunting thread, when you couldn't give me a reason to accept your assumption without demonstration, then resorted to ad hominem when I continued to challenge your assumption? That didn't appear very open-minded to me.

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I did think about what you said, though. I'm still pretty confused about that subject. It doesn't seem right to me. I had to stick to what I thought. I didn't have a reason, it was just...a feeling. I dunno. I even talked to my dad about it, and brought up a couple things you guys said.

Anyway, I was just saying that many Christians I know are closed minded jerks. Not saying that they all are, not saying that none of them are. In my personal experience, that's how it is.

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I'm glad to hear you considered our points afterwards. I still didn't appreciate being called "ignorant and closed-minded", when all I was doing was challenging what I felt was a faulty assumption.

And I will concede your point: some Christians are ignorant and close-minded. In some cases, even about issues of Christian theology.

But I would still caution you to be careful. Even with the qualifying term "some", it still can come across a lot like a blanket statement. But in the interest of fair play, I retract my own statement about you being closed-minded.

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Thank you.

Back to Christian ROKK

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I would just like to say this: I like good Christian rock/music/whatever you want to call it. To me I have found that the truly great artists are the ones that come into the music field with a purpose and giving credit where it's due. They have their priorities straight, put serious, deep, intimate thought into every aspect of their work, and the result is actual good music with actual good content. They don't have to necessarily sing Jesus loves me with amps at eleven, but they don't just change out the girl's names too. Their lyrics and their music do what they mean to, to spread the word and glorify Christ, but also at the *same* time having a great sound with great content. Many if not most Christian bands fall short of one of these. Jesus loves me rockbands are a dime a dozen, as are bands that are only nominally Christian. It takes a special unique sort of band that breaks above that and does something meaningful. That being said, I am so glad to see two of my three favorite bands, David Crowder and Five Iron Frenzy on these lists, as I know that they are exemplary bands in this regard. FiF knew the extent of their influence, and sought to change the stagnant faith that they saw in the world around them and themselves. Their songs are oftentimes my fight song in my hard times. Crowder's music is so deeply intertwined with the word and their truly unique sound that after spending two years digesting A Collision I am still finding new layers underneath (3+4=7). These are bands that need to be held up more as examples to the rest as how to do it right, and not to perpetuate the stereotype of drivel that persists today.

I will always find it ironic that the first song I ever cried to was a punk ska song.


On another note: the Psalms as music. I do think that the Psalms make for a great resource from which to draw praise and worship music, however, I do not think that humanity should limit itself to those. I mean, God gave us the ability and talent to create our own music, and words, I don't think that words by man are any less of praise to him than any other. He gave us the talent and the spirit to use them, why not? We wouldn't be burying them in the ground, to phrase a coin.

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*12 bar blues*
Oh, when you die, yeah you rot in the ground...
Yes, when you die, you rot in the ground.
So can't you all see that this dilemma that I have found.

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Guten tag, Johann, du riechst ganz richtig. Danke schon, Heidi. Und du auch. - A Bit of Fry and Laurie

I believe that when we are worshiping God (in Church etc.) we should use the Psalms only, without instruments. Outside of worship though, I think that we can use our own talents to praise God (although I don't particularly enjoy any type of rock).

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You do realize that a lot of the psalms were written as music, right? Plus how then do you explain Psalm 150 3-5?

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Yeah, I think that's why some of my favorite Christian bands (like a couple listed back here) don't even consider themselves Christian bands. I think they do so not just to avoid being generalized with some bad stereotypes, but also show that they aren't forcing themselves to sing Christian music - it just happens to be affected by their faith, - and it allows them to reach a broader audience.

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I personally listen to music that I like, not music that reflects my religion. But what I really don't like is people who don't like bands that have all Christan people who don't really sing about Christian stuff, just because they are some different religion. Like Underoath.

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I'm not too sure about the "without instruments" part. As already pointed out, a large number of the Psalms were composed for use with musical instruments (just read the headings of some of them: "For Strings", "For Flutes", etc.).

But I do feel that music used in worship ought to be appropriate for the occasion. It should be based on Scripture and sound theology, and should reflect the theme of the liturgical readings or the occasion. For example, you probably want to avoid using upbeat, happy songs on Ash Wednesday or Good Friday.

Also, God himself should be the primary subject of worship songs: who He is, what He has done, His promises, His gifts and calling. You'd think this would be a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised how much "worship" music there is out there which hardly even mentions God at all. (an excellent example would be "I'll Fly Away" - God is mentioned ONCE in the entire song, and that only in passing).

Depth of lyrical content is also important. Unfortunately, the trend these days seems to be to have shallow choruses that are just repeated 80 or 90 times. Come on, people! God wants us to use our brains to worship him, too.

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It's like you WANT to think I'm a bigot. I'm not, Mandy. Setting your beliefs to rock music is just a bad idea. I wouldn't ever consider writing a song about my atheism, because that's an insufferably lame idea. So is writing a rock song about Jesus. They are one and the same.

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Sorry. It just seems like if something's religious, you automatically dislike it. :/

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Heh, I do the same thing.

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