Last night we went back 40 years to a 1968 Beatles concert. A band of Beatle impersonators were a part of the Utah Symphony’s Deer Valley Music Festival. The festival is an open air event. Spectators sit on the grassy ski run. We took a couple of quilts, (there were six of us, including my mother who couldn’t believe I took her to a Beatles concert) and a picnic dinner to eat on the slopes while awaiting the concert’s beginning.
The first sign that this was to be an adventure came on the trip from the parking lot to the slopes. It started to rain. Off and on throughout the evening it rained, until we were pretty much all wet. But the concert went on as planned.
Here is the dilemma. I like the music. Even our symphony musician friend says the music is genius. Many of the songs have words not from my world view. “I get high with a little help from my friends.” The impersonator dressed as John Lennon sits at the piano and does a great rendition of Imagine. Pretty music with artistic lyrics that fit together in a delightful way make the song fun to listen to. But singing along is difficult because I don’t believe the message in the words.
It isn’t a dilemma just for rock and roll’ers though. Several years past I went to a Garth Brooks concert where the song everyone waited for and brought the greatest response is one Garth is noted for. It too has a fun tune and witty lyrics. I don’t go to low places where whiskey drowns and beer chases the blues away, even if I have friends there, but it is fun to sing.
Puritans among us might say we best avoid all worldly amusements. There is a progression here. You could just accept the alternate world view. Or you could sing the songs while rejecting the worldview. Perhaps we should avoid the songs with a secular worldview. Any artist who sings the songs with a secular world view should be avoided. We should not partake of the genre that has the songs with the secular world view. Even a music style should be avoided, if it is a style that is used by those espousing a secular world view. That would include using the music in church with spiritual words. Then the last step, maybe we should avoid music all together.
The dilemma then is to decide where you draw the line. I suppose most of us would agree the first and the last options were going too far. Now you have to choose where along the way you will draw your line.
Talk to me. I would like to know what you think.
Oh! The concert. Even though we were all wet from the rain, and cold from the wind that followed, I think we all, from Mom and Dad to the ten year old with us had a good time. Or then, maybe I am just seeing it all through my perspective. I had a good time, the others will have to speak for themselves.
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2 comments:
I come from the school of thought to be in the world but not of the world. How are we going to reach the world if we don't know anything about it?
There is a very fine line here. The world has its charms and it is very easy to get caught up in it. We need to be in tune with the Holy Spirit to know when we are overstepping our bounds.
When I traveled to the Middle East, our goal was not to make the people like us but to have them use their culture to make a church to worship in their own way. Maybe there is some relevance there.
IMHO I think Matt Redman had it right when he returned to the "heart of worship" that's where I'd like the line to be drawn in a church setting is between God honoring worship and pure entertainment(pretty vague line). As far as choosing the music we listen to outside of church for our own entertainment, I agree we must take care the tunes to which we groove so as not to damage our witness by humming a line from "I like big butts" or some other repulsive yet catchy tune. It's easier and safer to listen to Christian-based music all the time(less channel changing and child ear guarding while driving).
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