Tuesday, October 05, 2004

avoiding christian radio

I generally avoid Christian radio even though I follow Christ. I am pretty sure He wouldn’t listen to it either. I find it full of religious, arrogant and uninformed people. But I am able to glean insight from a few shows. I was listening to one morning spot while I was making coffee and as it ended and went into another show I was still making coffee. Morning coffee a ritual around here. This guy is a well known hot shot radio preacher. I usually run to the radio and quickly change the channel when he comes on, but the coffee details had my attention. His sermon was generally pretty unmemorable, but then I heard him bring up the subject of the arts. This educated man of God who people listen to by the thousands every day and whose church is attended by the masses regularly made one of the most ridiculous and uninformed assertions I have yet heard. He stated that ALL rock music is about sex and drugs and that ALL country music is about drinking and adultery and therefore one must never listen to such music if one calls oneself a follower of Christ. It really was that much of a blanket statement.. ‘Rid your home of such sinful music and only listen to Christian music!" (he yells a lot.) … Certainly there is a percentage of foul musical garbage out there, but ALL!? So by making that statement over the radio and in his church he has produced more uninformed, religious people who can in turn go out and produce more uninformed religious folks. Great. People already roll there eyes when they here about one of those big preacher dudes. I always get angry and my husband says ‘Why do you listen to that slop?’.
‘Secular’ music (that’s a big word the church likes to use for sinful things) is where I hear the human soul. It is where I hear the cry of reality and therefore see the fingerprints of God. Likewise I see it in movies and fine art. We are all alike. We all really want the same things. We want to be accepted, loved, forgiven and to do something meaningful. I hear and see all these truths in ’secular’ arts. I resonate with that. I don’t resonate with ‘Shine, Jesus Shine’.

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