Holy Crap

I tried something a little different today. I listened to Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) on my way to work, and then I listened to more of it on my way to and from lunch. Now I'm a Christian (not always a perfect Christian, and certainly not one of your Pat Robertson/Kirk Cameron types, but I try my darn-doodly-darnedest to live by my faith), but I found myself getting a very odd feeling as I listened.

It was a creepy feeling, a little like shame, sort of like guilt. I don't know exactly why I started feeling this way, but it may have had to do with the fact that the music I heard was genuinely and uniformly dreadful. I heard the Christian version of a Bette Midler ballad, the Christian version of a Smash Mouth jock rock anthem, and the Christian version of whatever it is Coldplay does. It was a simulacrum (a copy of a copy for which there is no original) of the modern sounds the kids can really dig. And the message for each song was exactly the same: Letting Jesus into your life will make everything awesome.

It's a fine message to tell young Christians, and the sugary pop helps the medicine go down. But what makes good messaging doesn't make great art. If it did, I'd like billboards more. And although I could see where this music helps people in the way that Precious Moments figurines or Thomas Kinkade paintings make people feel better, I was very much the opposite of moved.

See, what I like most about faith is the messiness of it -- the idea that there's a bar that's been set for us that's incredibly high. The idea that we should see everyone else -- everyone else (including Pat Robertson and Kirk Cameron) -- as a child of God. We are going to try and reach it, we are going to fall short, and through the grace of God we'll summon the strength to keep trying. Life isn't always going to be awesome, and God offers a way through. The songs I heard were from people dancing in the end zone, and I guess I'm just not a dancing in the end zone kind of guy.

I suppose I'm asking too much of Contemporary Christian Music, especially the kind that's being aired coast to coast on K-Love. Of course, I ask a lot (too much?) of Contemporary Secular Music too, and I don't get creeped out when it doesn't deliver; I just leave it for someone else. So by all means enjoy. I'll keep looking.

Meanwhile, here's a song about faith and its attendant joy that I do get behind. Go figure. Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee.

I Shall Not Be Moved.mp3