What do you define as the wrong music?

luvnlife · Lion King Joined: 22 Feb 2007 Posts: 1132 Location: US

The gym I go to has many TV sets. I usually have my headset on and am listening to a local radio station. I like several genres of music but have found there are a lot of negative messages about sex, violence, drugs, partying and just about anything else you can think of in most styles of music.

Sometimes when I am listening to my headset, I glance up at one of the TV screens and my jaw drops as I see the images and read the words being displayed on MTV or VH1.

I think what made me really think about this is one day my little one (who was very young at the time) went around our house singing "I Love this bar." Now when I am in the car with my 8 year old, if I hear a song that glorifies getting drunk, beating someone up, taking drugs etc... I generally change the station or turn the radio off. My daughter is so used to this that if I get distracted and a song that we find offensive comes on, she asks me to change the station.

The only good thing about any of these songs is some have led to some good honest discussions with her.

There are some good songs out there too but there are so many out there with negative messages. I know that there are people that believe that music and lyrics do not have an impact on how we think, feel and act. I believe music is a very forceful tool. I have heard songs that touch me to my core, have made me weep, have made me stop and think and have made me wonder what I am missing.

I have listened to songs in church that bring tears from my heart to my eyes in an instant. I have heard sad songs that have made me remember some not-so-good times from my childhood.

I just wonder if music affects just a few of us this way or if most people feel these varying degrees of emotion when they listen to music.

Luv Question

lone-traveler · Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 8:06 pm Post subject:

I stopped by a church one sunday. Never been there before just thought I'd stop in and enjoy the service.( I do that once in awhile).
I'd missed the sunday school service. When I got there the worship service was beginning. They have a big screen on the wall so you can read the words to the songs incase you don't know them. (I don't know many.. Embarassed

)..
Anywho, as we were singing, you know how you get that catch in your heart and you just get all welled up and full?..well, I had tears streaming down my cheeks and everyone in the church turned and looked at me.. Shocked

I wanted to run out that door faster than a bolt of lightning...LOL..but I just kept on a singing and trying to smile...(toothless and all..LOL)...
After the service I just said thankyou to the pastor and went on my way.
Music and Lyrics are very powerful tools. They can build you up, knock you down, make you happy or sad.
I guess you could say I'm one of those that music takes a hold of in all different degrees of emotions.. Smile

saibe · Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 9:45 pm Post subject:

Luvnlif,

You ask a question that is dear to my heart. I been wondering myself about this. I like to listen to christian alt. music, rap, hip hop, gospel, rock, folk, jazz country and just about anything else you can think of.

However when I listen to suggestive or songs that advocate drugs, sex, violence, drinking, bad attitudes, suggestive danceing I find myself thinking in that manor. So for myself I concluded that this kind of music was not good for me. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

Even when I listen to Christian music, and they say things that are contrary to the word of God, but the beat or the melody are so lovely. I not sure what to think about this issue.

luvnlife · Lion King Joined: 22 Feb 2007 Posts: 1132 Location: US

Lone said:

Zathrus · Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 9:31 am Post subject:

Great topic! I used to find songs about partying and fooling around very offensive. I guess as I've gotten older I don't take popular music very seriously anymore at all. It's intent is primarily just to make money for record companies.

Being a musician, I appreciate good musicianship, but I take the messages in the lyrics with a very large grain of salt.

I appreciate music, whether spiritual/religious themed or otherwise, that is from the heart. I can be very emotionally moved too, by worship songs as well as non-spiritually themed songs that are from the heart.

A few years ago, I actually found myself being turned off by some of the music I had to play in the church worship band I was in as well as the Christian band I played in. There were songs about sin, condemnation, and feeling unworthy before God. The lyrics in some of these songs confessed things like being impure, unholy, sinful. None of these things is true of a Christian. I found these kinds of Christian songs as much or more of a turn off as I used to find songs about partying.

I can actually more easily dismiss songs about partying and fooling around because they're just silliness. But Christian songs confessing guilt before God are not. They're written with the expectation that the listener will take them seriously and find deep spiritual meaning in them. And I think some of what's in some Christian music is just wrong.

These days, I have fun playing music. I listen to whatever I enjoy. And I write songs that are from the heart. I stay away from situations where I'm asked to play something I think is harming the people who are listening, or something with a message I just find doesn't ring true with my spirit.

luvnlife · Lion King Joined: 22 Feb 2007 Posts: 1132 Location: US

Zath;

I never really thought of Christian music as being negative but the first thing that popped in to my mind when I read your post was a Baptist church I attended for a short time in Utah. The preachers love to preach Hellfire-and-Damnation from the pulpit and they were quite loud, like thunder. I remember one time sitting in church and the preacher was telling us basically that we were nothing, we were like dirty rags. I remember coming out of that service feeling like nothing, feeling like a dirty rag. Needless to say, I did not stay at that church for long. I believe God and love and religion should lift you up, should edify you.

And I believe that, at the very least, music should lift you up and make you feel good. I think Christian songs should lift God and Jesus up. The songs should be joyful, from the heart and praising our God and Lord Jesus.

Much Love, Luv Very Happy

Zathrus · Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 7:59 am Post subject:

I hear ya, luvnlife. I think that message of condemnation is the message of the old covenant. The message of the gospel is just the opposite - that we are free from condemnation.
I enjoy worship songs that exalt and lift up the Lord. I think in the last decade or two, that's really been the focus of most of the newer worship songs that I've heard, and I think that's a very positive thing.

atoz

Hi Zathrus,

Best 4th to you!

Good topic.

Wrong music is any music with any Hatred in the lyrics or any Hatred for the lyrics in the music.

When we hate any thing,
we make the Hate right and the hated thing wrong.
Whereas, it is really the Hate that is wrong and the thing is really right or neutral of itself.

Therefore, the truth is that there is no wrong music per se; there is only wrong hatred in or for any music; and it is that Hate that makes the music wrong.

So, songs about getting drunk are only wrong if the singer hates drunks or hates being sober, or if a listener hates the song or drunks or whatever or whoever.

Because, as a word, music is ONE food of Love, when all words are loved, all words will be the food of Love, and there will be only Love-songs or songs of Love or songs we all love or endless types of all kinds of music: classical, country, reggae, instrumental, gospel, rap, soca, soul, r&b, scottish, irish, jazz, indian, chinese, salso, rumba, etc.

Titus 1:15
To the pure in heart, who love all words and therefore love all things,
all things are pure.

Ephesians 5:18
And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess;
but be filled with the Spirit;

in the muse of Love which Love God wants us to get drunk on,
atoz

Abenadar · Tadpole Joined: 11 Sep 2007 Posts: 16

Music in church is a powerful psychological tool that can be abused to produce either an emotional response in the congregation at a desired time or an adoption of a theological concept that circumvents the listener's faculties of reason. For that reason, I'm more wary of music in church than I am of it at any other place in my life combined.
People want a good turnout at the invitation? Dim the lights and play a familiar song that's known to touch hearts? People want to instill a belief-set they can't justify through scripture? Insert it into the lyrics of a catchy tune and sing it at least once a month.
People are vulnerable in church. They are there to submit and, often, to have their lives changed or redirected. Taking advantage of this is abominable whether those in charge do it knowingly or not.

OrdinaryRadical · Tadpole Joined: 26 Aug 2007 Posts: 23

"A person who gives this some thought and yet does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs."
~Martin Luther

Music is a creation of God just as much as it is a creation of man. Therein, there lies much power to be used for good and evil. We can see this in many forms of musical art. I have always believed that the responsibility lies both on the artist and the hearer. The artist to create something that is positive and gives glory to God (in whatever capacity) and the hearer to be able to discern from that which gives glory to God and that which doesn't.