Why is “Christian” Music so Awful?

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Irish_Eyes_826 said:
I always forget how much God despises pronouns ;).
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When I was attending a fundamentalist church years ago they must have played Love lifted me every Sunday.
I occasionally changed the words from 'when nothing else could help" to “when nothing else could lift me, love lifted me”.
A violent punch on the arm from my wife usually stopped that. 😃
 
AbideWithMe said:
Oh, okay, I’m sorry----if you’re narrowly limiting it to a a particular type of Baptist church, maybe that’s true—I haven’t been in any really fundamentalist type of Baptist church, so I wouldn’t know. But really, you never sang “Amazing Grace”? No other John Newton hymns? No hymns from the Wesley brothers?

Now your second paragraph looks like a blanket statement, though. We do sing old hymns, including some which are dated pre-Reformation. Who doesn’t know “Be Thou My Vision” or “Creatures of Our God and King”, to name just a few pre-Reformation hymns?
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Believe or not Amazing Grace was avoided, I have no clue why. It’s even sung in Catholic churches.
Just those sawdust revival hymns.
Of course fundamentalist churches are pretty rigid.

BTW, I’m glad to hear your varity in hymns and digging into the past. Should have qualified Protestant
 
JustaServant said:
“Love lifted ME”
“What a Friend WE have in Jesus”
“Just as I Am”
“Joybells ringing in MY heart”
“WE Gather at the River”
“***I ***Love to tell the Story”
“I’VE found a friend in Jesus”
(one of my alltime favorites) “Love Lifted ME”

Shall I go on…?
You’re not praising God, you are testifying to each other.
It wasn’t until I started attending older Reformed churches that I was introduced to beautiful hymns that I never knew existed. Disagree all we want with mainline Protestant churches, but their musical heritage is FAR supeior to what I heard in fundamentalist churches.
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So how should we, as persons, talk about God if we can’t use personal pronouns? Some of my favorite hymns are “Holy, Holy, Holy”, “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise”, and "How Great Thou Art "…but even David’s Psalms sing of testifying to each other of God’s faithfulness and goodness in our own lives.
 
JustaServant said:
Believe or not Amazing Grace was avoided, I have no clue why. It’s even sung in Catholic churches.
Just those sawdust revival hymns.
Of course fundamentalist churches are pretty rigid.

BTW, I’m glad to hear your varity in hymns and digging into the past. Should have qualified Protestant
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Thanks, JustaServant.
 
My mom says some worship songs almost are hypnotic. They’ll play the music so terribly slow, and repeat certain verses over and over. I don’t know if I totally agree with her, but I like the old hymns better. A lot of modern Chrisitian music seems “sappy” and repetitive to me, so I feel the hymns have better words.
 
Kristin234 said:
Oh wow. I don’t care if you think the music is horrible because everyone has their own opinions, and sure some of the songs can be annoying after a while, but calling something garbage when it is about loving, worshiping, and praising Him is really sad.
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I agree. Completely. When we say the Rosary we repeat the same prayer 53 times - and that’s just if we say one Rosary instead of the three we really should say (if we can). 53 times. And I never tire of it.

What was posted was very sad. A prayer to God can never be garbage.

😦
 
I think Christian music is great, though not all, of course.

What art genre, or artist, is always great?

Christian music is no more “awful” than Country, Rock, or Blues.

🙂
 
I’ve avoided posting on this thread until now, but have to comment. I happen to be a music minister and have provided music for three Masses every weekend for the past 14 years. One of those is our youth Mass on Sunday evening. Yes, we do Contemporary music at that Mass. One thing I think people forget is that all music was contemporary at one time. It also all gets old after awhile. There is definately some terrible music out there, but there is also some great CCM. It is all in the way it is presented, in my opinion and you have to continually keep it fresh.

There are some very traditional songs/hymms out there that I swear if I ever have to do again I will stick a fork in my eye. I will say the same thing about CCM. Nearly every time I do music for a funeral I am asked to do “On Eagles Wings”, or “Amazing Grace” or “How Great Thout Art”. I cannot tell you how sick I am of these, but for the family’s sake we do them anyway, if requested. My point is that music means a lot of different things to different people and as long as it helps someone draw closer to God then it is “good music”. If I had my way we would just go back to Chant. I never get tired of it.
 
SteveVH said:
There are some very traditional songs/hymms out there that I swear if I ever have to do again I will stick a fork in my eye. I will say the same thing about CCM. Nearly every time I do music for a funeral I am asked to do “On Eagles Wings”, or “Amazing Grace” or “How Great Thout Art”. I cannot tell you how sick I am of these, but for the family’s sake we do them anyway, if requested. My point is that music means a lot of different things to different people and as long as it helps someone draw closer to God then it is “good music”. If I had my way we would just go back to Chant. I never get tired of it.
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Luckily for you I don’t have any relatives in Colorado. 😃

Good post.
 
JustaServant said:
“Love lifted ME”
“What a Friend WE have in Jesus”
“Just as I Am”
“Joybells ringing in MY heart”
“WE Gather at the River”
“***I ***Love to tell the Story”
“I’VE found a friend in Jesus”
(one of my alltime favorites) “Love Lifted ME”

Shall I go on…?
You’re not praising God, you are testifying to each other.
It wasn’t until I started attending older Reformed churches that I was introduced to beautiful hymns that I never knew existed. Disagree all we want with mainline Protestant churches, but their musical heritage is FAR supeior to what I heard in fundamentalist churches.
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Uh, you used “Love Lifted ME” twice. Cheating! 😛

I’ve never even heard of any of those songs! Couldn’t the emphasis be on other words? Like “What a Friend we have in JESUS” and “I’ve Found a Friend in JESUS”? Just asking. As I’ve never heard them I don’t know how they are sung and where the emphasis goes. You may be entirely correct.
 
JustaServant said:
More…
patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2012/04/what-is-christian-music.html
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Just,

It depends on how you define Christian Music…

Handels Messiah
Ave Maria
Silent Night
O Holy Night
U2 and Bono
Jesus is just alright with me
Slow train coming
Your own personal Jesus

depends…🙂

This is Christian music

youtube.com/watch?v=5_yqSmRU9qo&feature=related

youtube.com/watch?v=Dlr90NLDp-0

youtube.com/watch?v=zrS4BoQKXrs

I believe that the scope of what is called Christian music has been garnered and minimized to believe that it is a Western contemporary phenomenon yielding a narrow minded view…🙂
 
LittleSoldier said:
Uh, you used “Love Lifted ME” twice. Cheating! 😛

I’ve never even heard of any of those songs! Couldn’t the emphasis be on other words? Like “What a Friend we have in JESUS” and “I’ve Found a Friend in JESUS”? Just asking. As I’ve never heard them I don’t know how they are sung and where the emphasis goes. You may be entirely correct.
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I’ve only heard about half of those listed by JustaServant (I’m kind of thankful for that…“Joybells Ringing in My Heart”?:D), but I do know “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”:

"What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear/ What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer/ Oh what peace we often forfeit, oh what needless pain we bear/ All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer…

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged—take it to the Lord in prayer/ Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share?/ Jesus knows our every weakness, take it to the Lord in prayer."

Aesthetically it’s not great, but I don’t think it’s at all poor theology—Peter said we should “Cast all your cares upon the Lord because He cares for you.” And wow, "what a privilege "it is “to carry everything to God in prayer”…it’s humbling to think that the Lord of all creation condescends to hear our prayers. What a privilege, not an entitlement, indeed.
 
AbideWithMe said:
I’ve only heard about half of those listed by JustaServant (I’m kind of thankful for that…“Joybells Ringing in My Heart”?:D), but I do know “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”:

"What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear/ What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer/ Oh what peace we often forfeit, oh what needless pain we bear/ All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer…

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged—take it to the Lord in prayer/ Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share?/ Jesus knows our every weakness, take it to the Lord in prayer."

Aesthetically it’s not great, but I don’t think it’s at all poor theology—Peter said we should “Cast all your cares upon the Lord because He cares for you.” And wow, "what a privilege "it is “to carry everything to God in prayer”…it’s humbling to think that the Lord of all creation condescends to hear our prayers. What a privilege, not an entitlement, indeed.
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Abide,

You make a good point. Sometimes I find myself just groaning and Paul said as you know that even our groans are prayers…because we don’t know how to pray as we ought. If the Holy Spirit can help us pray and turn our prayer into groans then all the awful music can be heard as symphonies as well.🙂
 
AbideWithMe said:
I’ve only heard about half of those listed by JustaServant (I’m kind of thankful for that…“Joybells Ringing in My Heart”?:D), but I do know “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”:

"What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear/ What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer/ Oh what peace we often forfeit, oh what needless pain we bear/ All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer…

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged—take it to the Lord in prayer/ Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share?/ Jesus knows our every weakness, take it to the Lord in prayer."

Aesthetically it’s not great, but I don’t think it’s at all poor theology—Peter said we should “Cast all your cares upon the Lord because He cares for you.” And wow, "what a privilege "it is “to carry everything to God in prayer”…it’s humbling to think that the Lord of all creation condescends to hear our prayers. What a privilege, not an entitlement, indeed.
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I think some here took my comments a liiiiiittle more seriously than I intended. 🤷
But that’s okay.😃
I actually happen to like ‘What a Friend we have in Jesus’. I was just pointing out how often the personal pronouns were used.
Kinda like JustaServant is doing right now.😃
 
JustaServant said:
I think some here took my comments a liiiiiittle more seriously than I intended. 🤷
But that’s okay.😃
I actually happen to like ‘What a Friend we have in Jesus’. I was just pointing out how often the personal pronouns were used.
Kinda like JustaServant is doing right now.😃
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JustaServant—

I was responding to Little Soldier, who said he/she hadn’t heard of any of the songs you listed. I thought Catholics would be able to relate to “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”, so I posted the words.

I did find the “Joybells…” song online. Scary stuff. The kind of stuff that makes kids in church suffer terribly as they try mightily to stifle a laugh. I’m glad I’ve never heard it.
 
I think there’s a place for devotional music and a place for liturgical music. They’re not the same.

I kind of like some CCM, but my favorites are a little off-beat. My all time favorite is Rich Mullins because his lyrics are amazing. And because I like the hammered dulcimer. And because I think he was a very good Christian even though he was a musician and a Protestant.

youtube.com/watch?v=_K93ebKnmhs&feature=related

Much Catholic music that’s commonly used in parishes is just terrible, BTW. IT’s like they are trying to cram the same music into the devotional and the liturgical category at once, so it ends up being neither. Liturgical music should be used in Mass. Devotional music is for other gatherings and for devotional use.
 
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