Christian Music versus Secular Music

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Hi. Like many of you, I love listening to music.
I thought we could discuss Christian Music v Secular Music.
As an aside, I have been listening recently to Pink Floyd and Soul Asylum. They seem good bands. Does anybody have any information. I can’t find anything, and would appreciate advice. Do you think these are good bands to listen to?

My questions follow with my answers also.

What % of the your music collection is Christian?
Mine is about : 95%

How do you decide what music to listen to?
If its well renowned-Christian music, you can immediately trust them eg. Michael W Smith, Rich Mullins etc.

But regarding secular artists, I try and find out some information about them : what the lyrics are like, what sort of people they are etc.

I especially try and find out what they think about God and the Catholic Church.

I definitely would not listen to pro-abortion artists, artists against the Church or the Pope or artists who support immoral causes/actions. I’m disappointed to find recently that Moby is on a list of aborton supporters & he has criticised Pope Benedict. That’s him off my record collection : - (

What if you cannot not find anything definite about the secular bands/artists & and there is nothing objectionable in their lyrics, would you then go ahead and listen to them until you find something out or would you look for certainty on their views?

I think in those circumstances, I would listen to their music.

How would you respond to those who think Christians should only listen to Christian music by Christians and no secular music?

My concern is that if you restrict your musical choices to a situation where you have to agree 100% with everything they record, you could end up listening to no secular music at all.
 
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LawStudent:
What % of the your music collection is Christian?
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I’m bad with numbers; but, as far as stuff I listen to regularly, as opposed to what I just happen to own, I’d say around 75 or 80%
The Christian stuff I listen to ranges from indie rock (e.g., Half-Handed Cloud) to what you would call “contemporary” (e.g., Matt Maher) to Classical and Choral music (e.g., Rachmaninoff).
How do you decide what music to listen to?
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I try to give artists the benefit of the doubt as long as possible, but I’m in the same boat as you. Some things are intolerable. Moby, like you said, being an example. I got rid of my Modest Mouse stuff, too, when the worldview was just too negative.
More and more I’ve been thinking about our responsibility to God in areas of leisure. If it doesn’t build us up, should we still engage?
What if you cannot not find anything definite about the secular bands/artists & and there is nothing objectionable in their lyrics, would you then go ahead and listen to them until you find something out or would you look for certainty on their views?
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I generally listen to them…
How would you respond to those who think Christians should only listen to Christian music by Christians and no secular music?
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Some who have not come to Christ still use the gifts imparted to them, and use them well. In the same way that I can enjoy a painting or photograph by a secular artist, I can enjoy a song by one.
Plus, who really thinks that every “Christian” artist is a role model? :ehh:
 
I like listening to music. The first things I consider is… crazy as this may seem… do I like how it sounds?

For Pink Floyd, try Wish You Were Here, it’s a good album. If that’s the type of information you want.

I listen predominantly “secular” music, as you would call it. I don’t find it necessary to agree with the artists to listen to them. I’m not so weak minded that by listening to them I’m going to start agreeing with them.

I’d no more stop listening to artists with different views than mine, than I’d stop reading arguments from people with different views than mine. You can’t live in a bubble, even if you’d like to!

Unless the artists are blatantly political in an ostentatious way, I normally wouldn’t know their stances. A lot of the artists I listen to are old or dead anyway, so it matters much less. To put it simply: I don’t go out of the way to know their stances, but if they happen to go out of the way to show me their stances, I do look at them much more critically.
 
Sgt Sweaters:
Some who have not come to Christ still use the gifts imparted to them, and use them well. In the same way that I can enjoy a painting or photograph by a secular artist, I can enjoy a song by one.
Plus, who really thinks that every “Christian” artist is a role model? :ehh:
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Yeh, good points. Thanks for your reply. I guess that if we were going to only listen to a band/artist whom we would agree with 100%, there would be no one to listen to:)

Although Pope John Paul The Great’s album a few years ago of classical music put to the Pope’s words was an album I could agree with 100%, now if only Pope Benedict would record an album:cool:
 
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RobNY:
For Pink Floyd, try Wish You Were Here, it’s a good album. If that’s the type of information you want.

I’d no more stop listening to artists with different views than mine, than I’d stop reading arguments from people with different views than mine. You can’t live in a bubble, even if you’d like to!
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I think *Wish you were here *is probably my favourite Pink Floyd song. It’s sounds amazing also:)

The point about the bubble is really good also.
 
Well, I’ve just discovered from the excellent Rock For Life website that Soul Asylum are a pro-abortion band meaning that “they either promote or endorse abortion”. 😦

See : rockforlife.org/html/music_proabortionbands.html#s

Oh well, another band off my list. If a band is pro-abortion, there is no way I want to listen to them.

Its really sad just how many bands/artists think abortion is ok.
 
Secular music fan all the way.

99% Secular and 1% Christian Gospel by Elvis.

I cant stomach any Christian “Rock” at all.
 
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ShroudMan:
Secular music fan all the way.
I cant stomach any Christian “Rock” at all.
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Hi ShroudMan. Thanks for your reply.

I’d be really interested to know:

Why do you not like Christian music?

What music do you listent to?

God bless.
 
I like everything but ghetto rap, opera and Christian rock

Why? Its my preference.
 
The best Christian music was written by Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Mozart, sacrad choral, masses, or polyphonic chant, arias…
There is very very little contemporary Christian music that appeals to me, with the exception of John Michael Talbot, and Phil Keaggy. Most contemporary christian comes off corny to me, and seems to be copy-cat of secular Top 40 stuff.
That said, I like secular music and you would have to fight me for my XM Radio. 😉
 
Christian music…right on par with compassionate conservativism: two words that when combined make no sense.
 
What percentage of my music is Christian?

That’s not an easy one to answer. I don’t own anything that was sold as “Christian music” (in fact, contemporary Christian music usually makes my hair stand on end), but quite a few of the songs in my collection reference God in one way or another, and I do have Ave Maria and some other old classical music that was written for religious purposes.

I’d say that maybe 5% of my music collection is Christian in the sense that it has a Christian message even if it isn’t performed by an artist that normally makes Christian songs (example: Drag The River’s Back to God). The rest is secular music, but I tend to listen to positive and uplifting music more often than not these days (ummm… except for all that Radiohead I have… not sure how to explain my attraction to that).

I think the primary reason why contemporary Christian music turns me off is just that most of it really sounds like the same overproduced pop garbage that Britney Spears or her ilk sing, just with a different message. I like the message of most Christian music, it’s just the music that turns me off.

But I also like traditional hymns in church and Gregorian chant. I guess I like my spiritual music to be tied into the traditions of my faith and not attached to rock and roll or some other musical fad (that’s all rock will be in the end, it’s already on its last legs as far as I’m concerned, with current artists endlessly recycling the rock styles of past decades rather than developing new rock styles like their predecessors did).

I listen to a lot of music that is linked to spiritual cultures though. I like the blues and there’s a definite link between the blues and gospel music that is evident in a lot of blues music. I like classical and we all know where a lot of that music came from. I like some country (old-style country and alternative country, not what most people think of as country nowadays I’m afraid, another genre destroyed by money and pop-culture in the 70s) and there’s a lot of Christian influence there.

But then I also listen to punk, some techno, folkpunk (the Pogues), triphop, nerdcore hip hop, disco revival (yes, there is a revival), angular, glitch and a smattering of emo (another connection to gospel music for some artists) along with just about every other genre you could care to mention. My tastes are too varied to have too large a percentage of any one kind of music in my collection. I just love music.
 
I can’t remember the source, or even the direct quote, but I once heard something to the effect that most of the explicity christian art culture is like a bad Xerox copy of the secular culture.

Far too true, far too often.

I love Rich Mullins stuff, old Michael Card, the first few Jars of Clay, some Caedmon’s Call, even several Whiteheart songs.

But I’m a good 10 years ‘out of it.’ These days, the only CD’s my paycheck is buying is stuff called Raffi and other such ‘keep kiddies quiet on road-trip’ fare!
 
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manualman:
I can’t remember the source, or even the direct quote, but I once heard something to the effect that most of the explicity christian art culture is like a bad Xerox copy of the secular culture.
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Exactly true. Most contemporary Christian art culture is just a bad imitation of secular culture with a different message, and a complete misunderstanding of the roots of whatever they are imitating. They’re trying to hard to be contemporary and concentrating too little on the “art” part.

It’s funny because it used to be exactly the opposite. Used to be that Christian art culture was practically the only art culture and many of the greatest works of art in history were commisioned by the church or religious patrons. Maybe that’s the real reason why I like the classical Christian stuff so much more than the modern Christian stuff.

I wish there was more patronage for the arts in the modern church. Say what you will about the architectural and sculptural excesses of the medieval church, they got the message out to the people, and most of it has endured for centuries since. I think people underestimate how powerful an evangelizing force that kind of exposure can be.
 
I love Christian rock. :cool: But I only have like 3 Christian CDs as opposed to more secular CDs I can count. :o A lot of my fave Christian bands’ CDs are difficult to find; I usually get them from Christian music festivals and such. But if they hit mainstream (like Switchfoot) then I’d just get it from Wal-Mart or something. Some of my fave Christian bands are Switchfoot, MxPx, Hawk Nelson and Relient K. I also like secular bands such as 3 Doors Down, Linkin Park and Matchbox Twenty.
 
Christian music is the best on the radio. It’s not just the music, which is very uplifting and positive, but you can also hear positive messages as well. I also listen to country, but most of the secular pop stuff is pure junk, especially that rap stuff. I’ve noticed more and more lately that a lot of the newer secular stuff on the radio today are full of swearing and sex. and then these artist get nominated and win for this junk they call music. And as far as christian music sounding like secular music there is NO comparison, because you will never hear swearing in any of it.🙂
 
I’m another one that simply cannot stand contemporary christian music, it makes me want to jab my ear drums out. Sorry to be so harsh, contemporary christian music is one of the reasons i hated going to protostant churches before I became catholic.
I’d say 30% to 40% of my music is christian, but it’s all classical or chants.

If the lyrics are not offensive then I’ll listen to a band. yes, I do listen to some artist that would be considered questionable. I’m sure you cna count Elton John in that one.

I have returned cd’s before that had F words on it without a warning label.
 
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