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God’s Unconditional Acceptance Is Only Half of the Picture

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

Steve and I get to have some interesting conversations in the course of putting together this magazine.  Usually, they are the cool kind of interesting.  Occasionally, they are the really off-the-wall, “what the heck?” kind of conversations with people.  Luckily, we haven’t had any of those “that ruined my day” kind of interesting conversations.

But, I know human beings, so that is bound to happen one day.  And you can expect that first bad conversation to be thoroughly mocked here in this column.

Once such recent conversation with Steve was about an email exchange he had with someone that was one of those really off-the-wall types.  The gist of the discussion (other than “is this guy insane or high on something”), was about how this dude blasted Steve, and then pulled the “God accepts me just for who I am” card.

In other words, he was telling Steve that he was going to act like a jerk and Steve had to take it or be labeled… well… something I can’t print here if I want to make sure the site doesn’t get blocked by over-zealous filtration software.

There are three things that really bug me about this line of thinking:

  1. It always pains me to see people use the whole “He takes people as they are” crutch.  That is true, but only half the picture.  The other half, the good part in my opinion, is that God also calls us to be a better person at the same time He takes us as we are. If God just accepted us as we are, He would be some Great Enabler. If He just demanded that we do a better job, He would be the old “Big Army Boot in the Sky,” ready to stomp on us for messing up.  Seems like most Christians fall towards one of those two extremes….  Either “I’m good the way that I am, so up yours” kind of attitude or the “gotta get everything perfect and holy before I can accept that you are a Christian” junk.
  2. This “Great Enabler “ crutch always seems to be followed with the revelation that you don’t have to care what people think about you.  Great… it took you how long to figure out Christianity 101 dude? Now why don’t you work on the next step, where God actually teaches you how to be a better person and get along with other people?  That’s a big step, one I am still trying to figure out, but at least I know enough to know that sitting on your kiester, stomping your feet and having a tantrum about “God loves me just the way that I am” is no where in the Bible.
  3. The final step to creating a tri-fecta pseudo-Christian whinefest is to talk about all the people that you know that fell away and still aren’t following God…. like it is some kind of big revelation that people “receive the word with joy, but when the trials of life come, they wither away.”  Oh, wait… I was just quoting the parable of the seeds on the path or whatever it is called.  So, it’s some big revelation that people are doing exactly what Jesus said they would do 2000 years ago?  The point of talking about this is only to show how holy you are and how unholy others are, but the effect is really one of smirking and giggling behind your back.

(this article was also published in the April 2009 issue)

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My Tribute To Gene Eugene

Friday, March 13th, 2009

“Walk between the raindrops if you can… what the heck does that mean?” I remember the conversation well – it was sometime around 1992 in San Antonio, TX. A group of college students had gone out to change the world by repainting a church in the poorer part of town. We had been told that a few hours after we packed up and left for the day that a gang fight had broken out around the corner and someone had been shot. Sobering news like that leads to deeper conversations. I was talking with the leader of our group, an awesome character by the name of Tim. Our group was made up of your typical college church crowd, so we spent the day listening to typical college church crowd music – Susan Ashton, Steven Curtis Chapman, D.C.Talk, etc. Tim and I had been lamenting the need to play some meatier music. Tim mused: “I wonder what they would think if we played some Adam Again? ‘Walk between the rains drops if you can’… ‘what the heck does that mean?’ Or The 77s… ‘The rain kept falling in love’… ‘what?’ That would drive them crazy!”

Gene Eugene had that unique gift as a writer. He could pen songs that you instantly understood at one level, and then realized that there was a whole other level you were probably missing. Even songs about the electricity getting cut off before a bunch a friends came over made you stop and wonder “am I missing some deeper point about the depravity of man?” Maybe it was just that voice – that mournful tone of his. Maybe I was just reading too much into it. Then someone sent me a bootleg concert where Gene sung his version of the Dolly Parton song (made famous by Whitney Houston) “I Will Always Love You.” I thought that was a simple love song, until Gene pointed out that there was some deep stuff there. So maybe I’m not just reading too much into any of his songs.

And not to mention how they stick in your head. Every time it starts raining I start humming one of those two songs about rain in my head. One when it is a light, refreshing spring storm, and the other when it is a dark, brooding thunderstorm. If you have heard both songs about rain mentioned above, then you probably know which one comes to mind in which situation.

I even got to the point where I thought that there are some rain storms where you can walk between the raindrops if you try. Then I got caught in a monsoon rain in India… a wall of water falling on you from the sky. And that song came to mind. Yet another layer of that simple lyric became real to me.

I never met Gene, but I get the impression that he was all about layers. I’ve read several interviews with friends of his that attest to the fact that no one quite knew the same Gene. He revealed different aspects of himself to different people, as Steve Hindalong pointed out once. Mostly this magazine issue has covered feedback from people that knew and worked with Gene. But the other side of the coin is Gene’s fans. Each one of knows a different layer of Gene, revealed through his deep and personal lyrics. Personal in how we all interpret them as much as how they gave us a glimpse into Gene’s personal life.

Maybe you never had to deal with the electricity going out, but you have had to deal with the frustration of something going wrong and getting in the way of some plans. It just crawls under your skin that you are out of control of so many things in life. And for some reason, Gene covers that and so much more when he says “all my friends are coming over.”

Really? The non-fan might ask. “That line doesn’t say anything about any of that.” It’s not in what he says; it’s in the tone and inflection of how he says it. I’ve listened to entire albums that technically said less than that one line communicated.

Sadly, that voice, that wordsmith is gone… leaving us only five albums worth of material to dig through. There is enough there in those five albums to last a lifetime, but we also wanted more. It is what it is what is. Perfecta and leaving us craving more all at the same time.

(this post was also published in the Gene Eugene Tribute issue)

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Is CCM The Only Place You Will Find Something Like CCM?

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

Some times I get asked if this is a Christian magazine.  Well, I am happy to report that after months of intense prayer the PDF version finally prayed the sinner’s prayer.  Unfortunately, the blog is a tough case – thinking it’s all cool and Web 2.0-ish and doesn’t need God.  So pray for that sucker to realize its need for salvation from it’s multitude of sins: I hear it runs an Internet gambling site behind our backs.

Really, if you have any grasp of what the Bible says about salvation, you realize how impossible it is to call something a Christian magazine, a Christian band, or a Christian blog.  It’s a lazy way of saying that the media in question is written by those who follow Christ, covering subjects of specific interests to Christians.  With that in mind, I would have to expand the focus of this magazine to encompass those things of interest to those that find Christianity interesting.  Some of the people that we cover might not be Christians any more.  I would still find them interesting.  They might never have been a Christian in the first place, but found the teachings of Jesus interesting.  I find those kinds of people interesting, too.

The real problem with Christian entertainment of any kind really comes down to the people that have problems with it in general.  There are some non-Christians out there that fall in to this category, but for the most part it is Christians that seem to criticize the Christian sub-culture the most.  Let’s face it – there is a lot to criticize.  Take the music business, for example.  The mainstream business was busted to begin with (and the digital revolution is revealing how bad it was all along) – but it was the only business model to follow.  Even if you have divine inspiration, following a fraked system with give you another fraked system in return (guess I have been watching BS:G too much lately).  That doesn’t surprise me – there will always be imperfections as long as people are involved.  What surprises me is when people act like God is also sitting up there ringing his hands and wondering “how do I stop this crazy Christian market thing – it’s gotten so out of control!  If only I had some kind of power over this world….”

Whoops…  God does have power, and he would stop it if it was totally without merit.  Maybe we’re the ones that are missing something?

One constant criticism of the Christian entertainment industry is that some feel you don’t see any other religions out there doing the same things now or any time in history.  Really?  Anyone that has ever studied ethnomusicology knows this isn’t true for the history part – most societies that had music or art also had people that tried to use that music or art form to communicate spiritual truths…  usually by converting existing art forms after they liked.  If you are in to world music, you would also know that all forms of religion exist in music today.  I have listened to Vedic Metal (lyrics based on the Hindu Vedic scriptures), Muslim rock and rap, Catholic priests rapping about Catholic saints, Jewish bands of all styles, etc, etc.  It is just human nature to want to use our favorite forms of entertainment to talk about the stuff we like the most – whether it is clouds or God.  Sure, the American Christian entertainment industry is larger than any other comparable system in other countries or religions.  But can’t you say that about, well… just about anything Americans get into except soccer?

In addition to all this, there also seems to always be a conflict between those that only listen to CCM and those that listen to everything.  To that conflict, I would paraphrase Romans 14:1-4: “Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man’s faith allows him to listen to everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, listens only to CCM. The man who listens to everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who listens only to CCM must not condemn the man who listens to everything, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.”

Why do both sides seem to take so many shots at each other?  Who knows.  Maybe those that listen to everything have gone further than they know they should, and get a little convicted when talking to those that only listen to CCM and lash out.  Maybe those that listen to CCM only are jealous that they don’t have the faith to listen to everything else.  Maybe humans are just a bunch of cry babies that can’t take it when someone else does something differently.

(this post was also published in the January 2009 issue)

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Why Follow The Example of the Music Industry?

Saturday, October 4th, 2008

I like a wide range of music. Just look at the random albums I reviewed in this issue. Unfortunately, I also follow a lot of what goes on in the “music industry.” Sometimes this industry is just flat-out weird. One of the issues that have really puzzled me through the years is the thought that “Christians put out a bunch of bad music – if only they could be as good as the mainstream music industry.”

What I find the most puzzling is not that people think Christians put out bad music in large quantities. That much is pretty obvious. The weird part to me is the thought that the mainstream music marketplace puts out mostly high-quality, enjoyable music.

Listened to any radio stations recently? Heck – listened to any of the songs that get blared in the backgrounds of movies and television scenes lately? This is the standard we are supposed to live up to? I think I’ll pass. I’ll take my cheesy 80s hair metal clone White Metal warrior music any day over 90 % of the swill that passes for hit songs now-a-days.

People always want to ask: “what is wrong with the Christian music industry, and what can we do to fix it.” The problem with the Christian music industry is that it follows the mainstream music industry too closely for my comfort. There are two basic reasons why there is so much bad Christian music out there (I hate that label, but you know what I mean). First of all, there is just so much bad music out there period. We need to look at fixing the problem with mediocre music in the first place, and that will trickle in to all lyrical subgenres (did you know that there is Hindi death metal and Islamic rock? Really – no kidding). Secondly, too many musicians of any religious persuasion are basically entertainers at heart. They want to give people what they think they want, and as long as teenie-bop nu-metal rock rules the sales charts, musicians will see that and want to just give people what they think they are wanting.

The challenge is for Christians to live the old cliché: “be in the world but not of the world.” We teach Christian businessmen that they need to be good at business and follow the practices of the leaders in their fields. So, when these Christian businessmen went out and formed record companies back in the day, who did they follow? The examples set by the already busted music industry. The example of finding a trend and exploiting it to death. The example of creating suspect artist contracts that keeps most music sales out of the hands of the actual artists that created the music in the first place. The example of a hundred other bad business practices.

Follow that example? Why?

Those that claim that Christian music only copies popular trends of the mainstream about 5 years too late never really spent much time in a music store. Or, more accurately, the bargain bin and Top 40 shelves. Hundreds of albums get released every month. Ever checked out some of the ones that don’t even make the charts? Massive delayed trend copiage going on there… along with the occasional ignored album of some truly trend setting band.

That is why in some of our interviews we ask artists what is wrong with the music industry – not just the CCM industry. The problems are wide spread across every section of the industry, not just one corner of it.

(this post was also published in the October 2008 issue)

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