Apostolics and Secular Music

[Pendragon]

I've never heard a good Biblical argument either for Christian music or against 'Secular music', primarily because there is no scripture that directly addresses believers listening to music made by 'good' people or music made by 'bad' people - or however you want to separate the myriad musical styles present on the planet. Because ultimately, classifying the music really just boils down to who is making the music, and how they classify themselves.

So how to address whether or not a believer should listen to it?

I see these arguments that you should only listen to music if it edifies you, but how is that Biblical? There's no scripture that directly addresses what kind of music believers should listen to. It's entertainment, it's a pleasurable syncopated sound in your ears, it's noise. Yes, sometimes music edifies you in a spiritual way, and yes it sometimes brings you down, but a lot of it just doesn't do anything for you at all, it just sounds nice. Lets take jazz or classical music, for instance. Where is the edification in listening to Bach? Where is the edification in listening to Louis Armstrong? And if there is no spiritual value, are you sinning by listening to Bach?

Maybe you'll claim that there is no such thing as music that is neutral, in that it neither spiritually edifies nor spiritually corrupts. If you believe this then you must believe everything in life is either positive or negative, which is a belief in imbalance. Have you ever played a game of football with friends? Was this spiritually edifying, or was it a negative? Have you ever gone hunting - spiritually positive, or negative? Seen any type of artwork? Have you ever seen a nearly-nude Roman statue and felt neither good, nor bad, and merely seen it as a piece of artwork? Ever drank a cup of hot chocolate while doing a crossword puzzle? Was the crossword puzzle spiritually edifying? Have you ever absentmindedly tapped out a syncopated rhythm on your steering wheel? If you can find examples of activities, art, entertainment that are spiritually neutral, then you can also find examples of music that are spiritually neutral. If you did find evil in any of these things, it came from inside you, not from the activity or art itself. If you found good in them, it also came from inside you, not from the activity or art itself.

So if the sound itself neither edifies nor brings you down, how else do you determine whether or not you should listen to it? We come to another argument from the fundamentalists: the musicians themselves. For most of my life growing up I heard that you shouldn't listen to rock 'n' roll because those artists were always having the sex and smoking pot. But then I heard about Sandi Patti having an affair, and then Michael English. Had I been unknowingly sinning by listening to music made by adulterers?? And how many other Christians are making music while secretly sinning?? Should we demand a signed and notarized document to accompany all Christian music, certifying the 'album is free of sin throughout the entire production process, including the writing of the lyrics'? Are you sinning when you listen to a fugue because Bach apparently wasn't a born-again believer?

Here is how I handle listening to music: if it sounds good and my conscience doesn't bother me, I listen to it in the privacy of my home or vehicle. If I'm around conservative brothers and sister who I know would be offended by 'secular music', I don't listen to anything that would offend them. There are many times I will be listening to a 'secular' radio station and hear a song that pricks my conscience, and I'll simply change the station. Really it just boils down to whether or not the lyrics are offensive in some way. I'm not going to listen to AC/DC's Highway to Hell any more than I'm going to listen to some country song about adultery, or a rap number filled with vulgarities, but I'm not going to change the station just because I hear somebody jamming on a guitar. 'WHOA WHOA WHOA I don't know what this guy's singing about but that guitar it just don't sound like Jesus!'

I want to be real. I want to be a real Christian and a real person. I don't want to be a religious person that follows stupid rules just because a preacher 50 years ago didn't like the way Elvis moved his hips, or because distortion on a guitar gets his hackles up. Some of these standards fall apart like a house made of straw if you just give them a long hard stare. I am absolutely, 100% done living life that way. If I'm going to be like Jesus it's going to because I worship him in SPIRIT and in TRUTH, not because I'm blindly following some hashed-together rules that were thrown together in a knee-jerk emotional response to hippies.