Christian Metal?

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@ Robertanthony:
There’s something fundamentally wrong with praising God using a style of music that’s perfectly suited to spew hate, despair, rage, and so on. Before any of you start to rationalize things, do you honestly feel that God is pleased being addressed the way the singer in the YT video linked by Century Child does? Would you find it odd to go back in time to find out that Jesus or his mother sang prayers to God that way? You would, but not because of the anachronism (lovely death metal didn’t exist back then) but simply because it’s not fitting to talk to God that way. Nobody would think to sing a song about any theme so dear to any metal band using a ukulele and singing with a soft, head voice. Why? It’s not fitting. Metal music is a great carrier for negative stuff, anger; peace, serenity, gratitude, deep reverence for our Maker, not quite,.
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That’s exactly what I was trying to say, I just couldn’t get the words right. haha thanks!
And Century Child, I agree with you basically, but I think any sound really (from a scream, to a fork hitting a glass, to a truck backing up) is equal to a note/tone, people with perfect pitch know what note corresponds to any sound.
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Actually not EVERY sound has an exact note. No matter how perfect someone’s sense of pitch is, there are just some sounds that can’t be matched with a note. That’s why they have to different types of percussion… “pitched percussion” such as a timpani or vibraphone, and “unpitched percussion” such as a bass drum or snare. Screaming is the same way, it can be higher or lower, but it won’t equal a particular note. (Although you can sing in a raspy voice, I’m just talking death growls and such here)

@ CrazyRachel: Interesting… didn’t know that about their guitarist. I did know Gerard Way is Catholic though. haha at one point my friend told me they were satanic so I stopped listening to them for a while until I found that out. Then I listened to Welcome to the Black Parade for like a week straight lol
 
lol more like Welcome Back to the Black Parade! I love that song and the whole album. Next time you see your friend be sure to tell them about Gerard AND Frank’s tattoo 🙂
 
haha I will! It’s always nice to find out when bands you like have Catholics in them 😃
 
CrazyRachel said:
I think some of the boys from My Chemical Romance are Catholics. The guitarist Frank Iero has a fabulous tattoo of Our Lady of Sorrows on his arm and is often seen crossing himself in their videos.
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I know the lead guitarist for Dream Theater is Catholic.
 
I knew the inverted cross was a symbol of St. Peter’s martyrdom, but what about the pentagram? Didn’t know that one was connected with Catholicism. Care to explain?
 
Symbols can take on different meanings, there’s no denying that. We both know that most metal bands members are really, if you scratch a little bit, deeply devoted disciples of Christ. When they say “Satan”, they really mean the Goddess of harvest that was praised in the southern most tip of Mesopotamia 5 centuries before Christ was born.
 
I was being sarcastic. You said inverted crosse and pentagrams are symbols that have been used at different times to mean entirely different things. When I look at a video of a metal band, when I see those symbols, I don’t look for other meaning beyond the ones that are obvious: anti-God/religion, pro-Satan/evil. So when they say “Satan”, I presume they’re really referring to the enemy of God, father of lies, essence of evil etc. Now whether it’s done for theatrical effect or they all really mean it is not for me to say. Hope I understood your question right and answered it correctly.
 
Well i think it has to do with people’s fear of anything different. As someone who has lived through the 80’s i remember stuff like the PMRC. The claim they made about Twisted Sister is false,i never noticed any violence in the song they claimed to be violent.
 
Nothing wrong with rock guitar, I myself wish I could play it, but I’m just generally mediocre at playing any instrument, and my fingers are thus structured that barre chords will forever escape me. As I said whether they mean it or it’s done in a spirit of self-parody I can’t say for sure, one thing I do know seeing a bunch of kids in live shows singing along and flashing the horn sign convinces me that there’s something wrong. I’m not God obviously and I’ll let him determine the gravity (or lack thereof) of it all. And yes I am severely lacking in many things, and wisdom does happen to be one of them.
 
I started listening to christian metal a few months ago and it helped me very much in that period of my life. I also read various testimonies of how certain christian metal bands helped people get closer to God. I don’t even understand why so many people attack metal music - don’t they realize that it’s all about lyrics? Heavy guitars can’t be sinister. Same goes for any other instrument or sound. It’s the lyrics that make a song morally good or bad. There’s a lot of satanic groups in metal (mostly black metal) but there are also christian metal groups and most of them is amazing. And we can’t just throw it into one bag and tag it. We can’t say “metal is bad” because there are many good and amazing artists there.

That being said, how about bringing this thread back to life?

Demon Hunter annonced a new album on their Facebook page - it’ll come out somewhere in 2012.
Brian “Head” Welch also announced new album - it’ll come out in fall of 2011.

I’m so excited for both!
 
I don’t think I could physically get through college without Christian metal. When you feel isolated, targeted, and alone, it does comfort you a good amount. When you see immorality on a daily basis at the extreme levels displayed on the typical campus, you have two options: Either abandon your values and conform to the immoral ways of the brain dead youth, or stand strong in your beliefs and refuse to accept the moral standards of that way of life. Christian metal helps me stand strong. There is no hatred involved. Frustration absolutely. But then again:

youtube.com/watch?v=NDTzcFgUiz4&feature=related Go to 1:25 and imagine electric guitars playing, and you essentially have Christian metal.

youtube.com/watch?v=Ufq7srkz1sc&feature=related Jesus did indeed scream and yell.

The biggest fallacy of the post-modern era is the assumption that love is fuzzy, nebulous, soft-spoken, and pleasurable. Contrastingly, Christ’s love for the world was always honest, and often somewhat brutal, be it by the raising of his voice or the offering of his body and blood. Compassion does not necessarily make any party involved feel good inside.
 
I just got back from spirit west coast monterey and there was one band called disciple that really rocked.
 
JustSomeone said:
It’s the lyrics that make a song morally good or bad.
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I don’t know that I would say that’s entirely true. Music is meant to speak to the senses and evoke emotion and it can do so with or without lyrics. Although perhaps you could be correct that one cannot attach a moral significance to the emotions the music brings out.

Nonetheless, Christian metal doth rock verily so. 🙂
 
Califman831 said:
I just got back from spirit west coast monterey and there was one band called disciple that really rocked.
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I LOVE Disciple!!! Have you heard Fight for Love or the acoustic version of My Hell?? Amazing.

Anyway, we seem to be getting off topic. This wasn’t ever a debate over whether metal is moral or not, it’s over whether or not Christian metal is an appropriate way of praising God.
 
I think it is. I say if it brings people to Christ, it’s all good.
 
I listen to Christian Metal - and some of the heaviest, undergroundiest stuff - but I’m going to have to disagree on what I keep hearing it’s defenders say, namely that a sound/genre is morally neutral. I think anyone deep into classical music would spit their coffee out if they heard you say that. Think about it, if the music is intended to convey emotions, imagery, an atmosphere then there is no way any sound can be completely neutral. You don’t couple lyrics about Satan dismembering people (sorry) to folk music. Then again, the sound of something like CCM holds it back from really ever dealing with any serious or diverse issues. Metal is good for a sense of struggle, perseverance, outrage, frustration, standing up for something, it’s good for a sense of warfare, power, transcendence, sorrow, other-worldliness, and fantasy. Honestly I think classical music and metal are the two genres where you can really show profundity or religious experience. Jesus isn’t all about southern style soft rock, or even warm fuzzies.

I’ll leave you with this.
 
WoundedIcon said:
You don’t couple lyrics about Satan dismembering people (sorry) to folk music.
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I dunno. You’ve heard CCR’s Bad Moon Rising, right? 😛

I agree with your point, though. Music is not supposed to be neutral. That’s why I’ve always thought Letherwolf’s rendition of Bad Moon Rising was more fitting. 😃

Of course, I think we need to be careful about confusing emotional neutrality with moral neutrality. I have to think about that one a bit more. :hmmm:
 
Fluffyfox said:
Well i think it has to do with people’s fear of anything different. As someone who has lived through the 80’s i remember stuff like the PMRC. The claim they made about Twisted Sister is false,i never noticed any violence in the song they claimed to be violent.
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What was the claim against twisted sister. I remember them talking stuff about Quiet Riot and Motley crue. I also remember there being a christian metal group back in the 80’s called stryder or some thing close to that name.
 
Califman831 said:
I also remember there being a christian metal group back in the 80’s called stryder or some thing close to that name.
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It’s Stryper. 🙂

To this day, I still have Isaiah 53:5 memorized:

But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins. Upon him lies the chastisement that makes us whole. By his stripes we are healed.

My brother has the whole chapter memorized, though. 😛 It’s a great passage. 👍

Stryper went on hiatus during the 90’s, but they’re actually back together again and putting out new albums.
 
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