wrote this a while back and saved it on my usb drive; i figure i might as well post this so i can get rid of the doc file. and clear up some minute space on my usb drive.

in pure boredom, i looked up evanescence on wikipedia, and used it as a stepping stone to find out more about them. what got me was how they said that they were not a christian band. i know it's been discussed before, but my focus of concern was mainly the article that was on christianitytoday.com that talked about them.

the thing they(evanescence) said was basically this; if you listened to their lyrics, you would tell immediately that they were not a christian band. and what got me was the fact that the article said that several christian music reviewers DID listen to their cd, and thought FAVORABLY of their cd, thinking it should have been on their shelves.

did that hit you the way it hit me?

you see, if the band members of a music group are christian(amy and moody did profess to be christians), their lyrics don't contain profanity, and are actually positive, upbeat messages, but DON'T actually make their songs about God, ie you don't hear the exact words(praise God in it) is that still christian music? if you did not know that the band members of any christian rock group or hip-hop, r&b, pop, whatnot were christian, if they weren't played on air1, would you know right off the bat that they were christian? my intuition tells me no.

some people say that being in a musical group and being christian does not oblidge you to have to praise God in your lyrics. it might not be your calling. how can you call yourself a christian then? can you truly call yourself a christian if you do not live and breathe christ? and if you don't, can you truly say he's influenced your life to the point where you make it your no 1 priority in life to live out the greatest commandment as listed in mark 12:29-30? you can tell me peter was a fisherman and paul was a tentmaker, but nobody who was a christian and their main occupation was to sing songs ever sang secular songs as their occupation in the bible. i have not come across such a person as of yet in my bible studies. when david appointed psalmists and musicians, it was to praise God as their occupation. and yet today, we have a breed of christians who sing songs not about God as their job.

sometimes i don't even consider what i hear on air1 or klove as the same calibur as christian music; i just consider it "good music." ie, if i like the melody, cool. seriously, how many times do they state God or Jesus in their songs? how many times is it written in a sense that is in AWE of God? do i need to listen to a postive song in order to right my paths(i am stating this b/c it's easy for people to say that we need to listen to positive music in order to do what's right; hello, we're christians; we have a bible for that)?

why would i bring this up? take a look at the book of psalms. those were books written in praise of God; genuine christian songs. now see how many times God or Lord is stated in each psalm, how many times the psalmist praises him for his works, his words, his creations, his justice, his mercy.

you don't even need to look that far back; take a look at the hymnals most people in contemporary worship services never sing(even as songs in their contemporary worship rotations); those were genuine praises to God; those lyrics had thought and awe written all over them. "this is my story, this is my song, praising my savior, all the day long." how many "christian songs" these days actually say something like that?

(compare that with air1 playing hawk nelson's lyrics of "you got me at jesus," which sounds more like a song about christiansingles dot com)

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now i'm not saying if you are not a songwriter that you get off scot free. we all have our responsibilities to reach out to others as christians; that's a constant weak spot in my maturity. i'm trying to show that the songwriters' medium for communicating jesus is that much more easier, just because they're a songwriter. if they can't even muster the courage to say "praise God" in their lyrics when they claim to be a christian band(in America, where the worst that can possibly happen is they get booed), maybe they aren't very christian to begin with. it's so interesting how society has a double standard where if you talk about hos and bling in your lyrics and cuss your head off, that's fine, but if you talk about God, whoa there...