Featured Church Music: Traditional or Contemporary?

Your comment borders on the obscene and your perception is of questionable origin. What you describe doesn't match up with what -- I think I can safely say -- most of us hear.

 

I've never heard what you are describing. My guess is that you haven't either. It sounds like a made-up legalistic mis-characterization. In the absence of a legitimate argument, you've sunk to obscene gutter talk.

 

This article about sums up my opinion on this topic:

http://www.christianrockexposed.com/


Again, I don't know how you can watch the videos I posted links to, and think that is Godly worship.

 

No, I am not the first to say that a lot of contemporary music sounds very effeminate. Some call it "Jesus is my girlfriend music." And you are right- it is obscene.

 

Well, that PROVES it! Type 'christian rock' in a google search, and BAM it PROVES it is all of the devil!!!! :laugh:

Your link has nothing other than what google pulls up as evidence. How scholarly and biblical.

(Btw, I don't find that genre remotely interesting)

Some are convinced in their own minds that it is OK, and that is OK for them to think so. You are offended by it, some are not. Some eat herbs, some eat meat.

 

Much of it. That was how I qualified my claim. Not all of it.

And it's not just the lyrics- it's the moaning into the microphone, And breathy singing with lispy s's, and the generally effeminate way many contemporary male singers sing that is very off-putting.

 

You're the only one that keeps calling it worship music. Everybody else calls it CCM. Questdriven explicitly said this type of music is not intended for worship, mostly for casual listening instead of listening to secular music. That's how I see it as well. Personally, most of the time I'd rather sing hymns in church than contemporary worship music.

 

Name one. Just one. Please.

 

Chris Tomlin.

 

Luke, I agree with you wholeheartedly to a degree.

By that I mean:

there are a variety of styles of Christian music very suitable for concerts, for private listening, for personal enjoyment.

When it comes to church services, I do prefer hymns, both old and new, and they need to be very singable. Not all CCM is the same, as not all hymns or all southern gospel, etc, are the same.

But both my husband and I find one particular type of CCM obscene. Doesn't matter if the words are good hymns or not, if it is done with lots of love song swaying and gestures, if the clothing is not appropriate for church, if it is breathy and done in what when my brother was recording was called "the bedroom voice", if it sound more like having physical relations with Christ than the furtherance of the gospel, yep, it is obscene and takes us right back to both Baal worship AND ancient Rome.

There is another "contemporary movement" which very often uses the old hymns and gospel songs just as much as it uses the newer songs. That is the "get them endorphin addicted" mindset. Now, mind you, I DO NOT think all music leaders pumping up the volume and the tempo are AWARE of endorphin addiction, but some apparently are. In this you both create unpleasant tension through discords and sound levels, capture the heart and breath rhythms through the beat, and then cause the release of endorphins by slowing things down, darkening the room, etc. Prolonged standing helps transfer blood away from the brain, as sadly do uplifted arms. Those addicted find themselves with headaches, grouchiness, queasiness, and other withdrawal from the high of a drug symptom by midweek.

Here me out before you flame me: that doesn't mean we cannot do loud music ever, or fast music with a strong drum ever, or sing standing and with uplifted arms ever. But we need to be aware, to mix those things up with other ways of doing things IN THE SAME SERVICE so we don't unwittingly move over into crowd control techniques.

And it is amazing, if you find yourself a church that is very shall we say old school, pre Finney in their way of doing church, how at first you may fight it as cold and dry and unemotional, but as time goes on find it extremely warm and rich and emotional. Thing is, no longer is someone controlling your emotions by crowd control techniques leaving some quiet and room for the Holy Spirit to take over.

So we attend that pre Finney type church now on Sundays, and sprinkle in the other forms of "worship" as very enjoyable frosting on the cake.

Only now if we encounter someone knowingly using crowd manipulation it is pretty obvious, and we usually up and leave quietly.

 

I'm not at all getting the whole "effeminate" argument, but if it makes sense to you...ah, good for you?

 

It is not true for some contemporary music. Toby Mac and others do not sound effeminate when they do their music.

It is for a specific genre of music that many males sing very effeminately- the praise and worship style.

If I were in your presence I could imitate it and show you what I mean but it is hard to illustrate effeminacy in type.

There is a a moaning, like Madonna moans as she pronounces words that start with vowel sounds, at the start of some words and there are lyspy s's and other feminine sounds.

Jesssusss has oooo[moaning]ver come.

AAAAA(bad moaning here)nd the grave is overwhelmed... etc...

The repeated vowels are not meant to represent the length of time it takes for him to say them, but the Madonna like moaning at the start of those words.

It is very girly and almost erotic sounding.

We don't think of it that way because it is veiled in Christian music.

Southern Gospel singers do this, too.

I am just telling you that a man with callouses on his hands who embraces his masculine role from being a provider and protector to the very way he walks and sings- is often put off by effeminate sounding music in church.

 

Seems very subjective to me. I can't see it being used as a serious argument, if you want me to be perfectly honest.

I've never heard that anywhere from anybody at all, and I know plenty of guys who don't seem to at all get that vibe at all. And the men at my church recently went to promise keepers where music of that style was being played (Jeremy Camp and maybe some others) when they came back they all commented on the strong atmosphere of worship and how powerful it was. Really, they were fired up about it.
The entire experience they had while there (which consisted of a lot more than music) led them to start something here in our own county with a lot of the local churches participating.

 

So, do you think Richard Simmons acts and talks normally? Is the way he talks distinguishable from the way, say Gregory Peck, talked?

People tend to not criticize things in vogue. I'm not surprised. People don't even want to think critically of things that are really popular in their world so that they WON'T be tempted to criticize.

Now, we'll criticize twerking because that is not in "our world." But the hip and well received CCM world in which so many people in church live- you don't DARE criticize it. And I'll tell you why. Because people are generally not intelligent enough to see thigns as complex and keep thmselves from stereotyping.
You are either FOR CCM, and ALL of it, or you are an IFB type, crusty old, narrowminded fundamentalist.

Now, no thinking person wants to be thought of like that- that is the equivalent of being thought of as a snake handler in my book. And I am not being facetious. I mean it.

And so people don't think critically of that which is in vogue.

But what I said about Chris Tomlin is true. He's girly, at least in his singing, and it makes men, I don't mean guys who are not altogether opposed to skinny jeans, I mean MEN- it makes them uncomfortable.

Yea, I don't think he sounds effeminate at all. He is in that wheel house of Toby Mac I mentioned earlier.

And I can and DO listen to that outside of church and enjoy it.

 

Honestly...
We are dealing with some very subjective stuff here. Who decides what is "manly"?

 

We do- you and me. Let's try it.

Richard Simmons- does he behave in a manly fashion to you?

 

Not familiar with the dude.

But because the standard of "manly" is defined by people and not strict absolutes, it is subjective. What is girly to you may not be girly to another guy. And from I've seen, it isn't.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iaTEgoezNQ

 

It's easy to tell he's a guy. Maybe the dress style, but that's mainly because that's what I'd be more used to seeing girls wear based on the society I grew up in.
Overall...Goofy? Yes. Cheesy? Yes. Girly? I don't know that Id call it that.

Thing is, what's considered manly changes with the times and can differ based on different societies.
I'm told that during World War I they had a hard time convincing pilots to use parachutes when the planes crashed because it wasn't considered manly to avoid facing death. It used to be considered very unmanly to cry or show those kind of emotions.


Don't get me wrong--I'm ANYTHING but one of those "gender is all in your head" people. There are definite differences between men and women. But saying you have to sing a certain way to be manly...? I'm not seeing it.