Misunderstanding Style and Substance
We’ve had a great deal of discussion about style vs. substance and method vs. message since the creation of this blog, and it still boggles the mind when I see Christians writing articles like the one recently published in WORLD magazine. (No, not National Geographic WORLD, which I enjoyed as a kid, but an ODM WORLD).
From the article (and no, I’m not making this up):
There are two kinds of people in the world. People who hate Christian Rock, and people who vomit when they hear it. The other kind of people – i.e., the ones who like it – don’t count as people. But then again, many of my friends here at WMB probably do, and I am almost certain you are all people. The short reasons for why it’s bad are these:
1. It’s just so bad. People who like good music and who also like God find themselves between a Rock and a Hard Place.
2. Christian music has, for about 2000 years, been about venerating God. Rock music has, for about 50 years, been about venerating other things, some good, some bad. Christian Rock music has, for about 30 or 40 years, been confused about what it should venerate. The form would suggest venerating anger, passion, rebellion, sex. The content would suggest venerating Jesus. Audiences are predictably confused.
3. Rock is about being cool. Christianity is about not being cool. Musicians are understandably confused about how they should be.
Yup. There you have it. I would agree that the quality of music that has come out of the CCM movement has not always been, shall we say, “stellar”. However, I’m somewhat perplexed by the inability to see the difference between style and substance, method and message. What is at the core of the misunderstanding? Fear? Loathing? Or, is it as simple as Nathan’s grandfather’s future epitath for the Christian church in the USA - “we’ve never done it that way before…”
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Chris - at what point do people like that become irrelevant? I submit that point has come and gone. I had some of the same basic reservations as Slice when I first found it, but the unloving and self righteous methodology soon prompted the Spirit within me to reexamine their motives and my own.
It has become like arguing with a flat earth person, in essence the energy to attempt to gain open dialogue is worthless. The longer it goes on the more I am convinced that the watchman sites do little teaching and mostly personal attacks. And the hyperbole, Oh the hyperbole. And in your post some caveman (whoops) is still selling the “rock music is of the devil” shtick.
Have we exausted the mystery of the cross? Is it now all nuts and bolts with the resurrection just an *? What now brings us to tears of great joy and gratitude? And what changes us now since we experienced great change in our early years? These pompous self expositors are irrelevant in any serious dicussion meant to edify each other. They can be humorous but they can also be very damaging.
They hold brothers and sisters in Christ in low regard and make no attempt to show forth God’s love. Anyone who claims to be a warrior, even among his so called friends, cannot have a place at my table. Not by my choice, but their’s.
Music styles, yea, that’s what will reach the world…
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:27 pm
To hear some Christians talk now, you would think that it was still the 60’s or 70’s. There actually was quite a connection between rock music and the hippie/drug culture then. Now, whether people want to admit or not, rock music has been absorbed into the culture at large to such an extent that it really is devoid of much of the rebellious underpinnings it once had. Of course, there is still music out there is general garbage, but the same can be said for any genre of art or literature.
This is such a subjective thing anyway. When does a song become a “rock” song. People were playing songs in 4/4 before Elvis or the Beatles. I guess God just doesn’t like the backbeat emphasised that much.
The standard seems to be for these people, “if I don’t like it, it must be a sin.”
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Did you see CRN’s “Only Two Kinds Of People” and related “Remembering Keith Green” articles? I think there’s some connection with what you’ve posted here.
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:57 pm
I really don’t get it, though. Keith Green’s hero was Charles Finney and Ken would call him a heretic (Plagian). Keith Green was a sincere follower of Christ, but he was surely not Ingrid’s cup of tea. I get confused about who gets a pass and who does not.
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Yeah, Ken Silva liked Keith Green? This is from wikipedia on Green’s newsletter:
“The publication also later included the reprinted works of classic Christian authors such as Charles Finney, John Wesley, and William Booth and his wife Catherine.”
Wesley was not reformed. He was an Arminian.
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:27 pm
…from the linked Steve Camp piece re. his close friend Green:
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:28 pm
I am new so my spelling should be pelagian? I think that is correct.
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:31 pm
How does Ken know so quickly his name was used? Wow, that’s magic! OK Ken, I have heard Keith Green TEACH some of Finney’s views, so his music remained untouched?
Would it be OK to sing Rob Bell’s music if they didn’t include his doctrinal views? You cannot have it both ways, even if you try. Green’s hair would also be unacceptable in an Ingrid choir!
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I read the piece can kept wondering if the original article was more tongue in cheek that serious…
Music in all its forms is about connecting with people. The style of the music can at times be in tune with or in contrast with the message.
In that the sound itself is a neutral media, the message is the part being conveyed.
There are many bands that use the sound to convey an emotion… yet to say as this article states:
“The form would suggest venerating anger, passion, rebellion, sex.”
In that maybe the sound originally did not have that intent behind it… this is just assumed by the author. It seems that by this statement Negro Spirituals which are sited as the source of Rock music, are then a “form” that “would suggest venerating anger, passion, rebellion, sex.” Which is rather far from reality.
It is so strange that Ken will lift up Keith Green in one breath http://christianresearchnetwork.com/?p=2728 then put down people for being semi pelagian… what a double standard!
Get real… Ken is about as two faced as one can get… and has no problem in judging people by a Law he cannot even keep himself. He preaches a gospel where judgement triumphs mercy… and contracts the very teachings of scripture. Then has the gall to judge others for doing the same thing.
Be Blessed,
iggy
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Hey Iggy - Keith Green taught about Finney’s revivals and he called for present day revivals. He espoused much of Finney’s teachings, and yet his music gets a pass? Many people feel Finney wasn’t even saved, so how can Keith Green, a card carrying admirer of Finney, be the music leader in a Calvinistic/watchman church?
It goes beyond incongruous. You make your own rule as you go and hope nobody notices.
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Green evidently gets a GBA pass, then, though maybe you have to be dead to be given such generosity. He is heavily associated with Finney, et. al. no matter how Steve Camp wants to tiptoe around it. All the Finney literature remains online and available, just as Last Days Ministries had them originally published. Much of what is espoused by some of the people at CRN would probably be distasteful to Green. His music suggests that.
On another note — the WORLD article in question: I don’t think it’s from the magazine, but one of the blogs that they have on their site. At least, I don’t recall seeing it published in the actual magazine (I get that magazine). I could be wrong on that, but it doesn’t read like the kind of writing that runs in the print edition.
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Whatever else is true about him, it’s sad that there can never be another Keith Green. I haven’t heard a singer that communicates passion for God and missions the way he did.
August 3rd, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Keith Green was also charismatic and a worship leader at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of West Los Angeles “back in the day”.
Keith was definitely a big fan of Finney and also good friends with Winkie Pratney and also Loren Cunningham, the founder of Youth With A Mission, which Keith was promoting heavily just before his untimely death in 1982.
To suggest that Keith’s theology would have been acceptable to Camp or MacArthur is ludicrous. In fact, I seem to recall that Camp claims that MacArthur once introduced Camp to an audience by referring to him as “Keith Green - but with theology”.
It just gets stranger and stranger…
August 3rd, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Glen Kaiser, of Rez Band, was also close friends with Keith Green. According to Kaiser, Green thought that Catholics were apostate. Later, near the end of his life, Green changed his mind.
August 3rd, 2007 at 1:00 pm
4 robby mac,
…from the linked Steve Camp piece, written by Steve Camp himself re. his close friend Green:
August 3rd, 2007 at 1:34 pm
“Though Keith was severely influenced by the writings and life of Charles Finney; his music remained for the most part doctrinally sound and untouched by Finney’s Pelagistic convictions (Finney was heretic who denied original sin, justification by faith, the doctrine of imputation, penal substitutionary atonement, the authority of Scripture, etc.)”
btw Steve Camp has changed over the years, he was a great influence on me in my early years as a Christian, since then he has renounce those years and repented… and has gone under the influence of John MacArthur… thus he has lost his prophetic voice he has one had…
Again with the double standard… Keith Green was severely influenced…but his music wasn’t….
Can that be said of U2? How about Sinead O’Connor!?
What about if Keith was severely influenced and as I recall there were a few songs that pointed to “works”…
There is a line in one that states about the separation of the sheep and goats. “The only difference between them was what they did and didn’t do.”
So, it only proves again that if Ken and Ingrid like it… it is ok.
But, one might need be dicerning to hear that.
Be Blessed,
iggy
August 3rd, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Gregorian chant is what God approves. Anything other than that is flesh!
August 3rd, 2007 at 6:53 pm
I’d like the Keith Green without the theology, then, if that’s what it all amounts to.
You’re right, robbymac, Camp did write about being introduced that way. My immediate thought, after reading that, was how it reflected on MacArthur, and that it was incredibly revealing.
“Let me introduce So-andSo, who’s like Fellow Christian, but with Theology.”
What, exactly, does that imply? It makes theology sound like a disease and, for some who wield it like a weapon, it is.
August 3rd, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Hmmm, I wonder how well these people even know Keith Green songs. A lot of them seem pretty Arminian (or even Semi-Pelagian). Check out a few of these: (I’ll refrain from posting the whole lyrics, these are just some snippets)
Anyway, that’s just a few. I think it’s abundantly clear he was no five-pointer. Here’s a page that has his lyrics if anyone’s interested.
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:27 pm
I think it pretty clear ken Silva would have called him a “man-pleasing semi-pelagian”.
1. He played music that appealed to the flesh… rock music.
2. He was of Arminian persuasion (semi-pelagian)
I guess though it is still alright as Ken likes his music… so he can give grace to whom he deems worthy!
Be Blessed,
iggy
August 3rd, 2007 at 9:21 pm
Thank you, Phil, for providing substantive proof of Green’s love for Christ and the hypocrisy of others as shown by Green’s Arminian lyrics. I want to confess before God that my flesh felt good about the proof you gave. I am such a sinner!