It is my opinion that Christians at large have lost their ability to discern. I heard the story of a girl (we’ll call her Sarah) who listened only to Christian music as a teenager. During one period of her life Sarah decided to broaden her musical interests and begin listening to secular music. The music was obviously influencing her, she was changing. Sarah began to feel the urge for always having a boyfriend, her spiritual life began to suffer, and she was overall less happy. Her friends saw her changing, and she even saw the change in herself. Sarah then decided to go back to only listening to Christian music and avoid listening to secular music.
Some would use this story as an argument for exclusively listening to Christian music, but I believe that Sarah’s problem is much deeper. Christians at large, sense the 90s, have come to blindly accept that which is sold in the Christian bookstores. I would argue that the main reason there is a market for the Christian Industry (selling books, CDs, movies, even little TestaMints) is because Christians want to be lazy. They want to turn their discernment guards off and simply suck in the information. No questioning is involved and no guarding of what goes into their minds. This is obvious in that the major argument for only listening to Christian music is because Christians, “should guard what goes into their minds.”
Sarah’s problem wasn’t that she decided to listen to secular music but that she never learned discernment. She learned to listen to music by only listening. Never meditating or questioning… just listening. Thus, naturally when she listened to something else, she listened to it the same way she did before… just listening.
The Boomers created the CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) industry and the Millennials grew up with it. Boomers and Millennials will either abandon strictly listening to CCM or continue using it for their musical diet. For various reason I believe the Christian Music Industry will be dead (or nearly dead) within 10 years if it doesn’t make some serious changes. Currently the death of CCM is more likely than not, thus Boomers and Millennials will be forced to either crawl in a musically deprived hole or listen to “secular” music. Thus, the music will change, but the listening behavior will not and I believe that Christians will follow the same pattern that Sarah did, but unfortunately the solution will not be as simple as switching their musical diet. If you think we live in a spiritually deprived culture wait 10 years to see a spiritually deprived Christian culture.
I know some are asking the question, “so where do you draw the line in what you listen to?” Past Christian generations have been so strong on creating a lists of rules in order to make moral decisions easier — “don’t go into places that serve alcohol,” “don’t listen to secular music,” “don’t go to rated R movies,” etc. So where do you draw the line in all these situations? I will not define that. It must be different for each person because we all have different interests and struggles. The Christian life is difficult. It’s not as easy as we’d like to make it. It’s not a list of rules. We must learn how to discern.
Check yourself. Did you blindly read this post because I am a “Christian?”
Written by: James
Don't forget to subscribe to receive posts delivered to your reader or e-mail.
