Tuesday, 15 September 2009
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Music and the Secular-Sacred Divide
It used to be that there was a rather thick black line between what music was inherently Christian, or "sacred”, and what was considered worldly, or "secular”. I remember it vividly. I realized it the day that my friend Chris broke all of his secular CDs because they were evil. He said God convicted him. While there still exists a contemporary Christian music industry and a mainstream music industry, somewhere between the two is a grey area composed of artists who don't necessarily fit into the stereotypical Christian category. A contributing factor to this grey area could be the success of so many so-called Christian bands in the mainstream music industry. One could attribute the first “crossover” to Christian pop singer Amy Grant, who, in 1991, hit pop gold with her hit single, “Baby, Baby”. More recently, the band Switchfoot saw themselves launched into the limelight with the debut of their single “Only Hope” on the soundtrack to the hit 2002 movie A Walk to Remember. What few average listeners realize is that Switchfoot never intended to market themselves to just Christian listeners.
According to a 2003 interview of lead singer Jon Foreman by Christianity Today:
When Charlie Peacock signed us to his label, re:think, in '97, the label's goal was to release albums both in and outside the church, which definitely resonated with what we were doing – playing a campus pub one night and a church the next. Then, when Sparrow bought out re:think, half of who we were was lost.
Intentional or not, these artists first marketed themselves to Christian audiences before making the conscious decision to release music to mainstream audiences. If we define “sacred” music as that which is firmly footed in the Christian music industry, what, then, should we consider bands comprised of Christian members who never sought refuge in the Christian music industry and don't necessarily sing about God?
A perfect example of this is Paramore, who has recently achieved a great deal of success but rejected offers from Christian record labels. The band has been featured in video games, TV shows, and movies, and they have won several awards, including four Teen Choice Awards this year. Their success is due largely to their poppy tunes and catchy lyrics, but taking a quick look through their words reveals Christian themes, such as sin, faith and salvation, minus overt references to God. In a 2007 interview with AbsolutePunk.net, lead guitarist Josh Farro explains, “We are Christian, but we’re not a Christian band. We’re just like everyone else, you know? We have our own beliefs.”
Despite addressing the same topics as many artists in the Christian music industry, Paramore's lyrics don't reference God by name, which might cause some to lump them into the “secular” category. While this may suggest that Christians can't be popular and speak openly about Jesus, some independent musicians beg to differ.
The independent, or indie, music scene is notorious for being wary of any religiously charged messages, yet this is the same scene that praises Sufjan Stevens for his unique, folk-inspired music and painfully honest lyrics. Stevens draws inspirations from a variety of sources, ranging from Bible stories to serial killers, making often humbling revelations about how these stories reflect his character. Perhaps this is why Stevens is the darling of indie music: he reveals the truth about Christians – that they are not perfect, not holier than anyone else, and certainly not always right – in an epic musical style far more complex and orchestrated than anything else in music today, Christian or otherwise.
This poses a dilemma: lyrically Stevens' music could easily be considered “sacred,” at least some of the time, but by marketing himself specifically to the mainstream music industry, he could also be labeled “secular”. For musicians like Sufjan Stevens, as Kate Bowman suggested in her article “Secular, Sacred or Both” in Christianity Today, “the divide between sacred and secular is not only obsolete—it never existed in the first place.”
In the end, I don't think there really is a conclusion to make just yet. As music changes and evolves, so, too, do the boundaries of what is acceptable in Christian and mainstream music. Perhaps Stevens has paved a new way for Christians to make music in the mainstream music industry. We'll just have to wait and see.
Do you think there should be labels such as “secular” or “sacred” when it comes to music? Is there a home for Christian musicians in mainstream music, or is our society too politically correct to accept faith-based artists?
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Comments (18)
I think you pose some really great questions.
Personally while I often use the widely accepted term, I don't actually think there is 'Christian and non-Christian' music as such.
What I do believe is that there are Christians who make music that brings glory to God.
In the same way Romans 12:1 calls us to live our lives as an act of worship, it might be said that what they sing or write 'could be' that act of worship.
It would sadden me to think that there was a category of 'sacred' music.
Often God can speak to us through all kinds of things. I often hear God speak and challenge me through the music of bands like U2.
Would the religious men and women of today put U2 in the sacred category? I don't think so.
Or what about Lily Allen?
Her song The Fear challenges me about how the world seaps into our thinking often without us knowing it. I would hardly say that Lily Allen's music is God honoring in any way (nor is it meant to be), yet her content deals with such real life, grass roots issues/values of today's society, that it makes an interesting social commentary and fantastic platform for dealing with them from a biblical world view-especially with youth.
I think God can use all kinds of things to open our minds to Him and the gospel of Christ Jesus -secular music included.
Directly answering your question at the end:
1. sure. classification serves a purpose fo sorting genres. It is a process of elimination. Blues. Jazz. Rock. Heavy Metal. Alternative. Easy Listening. Classical. Soundtracks. Gospel. CCM. P&W. Country. Blue Grass. Oldies. Urban.Punk.Rap..sure I missed some..
2. Think that is a false premise. If each cd is classified for what it is stylistically then a cross-over artists music is rated for that cd. It may spark a reaction among their fan base, but that is life.
I don't really see the point in labels to distinguish religious from secular music. Do people really buy music they know nothing about? Some of the most spiritually moving songs can come from the most unlikely of places, U2's song "The Drowning Man" for instance. And what of traditional Christian songs sung by non-Christian artists, like Sting's rendition of "Gabriel's Message"? How would you classify that? The only reason we make distinctions at all is so that we know where to look for certain types of music in the store or on-line which is fine, even helpful, but if we limit ourselves to only those things placed in particular categories we could be missing out on some truly life changing experiences that God may intend for us.
As I've often voiced, I think the "Christian music industry" is the albatross around the neck of the American Church. While I appreciate bands that glorify God with their music, I object to the idea that you have to invoke God's name or sing songs about praise to honor Him. Artists like (no offense) Michael W. Smith who, at one point made some great music that was both lyrically and musically interesting, have transmuted their ways to those of "praise and worship" music.
Now here's my thing with praise and worship music (as a generalization): It dumbs everything down, and it fits perfectly into the comfort zone of so many Christians. It doesn't challenge us and it doesn't hold any intellectualism. Heck, it's not even appropriate for worship (its usually more about us than about God), and it doesn't do anything to help us better understand ourselves or God. Take away the problematic lyrics and your almost always left with the same 4 chord progressions that plague radio stations like K Love.
Once you get past the praise-and-worship side of the Christian industry you're almost always left with mediocre bands that Christians listen to anyway because their lyrics are decent (and almost always childishly naive, simple, or shallow).
Meanwhile, half of the American church is filled with idolatry for bands they love, and Christian music magazines and websites don't help with this at all.
But everyone is happy to keep honoring this divide and to accept less-than-great music because of it. After all, secular music is almost all bad--about shortys getting low, or fire-burning on the dance floor, or middle aged women begging their audiences to "touch my body." But the best kept secret in the music industry is that secular audiences don't care about Christian lyrics--as long as their good.
Let's take a few examples:Relient KSufjan StevensParamoreSwitchfootUnderoath
Now, secular audiences aren't going to go crazy for Michael W. Smith--this is for a few reasons.
1. The lyrics are pretty awful and shallow. The same pattern is consistently repeated--this consists of naming various names of God, rattling off a few ways in which you will praise him, saying something to the effect of "You're amazing," and the repeating until you've milked the song for all its worth. 2. The music is pretty unoriginal--it's the same chords over and over, the same used progressions, the same strings coming in at the same places to add some drama.
Now, it pains me to say this, after all Michael W. had some pretty good stuff for a Christian artist back in the day, and his Christmas albums are still some of my favorites (and his most recent one demonstrated his composition abilities back near the top of his game). He could be a fully competent composer (his instrumental album, Freedom, was great) and he could certainly churn out a few more albums of decent music. And I hate to question the character of anyone like Michael W., but I feel like there's one thing holding him back.
Praise-and-worship is popular. It makes money and it gets people excited.
But I digress, my long fought battle to get the American Church to embrace Sufjan Stevens and obtain some musical culture is beyond me. But of course, this is a group of people who don't realize "Better is One Day" was first a part of Brahms' Requiem, and a group of people who may not even appreciate that beautiful piece of music if it was played for them.
Of course, this is also a community that censored Derek Webb for using 2 cuss words in a song, and frankly I sometimes think that cussing is exactly what more Christians should be hearing.
well, it begs the question: is any song that makes you think about spirituality considered religious? and just because something may reference a particular faith, does that make it inaccessible to people not of that faith?
yeah, i don't think that labels are good all the time. And I think that certain bands like POD and RED, need to be in the mainstream, because sometimes that's the closets thing to Jesus that some people will ever see.
Yikes. I will either have to write a book in response to this (and that way lies madness) or just some one-liners. So here you'll get the latter.
- Nobody "just happens" to be a Christian. Little things like the grace of God and the substitutionary death of Christ come into play.
- "Sacred or secular?" as used here is Evangelical Subculture shorthand for "our in group or their out group?" (Thank you dear Lord that the 80s are over.)
- Today, all (or nearly all) major "Christian" labels are owned by secular media conglomerates, making any such distinctions essentially moot. It's now simply a matter of genre marketing.
- That seems offensive at first (Christian is just a sub-genre now?) but makes sense when you think about it; how else are you supposed to market an album full of praise choruses that only a person who goes to church will be interested in?
- From my music history prof: "The opposite of sacred is not secular; it's profane." Ponder and you'll find all your preconceptions shifting.
- Go listen to some John Tavener. Go read about Olivier Messiaen. Handel's Messiah and Bach's cantatas and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. Palestrina and Josquin des Prez. The Passion according to St. Matthew. Morten Lauridsen. Fauré's Requiem. That's what musicians for the past 500 years meant by "sacred music."
- You can find all these works at your local music store, recorded by the major orchestras of the world and published by "secular" labels.
- Well? Your head a splode.
@Pass_the_Aura@xanga - "The opposite of sacred is not secular; it's profane."
I like this. I was thinking about sharing my thoughts on this post, which probably would've taken several paragraphs, but that hit the nail on the head. So I'll just agree with you. :)
I used to love Christian music, maybe up until about 2003 or so. Then something happened and there came a new influx of artists who didn't really profess anything but used the church's backing to make and distribute music. That made me angry and over the next couple of years I wound up not listening anymore because I figured it all sounded the same. And it does. There's no spirit there anymore, or at least not to me. It's a riffing guitar with biblical catchphrases, or the vague term "You", which could mean God or a girlfriend. I still sometimes catch The Logan Show sometimes late at night, and I can actually tell which bands featured are in it for God, and which ones are just in it for the money, just by how they sound, and their interview after their song gives them away. And the latter seems to be catching up to the former very quickly.
Aesthetic knows no religious boundary and artificial boundaries put in by church leaders are pretty much a joke.
I'm pretty super atheist but I still listen to a lot of music that happens to be Christian (even if I find the lyrical content to be sublimely ignorant), because aesthetics are aesthetics.
I appreciate all the comments made thus far! One of the things I intended to do with this article is simply lay out some ideas and see what you guys had to think about it, regardless of what my opinions on the matter are.
I do want to stress, however, that just because we are open-minded people doesn't mean the whole world is. It gladdens me to hear that there are some of you who agree with the premise that there shouldn't be a divide between Christian and non-Christian music, or sacred and secular, and that those terms shouldn't be applied to music today. There are those, however, who still feel the need to put music into categories and sub-categories as part of their process in deciding what they will and will not listen to.
My friend Chris, who I mentioned at the beginning of my article, to the best of my knowledge will still only listen to music that is considered Christian. There's nothing wrong with that, if that's something he feels some conviction toward. I hope, however, that people in my generation do start to consider musical content more thoughtfully before classifying it, because they might be labeling some things secular that could be considered at least spiritual, if nothing else.
Personally, I agree with the notion that God can use anything to His glory, and I appreciate that people have already mentioned that here. As a great example, a few years ago, in Manchester, England, a group of famous British rock singers performed a passion play to famous British rock songs. In the Last Supper scene, they sang the Joy Division song "Love Will Tear Us Apart". While this isn't a song about God (at least that I'm aware of!), the way it was used really hit home with me, the reason behind His crucifixion and how it must have pained Him to go through it.
I disagree, however, with the statement that "Today, all (or nearly all) major
"Christian" labels are owned by secular media conglomerates, making any
such distinctions essentially moot. It's now simply a matter of genre
marketing." As someone who has almost ten years of experience in the Christian music industry, I know many of the employees and band members at various Christian labels, such as Gotee, Tooth and Nail, and Militia Group (not exactly Christian, but quite a few of their bands are Christians, at least), and they are all independent. I think you're making a gross over-generalization, because I think the majority of good Christian music is coming out of labels that are independently owned.
Please keep the discussion rolling!
For me, I classify my music into 3 major groups:
1.) Christian worship - songs that are written for the Church, ones where you sing in church as an act of worship (e.g. "How great is our God" by Chris Tomlin and "Shout to the Lord" by Darlene Zschech...though the later has appeared on American Idol)
2.) Contemporary Christian music (CCM) - songs written by Christian artists, more for listening than for use in the church (e.g. Switchfoot, Barlowgirl, Jars of Clay)
3.) Secular songs - songs where the lyrics do not contain elements of Christian theology or worship
(e.g. ... everything else that does not fit into #1 and #2, for me it's mainly pop and rock)
Note that I group them according to lyrical content rather than style of music.
I know you're talking about pop music but I'm going to use Bach first to help illustrate something. Most of Bach's most popular music contains no vocal parts and therefore no lyrics and yet it is considered to be sacred music. We know that he wrote music every week for multiple church services but that was part of how he made his living. If he wrote the same music for the courts of nobility would it be any less sacred or does the fact that out of necessity he wrote music for the church make his music any more sacred? We experience music as divine depending on how it touches us. Some people consider all popular music to be trash pumped out quickly by the music industry and performed by young kids who are good looking with varying degrees of talent but with far less musical training than is required to write and perform more complexly developed forms of music.
It's possible there are bands whose music consists of, or includes in part, music with lyrics about religion who might not themselves want to be pigeon-holed into the sacred section at Virgin Records even though that might be considered the more politically correct thing to do.
I'm making the point that all music can be spiritual regardless of the presence of lyrics or even the lyrical content when lyrics are present. One song that touches me deeply and rips my heart to shreds every time is a song by Alison Krauss called "Empty Hearts" It touches something very deep in my soul. A beautiful track by the 90s techno band "Orbital" called "Attached" still puts me in touch with the spiritual as does Beethoven's 6th (pastoral) symphony and even Beyonce's "All the Single Ladies" I could say The Prodigy's "Diesel Power" and "Climbatize" do the same. Joni Mitchell's "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter" and "Both Sides Now" are definitely songs that reach into the spiritual realm.
When India and Pakistan separated most Muslims went to Pakistan. Among them was one of the greatest singers the world has seen, a woman named Roshan Ara Begum. She sang the classical music of Northern India known as Hindustani music and also known as Raga. Many great singers counted themselves as her contemporaries but they all agreed they attended her performances to be awe-inspired. Sadly, when she chose to live in the newly formed Pakistan she was forced to stop performing because at the time Pakistan had chosen to ban all secular music. It was politically incorrect to perform anything but music considered to be sacred. North Indian classical music might be the most highly developed and complex music in the world where melody and rhythm are concerned. That is of course debatable. There are few lyrics involved and yet it is largely considered to be a most spiritual music, albeit an acquired taste.
One of the sons of a world-renowned musician from the world of North Indian classical music once complained to his father that he didn't want to perform at a Hindu Temple to which he was invited because "they don't understand our music". His father, a Muslim, admonished him. He told his son first that he should feel honored to perform there, then said something very profound. He explained to his son that he might be playing a very sad piece of music and yet if there are two young lovebirds sitting hand in hand in the audience they might well be feeling nothing but pure joy from your music because they are so happy to be at your concert together and if you are playing something happy there might well be someone in the audience brought to tears by your music because they just lost a loved one, perhaps someone they had previously sat with at one of your past concerts. One can never decide for others how music should move them.
One last point I'll make is that having been a performer myself in the past, I think it's safe to say that most musicians, even of the secular pop variety, feel many times that they touch the divine when they play and I know that many sacred musicians have off nights where they just don't feel inspired. Ultimately the difference between sacred and secular exists in our minds only.
I think in the end it comes down to how edifying the music is. A lot of music these days just talk about sex, which I think is absolute crap. But there are also "secular" music that talks about life, and life's struggles, which I think is just fine and not like evil or something just because the singer is non-christian. It gives you insight into the human struggle. I would categorize them together with Christian who sing about their faith struggles or faith journey etc. But in the end I think there should always be a place for worship music as well. So secular vs. sacred is too discriminating categories, I would rather think of music as how it affects you as a person... so crappy songs about how people want to get on each other is obviously out of the question, but "secular" songs that sings about life is fair game I think.
all i know is, some of the music you mention--switchfood, sufjan stevens, etc-- = some of my favorite EVER. i don't separate 'sacred' and 'secular'. there's no difference to me. there is, however, a difference between well-written, beautiful music and tacky, crappy music, which is how i perceive oh-so-much christian music. blech.
Bands don't want to be considered Christian because they want to be taken seriously as artists. Most CCM is incredibly kitschy, and these artists don't want to be associated with that. Unfortunately, it's a vicious cycle, because many Christian bands that do consider the aesthetic value of their music (Sufjan Stevens, Thrice, Mutemath, Pedro the Lion) don't want to be considered Christian, which means that many Christian musicians don't listen to them and end up listening to and looking up to kitsch CCM. The problem compounds itself.
I used to think that Christian music was great, and that any good music that could be found in the secular world had Christian music parallels. Then I discovered Radiohead. (It was actually a much longer and more complicated process than simply that, but you get the idea.)
@starestraightintothesun@xanga - What a great comment! I think you're exactly right. There was a time when I, too, thought that Christian music had it all, and at one time maybe it did. A lot of "superbands", as I call them, emerged out of the late '90s Christian rock movement, like FIF, Supertones, dc Talk, Newsboys, Audio Adrenaline, Skillet, etc., but the ones that stuck it out for the long haul softened over time. Maybe it's aging or something, I don't know, but they all kind of ended up playing generic music when they used to be pretty edgy. Those were the bands to look up to, and I think a lot of CCM followed their lead. Once they all found niches, the CCM industry built up around them, so now there are all sorts of clones of that same generic music. We could probably philosophize for weeks about the downfall of CCM, but at least there are good alternatives from Christian musicians outside the Christian music industry.
@modernmelody - While I certainly agree that Christian music has gotten worse since then, I think there was an element of it all along. I mean, most of those bands sound less edgy and more watered-down (i.e. more produced) than their counterparts at the time. DC Talk's "Jesus Freak" was essentially the CCM world's introduction to grunge music. The grungier songs on that album still sound significantly less edgy than Soundgarden, Nirvana, or Pearl Jam.
The biggest exception on that list is Skillet, though. Collide is one of the few CCM hard rock albums that doesn't sound watered-down compared to its secular counterparts. The album after it was terrible in that regard, though (ironically enough, it was their first album on a secular label). With the direction they've been going, I haven't even bothered with their new one that came out quite recently.
Oh yeah, there's also the world of Christian Hardcore (a.k.a. "Screamo") - bands like Underoath, Norma Jean, The Devil Wears Prada, He Is Legend, and so on. That's one of the few areas in which Christian music is every bit as good as its secular counterparts. Of course, that's only if you're into that kind of music in the first place, which I realize most people aren't.