Short Post to Address an Interesting Comment and Wrap Up the Mystery of Music

This cartoon sort of relates to what we're talking about today, (mis)construe it how you will:

Anika Q (I think this is someone from the Rebelution) wrote me a thought-provoking comment for my last post on music. I thought that I would talk a little bit about what she wrote in this post.

Here is some of what Anika wrote:

Now, I looked up a Christian death metal band, called 'With Blood Comes Cleansing'. The title song for their album Golgotha has these lyrics: This is the place of the skull where terror reigned. A crucifixion of agony and pain. A crown of thorns pierced his skin. Bound by our wages of sin. Mercy so undeserved. We cursed our God. While he suffered. The skies grow
dark and the earth shakes and for a second your heart breaks. Eloi eloi lama sabacthani. Our souls lie in Golgotha. Prophecy fulfilled in Golgotha. There is not much there to complain about. However, when I started to listen to the music, I was appalled.

I sometimes think about what turns us off from music like this. The words are beautiful, but this band took a beautiful thing and de-valued it in our eyes. The reason that this style of music is distasteful to us is because of it's inherent purpose. Death metal (along with Black metal and many other kinds of music) was created for the purpose of celebrating sinful actions and desires. It was not created to glorify God, and most Christians have characterized it as hostile to a Christian and Biblical worldview.

**Begin Noah's random thought**

By the way, the definition of music I'm using, while it is very broad, would not technically include Death metal.

Music: an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.

Death metal, from what I have read and the very little that I have coincidentally heard (I would not subject myself to torture, you know) does not possess any of these musical qualities mentioned in this definition.

**End random Noah's thought**

Here is what Anika continued to say:

I just did not like that music at all. I found it disgusting. In fact, in my own mind I labeled it evil. However, just because I personally dislike a certain style does not make it evil. However, is it possible for music to be inherently evil, regardless of what lyrics used, and if so how do we judge that? Going back to your first post, I would most definitely not play such music to God and His angels. However, some Christians would have no problem with it.

Well, that's a hard topic to approach. Let's see what God has to say about it in his word:

[This] I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
Gal 5:16-17

We see that, it we are living by the Spirit, it will lead us to do what is right in God's eyes (that's the only thing that is right, right?). We will know if something is right or wrong, for the Spirit will make it known to us. You and I can see that this music is not glorifying God (though I wouldn't readily call it a lust of my flesh).

This leads me into a discussion of sin and freedom in Christ that I wanted to save for my next blog post. We'll wave a fond farewell to our discussion of music and start up on the topic of right and wrong next time (probably next weekend, I have three big tests coming up this week).

As we come to the conclusion of this short discussion of music, we see that music still remains a mystery. I didn't write as much as I could have (these thoughts are hard to capture with all this distracting fingertapping). However, I encourage you to study further on this subject, and let me know what conclusions you come to. We see that music still remains a mystery and a pursuit that we must continually request God's guidance for.

I'll keep thinking and praying about next week's topic, and we'll see what comes of it.