The Problem With Christian Radio

October 16, 2011 By Marc 28 Comments

I wrote this for another blog, which is becoming a podcast (more on that eventually) so I figured I’d post it here. It also gives me the delightful excuse to throw some jams your way.

You say, “Christian music.”
Your agnostic friend thinks, “A load of unoriginal crap by Casting Crowns and Tree63.”

He certainly doesn’t think MuteMath:

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And the world of Christian music-lovers wonder where to direct their angry mob.

I hold that Christian Radio shoulders the bulk of the responsibility. I hold that Christian Radio – in its noble effort to reach as many individuals as possible with the message of the Gospel – effectively works against authentic, beautiful music. Worse, it ends up packaging the message of the Gospel in such embarrassingly banal, watered-down, and unoriginal songs, that the Gospel is obscured, if not actively resisted by the listener.

I will focus my complaint against The Educational Media Foundation, the charity behind K-Love and Air 1 Radio, with the knowledge that much of my complaint against them could be made against other Christian Radio stations. This the EMF’s mission statement:

K-LOVE Radio & Air 1 Radio are a part of the EMF Broadcasting family. K-LOVE communicates the Gospel through mass media to leads as many people as possible toward salvation and spiritual growth. Air 1 Radio delivers positive cutting-edge Christian music to teenagers and young adults.

Nowhere does it mention that the Christian music need be good music, or that it be beautiful music, or that it be well-written, creative, inspiring, touching, or original music. No, for music to be played to the EMF’s over 5 million listeners, there are two pre-requisites: it must be positive, and it must be cutting-edge.

And apparently not Future of Forestry.

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The idea that music gains some inherent value by being cutting-edge is ridiculous. ‘Cutting-edge’ is not an adjective that should ever be applied to art. There are cutting-edge computer programs. There are no cutting-edge paintings. You can own a cutting-edge car. You cannot own a cutting-edge song. It’s well known amidst the Christian world that we live in an age of moral relativism; the denial of the existence of objective good and evil. What’s ignored by the Christian world is the mate of moral relativism we so often fornicate with; aesthetic relativism. The denial of value. The relativism that chooses one song over another because it is newer. The Christian philosopher G.K Chesterton had this to say about moral relativism…

“To introduce into philosophical discussions a sneer at a creed’s antiquity is like introducing a sneer at a lady’s age. It is caddish because it is irrelevant. The pure modernist is merely a snob; he cannot bear to be a month behind the fashion…”

…and I believe that can be equally applied to aesthetic relativism. Applying inherent value to ‘cutting-edge’ music is snobbish. (A.D.D. WORD ASSOCIATION LINK). It’s Very Bad Decisions like this that force artists to imitate Pop music instead of writing authentically, force them to think of how to have a ‘new sound’ instead of a beautiful sound. And perhaps the worst part of the whole affair is this: If you’ve frequented Christian Radio, you know that the attempt to be cutting-edge is never more than an attempt. And thus Christian music uses auto-tune, and the suckage, she continues. We’re lucky when brilliance shines through the bleak, as illustrated so wonderfully by Audrey Assad.

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(To be clear, I’m not saying that Pop music can’t be likable. In fact, it wouldn’t be Pop if it didn’t produce sounds our ears are inclined to and sell a couple million copies. I’m saying that Pop music has no value outside of popularity, outside of the ‘cutting-edge’. It does not strive for beauty, and will thus have a limited effect on the world for about month, and then go back from whence it came.)

The second pre-requisite for songs to be played on K-Love is positivity. My first disagreement with the use of this adjective is that it is often no more than a replacement for the word ‘Christian’. ‘I’m Walking on Sunshine’, I assume is a positive song, but it gets no play on Christian radio. This sneak-attack Christianity is not particularly cunning; when people hear a Chris Tomlin song after the announcement “Positive Hits!” they’re not subtly tricked into liking the song more. And if it is not cunning it can only be cowardly.

But that’s not the point. The point is that positivity means absolutely nothing, even less than cutting-edge. Positivity has utterly no meaning without some frame of reference. Is it moral positivity? Mathematical positivity? Emotional positivity? Is the Crucifixion positive?

Is the question of positivity important at all? How about: is the Crucifixion Good? Yes. Is it True? Yes. Is it Beautiful? Yes. Why is whether it’s ‘positive’ important at all, even if we could figure out what we mean when we say it?

The same applies to songs. Positivity does not lend inherent value to music. My guess is that more people have been changed by Johnny Cash than by TobyMac. And let me be the first to tell you, it ain’t because Cash is positive. If positivity is taken to mean ‘happiness’ then we’ve gone off the deep end and ain’t coming back. The beauty of Christianity is not a kind of happy-go-luckiness that seems to be the musical aim of The Newsboys. The beauty of Christianity is that through suffering and death and darkness, the evil world has been redeemed. To choose only songs based on the criteria of emotional positivity is an emasculating of our religion, and a limitation on what has always made the art of Christianity so awesome. Positivity lends nothing to music; it only helps sell it to soccer moms. And thus we don’t hear Mumford and Sons on Christian  radio.

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To summarize my point; Christian Radio is killing beautiful, Christian music. Its very mission statement implies the death of authenticity in song-writing. That’s not to say there are no survivors. In fact, I’m of the belief that there are far more good ‘Christian’ songs than shallow ones. They’re just harder to find.

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Check out my fuller writings on Christian music here and here.

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Death Metal Ain’t Got Nothing On Us

September 19, 2011 By Marc 30 Comments
On three guys! One, two…dammit Jimmy!
Can’t you lift your mace and chain higher than that?
Christians aren’t going to tremble in fear when it looks like you’re out to rake the leaves!
Aw, don’t cry. Don’t cry! We’re all friends here, we’ll just try it again.

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy frightfully near, when I was caught in the awkward throes of middle-school, Black Metal and Death Metal were where it was at. In fairness, I attended a British military school in Germany, which sort of implies dysfunction. But regardless, a good number of my friends were infatuated with growing their hair and dying it black, painting their nails, doing drugs, getting schwasted, wearing dead/dying/skeletal/demonic guitar players on their t-shirts, and rocking their satanic symbols; for what’s metal without corporate merchandise? Oh, how the warm memories return. There was the pentagram, the anarchy sign, the various nordic runes – which they assured me all meant Very Evil Things – and, of course, the upside-down cross. I was only a little larval-stage Catholic, but even then I knew the upside-down cross was funny. “Oh hey, upside-down cross. Real satanic guys, real scary and evil. Really sets off your brooding, church-burning hatred of weak Christian values. Christians everywhere tremble when they…oh wait.”

Too bad the big, scary Pope beat you to it.

The whole ‘mistaking the cross of St. Peter for some satanic symbol’ is forgivable. Cute, even. But what is absolutely, utterly unforgivable is the notion that Metal culture is somehow darker and scarier than the Church. That it, in its reckless portrayal of evil, sends Catholics scurrying for cover, shaking under their beds, clutching their rosaries. No. The Church invented dark and scary. Black Metal – and all odd attempts at satanism – can only imitate. This was struck home to me as I listened to the hilariously awful group Deicide. See what they did there? Deicide? God-killing? Novel freaking concept guys, no one’s ever thought of that before.

The new, viciously anti-Christian album cover
of the group Deicide, who propose the shocking
idea that God should be killed.  Christians everywhere
are disgusted, seeking to have the picture banned from public schools.

You see, the problem with Black Metal – and similar super-cool forms of Satan-worship – is that it can’t keep up with the Roman Catholic Church. They make grotesque album covers full of bloodied skeletons either a) having lots of fun playing music or b) desecrating some holy place/thing or c) doing both AT THE SAME TIME OMG, and their fans say “Wow! How bold!” And thus we get the brilliantly original pile of skulls.

As a Catholic, I have to laugh. Because you see, not only am I religiously obligated to have no fear of Death, who is dead, but I’ve literally prayed a rosary in a chapel in Rome made out of the bones of hundreds of martyred monks.

We win.

What metal culture can only snatch at in its limited imagination, the Catholic Church builds churches out of. Seriously, we have churches made out of the dead. Why not? Death is dead. It’s a fear of death that seeks to show it as something gloriously hideous and horrendous. It’s a fear of death that wallows in it, uses images of it to convey evil and despair. It’s a boldness, a courage, a rebellious defiance that stares death in the face. The message of this particular chapel is simple: Remember man that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Remember your death. Remember and prepare your hearts and souls. But never, ever, ever fear it; it has been conquered by the Christ. It has been destroyed. So pilgrims stare at the relics surrounding them and are led to joy, to prayer, and to contemplation that this world is a passing thing.

Meanwhile, back in the bowels of Norway, Death Metal continues to wistfully draw album covers of dead people, wondering how on earth to shock the Christian world. And that’s why the Metal culture and the Culture of Death make up so weak a pair! They are trying to fight with a weapon that has been broken, split open by God. Worship of Satan is the ultimate exercise in futility, akin to betting on the loser of a race that’s already been run. They cannot match the courage of the Christian, who is born trampling on the grave.

But bless them, still they try; in their lyrics, their music and their art. The music bores me from of a lack of contrast, and a similar lack of courage. If you paint the most hideous depth of Hell entirely in the same shade of black, no one will see Hell, and no one will be frightened. If your lyrics, your screaming, your riffs and your image all take evil as their foundation, no one can hear the evil for the noise. It’s boring. And when you get to the art, the earlier thesis still applies: You can’t out-darken the Catholic tradition.

Juxtaposing freaky innocence with evil?  Yeah, our’s is scarier.

General gore and blood? Don’t even try.

Our picture, sorry Iron Maiden.

And don’t get me wrong, the death/black metal culture can be incredibly offensive. Just looking for their album covers is enough to have me join a cloistered order and spend a lifetime praying in reparation for the sins of the world. But it’s a sadness, not a fear. These people are so very loved by God. Their rebellion is so dumb, because you cannot worship Satan without knowledge of God, and you cannot deny God without denying your own fulfillment. And so the Sacred Heart burns and bleeds for them, and they continue to be beaten by the Church on every side.

My point then: Unlike the trembling Metalheads, don’t be scared of the Devil. He has power, sure, and he is real, without a doubt, but he has been reigned by God, crushed by our Mother Mary. Realize that only with courage in the face of evil, only upon entering into the rebellion against sin and death we call the Church, can one truly name evil, and expose it for what it is. For Satan does not tempt as a grotesque object of worship on some infernal throne; he’d be an idiot to try. Rather, he tempts us in the everyday. He tempts us with bad philosophy. He tempts us with easy ways out. He tempts us to worship our selves. Amen, amen I say to you, if the all-out, Satan-worshipping disciple of Black Metal manages somehow to avoid the terrible mercy of God, he will find himself damned not for his mockeries, his darkness, or his demonic, skeletal art, but for his Pride, just like the white-collared, straightedged man next to him.

The truth is this: The pathetic evil Black Metal fans indulge in is just a mask of Satan, for if he were to reveal himself as he truly was, the same fans would convert to Catholicism. Either way, we win the dark and scary competition.

And I wrote this. And this. And this.

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Catholicism: Making Rockstars Since 36 A.D.

July 11, 2011 By Marc 11 Comments
“When people have told me that because I am a Catholic, I cannot be an artist, I have had to reply, ruefully, that because I am a Catholic, I cannot afford to be less than an artist.”
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So said our dear Flannery O’Connor, and I – for my part – agree. What exactly did the woman mean? That Catholicism makes artists out of us all? Yes, and profoundly. For if the role of an artist is to use material things – the paint, the marble, the sound, the words – to reveal spiritual, human or even emotional truths – as does The Pieta, Mozart’s Requiem Mass, and (insert your current favorite book here) – then every Catholic who involves himself in the liturgy, or to be fair, any Christian who truly involves himself in the saving work of Christ, is an artist, and a damn good one. Yes, even you – grumpy, old man who attended business school for eight years and has never looked up from an accounting sheet except to growl about how Obama is intentionally and spitefully ruining the economy – even you – when you dip your hands into holy water and kneel with the rest of us – are an artist; as self-expressive and creative as any any apartment-dwelling Manhattan hipster with a photography studio, whining about Obama’s inability to solve every problem he’s ever had. You use the material to express the spiritual, the mundane to express the profound, and – wonder of wonders – you join us at the altar, where the mundane is the profound, and art is not merely an expression, but art is transcended. The bread is God, and there’s not much more we humans can do.

But I want to turn your eyes from such holy things and to have you look at an alternative translation of O’Connor’s quote (are two apostrophes allowed in one word?), to have you glance up from your pious orthodoxy to the wonderful world of fallen-away Catholics, resentful Catholics, benevolent am-I-Catholic? Catholics, non-believers who hang out with Catholics (the best kind) and people who think some parts of Catholicism are cool, but others are a little too controversial, believe the former and ignore the latter. I believe that it is fair and apparent enough to say that an encounter with Catholicism – of any sort – digs roots into the human soul, and the artist cannot help but express it.

Now this can be accounted for, and evidenced, in modern music. Take Coldplay’s Viva la Vida. Not my favorite song, but a good example. The songwriter is a “secular humanist” who had a brush with Catholicism and traditional Anglicanism at an early age.

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman Catholic choirs are singing
Be my mirror, my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason I can’t explain
I know Saint Peter won’t call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world

For the love of God, how I wish the songs in the Gather Hymnal could be as Catholic as the first half of that chorus! I mean, really. It gave me heart to hear this song as the number one hit on pop radio, because – while I wouldn’t be so naive as to believe it expresses some true form of Catholicism to the world – it expresses the richness of our faith. We have saints and sacraments, blood and thorns, pilgrims and priests, armies and bishops and martyrs and relics and frankly, that’s the sort of stuff that sticks in the human heart, that finds a place in our souls – if a merely place of nostalgia – and lingers there. It’d be safe to say that the lead singer of Coldplay also had a run in with atheism, fundamentalism, some evangelicalism, with fast-food restaurants and with Zen Buddhism, but what does he sing about? That’s right. St. Peter.

Then, in what seemed a phenomenon almost too good to be true, we had the success of Mumford and Sons’ album – Sigh No More – this past year. It was brilliant, firstly because it restored my faith in the inherent goodness of humanity to see an actual band, and a good one at that, sit on top of Miley Cyrus, P. Diddy and a few others for Bestselling Album, and secondly because – like Coldplay – their lyrics are soaked in Catholicism. Mumford says the album was meant to be spiritual, certainly not religious, but just look!

It seems that all my bridges have been burned,
But you say that’s exactly how this grace thing works.
It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart,
But the welcome I receive with every start.

And as if that weren’t enough:

Love that will not betray you,
dismay or enslave you,
It will set you free
Be more like the man
you were made to be.
There is a design,
An alignment, a cry,
of my heart to see,
The beauty of love
as it was made to be.

What? That coming from a band avoiding religion? How intoxicating Christianity must be, how deep within man it must stir for the rockstar to be able to write a hymn, and a hymn worthy of the Holy Mass, while trying to avoid religion. This is what I’m getting at. Catholicism is too large to be contained, to rich not to be shared; its grace, its poetry and its depth is simply too great to be limited to those who practice it. It is blood in water; by its thickness alone it slowly diffuses and melts into the space around it. But even then the metaphor fails; for how often is the water around it thicker than the blood itself? We live in strange times indeed, when it is the non-religious who remind us of the beauty of our faith and, unfortunately, more often than our church architecture, our choirs or our preachers.

So we have The Avett Brothers with lines about Mother Mary and singing about crucifixes, Death Cab For Cutie spending at least two songs an album trying to get over Catholicism, Jack White of The White Stripes fame making sweet references from his Catholic school days, U2′s Irish-Catholic roots really ushering in an era of Christian music, and the best thing about it is it tends to be – for the most part – great music and great art. Somehow – as Sign No More proved – Catholic-laced songs mean more to the world then sex-laced Pop. Obviously this applies to movies, to paintings and, to an almost ridiculous extent, to novels, but I know my modern music, darnit, so feel to provide any examples of the afore-mentioned arts in the almighty comment box below. The moral? Be proud of your faith, Catholics. It’s no proof of its reality, but certainly its a point in our direction to be so able at affecting the world around us, to make artists out of Catholics and, as I’ve shown, Catholics out of artists.

And this diffusion is frowned upon by our new atheist buddies, so you know it’s good. Check out this barely restrained “review” of Mumford and Son’s album Sigh No More.

Or, if you’re really bored, check out this article at Catholic Online I was interviewed for.

Filed Under: pop culture, The Best Religion in the World Tagged With: , , 11 Comments