The Devil's Music

My favorite music genres, alongside the soundtrack genre, are rock and metal.  I love what some would prohibit and call "the devil's music," an asinine label that logic and Scripture dismantle in full.  I was once confronted by an extended family member when she discovered that I love the band Disturbed--she questioned my commitment to Christianity and my salvation, and worried about me immensely for a time, even saying she asked a friend about how to react to what I listen to.  I was quite surprised by her irrationality, and by the lengths she went to before even talking to me about the issue!

Actually, if the manner in which various topics are approached in the genres is taken into account, rock and metal often have lyrics that Christian doctrine far more easily relates to.  Rock and metal songs may sometimes explore the same topics as pop songs (drugs, sex, pleasure, etc), for instance, but they are more likely to do so in the context of a lament about addiction or an existential outcry.  Whereas a pop song might glorify substance abuse or sexual promiscuity, a rock song might express the deep emptiness that those who look to those things will experience.

Sully Erna, the singer for Godsmack, one of my favorite
bands (photo credit: ConcertTour on Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC-SA).

Godsmack, Papa Roach, Breaking Benjamin, and Disturbed, some of my favorite bands that represent rock/metal, all have tackled some rather important issues in their songs--the search for meaning and fulfillment (Godsmack's Make Me Believe), suicide (Papa Roach's Last Resort), genocide and Holocaust denial (Disturbed's Never Again), malevolent religious practices (Disturbed's Believe), deep emotional pain (Breaking Benjamin's Dear Agony), and the teaching of illicit hate to others (Disturbed's Who Taught You How To Hate) are some of the subjects addressed in various songs from these artists.  These are not trivial issues.  They are concepts and problems that many people will have to confront at some point in their lives.  They are issues that Christians must be prepared to give accurate, demonstrable, consistent responses to (1 Peter 3:15).

I despise how shallow, emotionally and philosophically, a lot of popular Christian music is.  Alot of Christian music I have listened to is not conducive to significant spiritual growth, or challenging ideas, or even genuine emotional depth.  It's easy not to drown when you're only in the kiddie pool.  In secular offerings in the rock and metal genres, one can find plenty of songs that are far more emotionally and existentially honest.  This indicates that Christians are not utilizing art as they could--they could use it as a conductor of metaphysical truth just as water is a conductor for electricity, yet they often settle for artistic repetitiveness, pointless simplicity, and ideological superficiality.

Jacoby Shaddix of Papa Roach, who reportedly became a
Christian in 2014 (photo credit: hedlundphoto on
Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND).

Yes, Christian music, and much Christian art in general, is extremely intellectually incompetent and theologically shallow.  But Christian art is often emotionally lacking as well, sometimes focusing on contrived feelings of joy and ignoring the very real, debilitating inner demons that some people face.  Many emotions are not evil, but allowing them to dictate our beliefs is irrational and unbiblical [1], and Christian art often cheaply appeals to shallow emotions in order to make its consumers feel more secure in what they already believe, and possibly in what they will believe regardless of what can be proven and what the evidence points to.  When consumed in this way, Christian art, especially contemporary Christian music, is just a quick feel-good fix that glosses over many aspects of reality.

Rock and metal are far from the devil's music.  The alleged connections between the two are arbitrary figments of legalistic imaginations.  Lyrics to rock and metal songs are not sinful just because they are featured in songs of those genres (Deuteronomy 4:2), and there is nothing about the musical styles themselves that has anything at all to do with demons or Satan.  Ultimately, Christians could learn a lot from the honesty and intellectual and emotional depth of some songs from the genres, and Christian musicians need to if they are going to put their music on par with that of the secular world.

There is no excuse for Christians allowing the artists of a culture of disunited, fallacious worldviews to do a better job at expressing and stimulating the human intellect and soul better than they do.  We can do better.  We can create art that rejuvenates, but also educates, that stimulates deep intellectual and emotional growth, but also provides rest and affirmation.  We can do far better.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/a-christian-rationalist-defense-of.html