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In a response to a call I received from a Pastor-friend of mine, I sent this in an e-mail. He asked me to define "Christian Rock" and offer a few comments . . .

What is "Christian Rock Music"?

This must be divided into two initial discussions: (a) what is "rock music" and then (b) what is "Christian" rock music. I will point out a few things that I believe will assist in addressing the Church in the 21st Century in the discussion titled: (c) How should we then worship together? By way of broad apology, my personal opinion (for better and for worse) is woven through this e-mail.

(a) What is "rock music"?

Here the entry from The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music, ed.

Stanley Sadie, London; 1988, 1993, 1994. [ISBN: 0-393-03753-3] under heading, "ROCK."

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ROCK

The term, strictly defined, refers to a musical style that emerged in the mid-1960's; more broadly, it encompasses this and rock and roll, which prevailed in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The two styles have similarities: both use amplified singing and electric instruments (usually a lead electric guitar, a prominent rhythm section or bass guitar and drums and often have a rhythm guitar and keyboard instrument), have a strong rhythmic drive intended to encourage listeners to dance, and [is intended to] appeal principally to young people.

Rock and roll emerged in the USA in the mid-1950s as a development of rhythm-and-blues, but whereas rhythm-and-blues had an almost exclusively African-American audience, rock and roll appealed to a mass audience mainly of young whites. African-American rhythm-and-blues performers like Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Bo Didley soon found success with this larger audience. But the greater popularity was for such white performers as Bill Haley and the Comets, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent and the Everly Brothers, most from southern country-music backgrounds. Rock and roll quickly gained an international following and in the early 1960s British groups such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Who helped broaden its stylistic boundaries and ushered in rock - a more diverse musical category.

Key themes for the early rock movement were youth protest, the counterculture and hallucinogenic drugs. San Francisco became its leading centre. Californian groups of the late 1960s such as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and the Doors broke away from the established format of the three-minute song and played loose, extended, improvisatory numbers. Eclecticism and experiment abounded.

By the mid-1970s, much of the experiment was felt to be self-indulgent and the political stances unrealistic. There were attempts to recapture the vigour of 1950s rock and roll and to work within the discipline of the short song, and the distinction between rock and pop music became blurred. Rock now became divided into several sub-categories such as heavy metal, punk and new wave, each with its own audience.

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A few additional notes of my own . . .

Regarding the mixture of idioms in the 1950s, note that Chuck Berry played at the 1958 Newport, Rhode Island Jazz Festival along with Thelonius Monk, Louis Armstrong, Chico Hamilton, and many others. The audience was mostly white-but for its time rather racially mixed. It was captured on an interesting film-documentary called "Jazz on a Summer's Day," 1960 by Bert Stein. I highly recommend this film-85 min. long-to audiences old and young alike. It clearly demonstrates the chaos of culture at the end of the 1950s. It shows many people listening to jazz seated in rows like it is a serious art-form. It also shows a younger generation dancing and drinking themselves into confusion. Note the basic "dancableness" of Chuck Berry's band set against the refined and beautifully haunting Chico Hamilton Quintet. Also, note that the concert ended with a gospel singer performing 'The Lord's Prayer.' It is a testament to the bizarre changes that were going on culturally right before the 1960s exploded on the youth-culture scene. I must also note the importance of Johnny Cash-the film about his life, "Walk the Line," 2005 is very revealing. I recommend it to mature audiences only. Regarding "Blues"-it gained its independence as a musical style as a divergence from Gospel well prior to the 1950s. A must-read on the cultural meltdown is "How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture" by Francis A. Schaeffer. In particular, read the opening to chapter 11. His deeply brutal and honest assessment of the utter bankrupt state of virtue at the beginning of the 1960s should shame us today. The term "rock": and "rock and roll" became massively subcategorized by the beginning of the 1970s. The term "rock" branched into "Soul," "Acid Rock," "Mo-Town," etc, etc.

(b) What is "Christian" rock music?

The history of the twentieth century-even just in America-is very, very complex. I'll note three secular-social matters that I believe have exerted immense pressure on the church through the twentieth century: (i) John Dewey and modern education; (ii) America's ideas of "heritage" and "progress"; (iii) the massive impact of easily-accessible, recorded music. After this I will assess the challenging philosophical matter of music and morality. Finally, I will provide a personal answer to the question.

Three Secular-Social Matters

(i) John Dewey and social education

John Dewey (Dewey decimal system and mass-educator) had succeeded in commending his vision of education upon the American public by the mid-twentieth century. Children were educated in age-segregated, neat, clean classrooms each with a highly systematized curriculum guided by a belief in the insurmountable power of "progress." Homes were deemed "chaotic" environments for education; and the spirit of the age was "out with the old, in with the new." This essentially meant that no one was asking either about "virtue" or about the "liberal arts." Instead, American education was aimed to be practical. "Values" replaced "Virtues" and all hell rose to applaud.

Strangely, this all seemed to happen beneath the nose of the church.

Sunday schools were systematized and segregated by age-following the model of secular education. Since it is argued that in the 21st century a "generation" changes ideology every five years or so, our youth Groups and their leaders are hard pressed to keep up with the "latest mentality" among the "youth culture." I submit that this state of affairs is has fostered a reactionary mentality for many years in our churches. We are trapped by the need to "understand" the youth of each generation. Our Youth Pastors today are being forced to read well-intended nonsense about psycho-pop-philosophy from Christian publishers-written by people who probably should never have picked up a pen on the matter. Yet this sort of material must be read to keep in touch with "the next generation." I'm sorry, but the church of Jesus Christ was never intended to be a social stable with isolated stalls for this and that generation. Instead, the bride of Christ should be a place where the intergenerational bonds are firm; where the young respect their elders and are taught by wise men and women of the faith to follow Jesus. This is simply not happening as it should. Instead, the senior generation in today's church is largely about as narrow-minded as the teens in their church youth groups. Why? Because of the Church blindly accepting John Dewey's machine built on the belief that "progress" in the modern era was insurmountable. His utopian ideals do not hold water. Thank goodness for a few responsible home-schooling families who have taken this issue by the horns!

(ii) America's ideas of "heritage" and "progress"

America is (as Colin Powell put it well to the United Nations Security Council) a very young nation. America was founded on libertarian ideals. It was the "Promised Land" for people who wanted freedom to exercise their religious and economic dreams without massive amounts of state intervention. Since the idea was, "we're starting afresh here in the New World," a good deal of our European heritage was subtly scorned. This has dogged America for its entire (short) history: we know all to well how to begin things, but have largely no vision for ending things-or sticking with things. We are forever tossed by the winds of change. Sound like a gloomy indictment? Well, we have been saved from depression by a single resounding theme throughout the 19th and 20th century: the belief that we are at the front end of PROGRESS. Few are the statesmen who have stood up to ask where all of this "progress" was leading to.

"Progress" and a willful ignorance of "heritage" (history) have, like social educational mentality, been poured out on the church in America. The hope that new things are better things is a uniquely American mentality. Think about how we fawn over, "Sing to the LORD a new song!" form the Psalms. Yes, yes!! We think-this is it-Biblical foundations for our inherited ideology! But the Psalmists are all persistent in modeling for us the realization that most all of what we praise God for are things done in the past. All this to say: the relationship between the Church and the American vision has been filled with confusion from the very beginning. Music education was light-years behind European musicianship. Additionally, the musical influences from-and upon-the American church leading up to the twentieth century are bewilderingly confusing. Remember that the Civil War was a recent event. Emancipation had freed African-Americans to freely meet in their own churches. Astonishingly, they kept the denominational distinctions of their former plantation owners; however, it is difficult to argue that many were "Baptist" or "Methodist" by doctrinal conviction. The rise of the so-called "Negro-Spiritual" must not be separated from the synonymous rise of "Gospel" and its cousin "Blues." The changes from "Gospel" to "Blues" to "rhythm-and-blues" and from "country" influences to "rock and roll" finally to just "rock" and then to "pop" . . . etc, etc . . . did not happen with the sudden turn of a page. Neither did the church wake up one day and suddenly find itself divided over a choice between "Christian Rock" and "Traditional Hymnody." The ideology of "progress" and the incessant thirst for "something fresh and new" allowed for the assumption of more and more popular musical styles into the services of worship. Remember the Jesus-Movement in the 1960s and 1970s? Keith Green came from that movement-one which maintained the styles of popular music. Yes, some people burned their record collections. But what kinds of songs did they then begin to write? Ones influenced by the only music they knew: popular music of their era. For further study, I must commend "A Survey of Twentieth Century Protestant Church Music" by Talmage W. Dean, 1988 to anyone interested in a thorough account of what led to all of the confusion.

(iii) The massive impact of easily-accessible, recorded music

Up until the second world-war, very few people were enjoying music through a stereo system. People made and listened to music in the concert hall, at church, at school, and in the family living room. It was LIVE music. Along the way came big money-Publishing Companies realized that new music meant "cash cow." In Christina circles, we call it CCM, "Contemporary Christian Music." Record businesses were founded upon the skyrocketing demand for recorded music along with new songs that reflected popular styles. Today, our teens recognize "Praise Music" by their association with the latest mp3s and CDs-not by the enduring legacy of theologically astute texts and melodies that were intended for corporate singing. Their mentality is often, "who wants to sing songs my grandmother likes?" Notice the incipient presence of anti-"heritage" and pro-"progress" in such a statement. Interestingly, this sentiment is most common among the 35-55 year olds in our churches today. There is hope for the younger generation. I recommend Kevin Twit's fantastic article, "My Grandmother Saved it, My Mother Threw it Away, and Now I'm Buying it Back: Why Young People are Returning to Old Hymn Texts." It is available as a pdf. file at http://igracemusic.com/igracemusic/hymnbook/other/RW70.pdf

-In Conclusion-

Dewey's doctrine of social education, based on a belief in the power of "progress" to lead to utopian ends, has brought about the division of our generations up in church. We have allowed the "teen-culture" to rise up from within our own churches-without any vision for reconnecting our teens with their elders. Thanks to our inherited American mentality of "progress" and a disposal of "heritage," we are now grossly ignorant of our own church history. This is exactly why so many churches are casting of the name "Baptist." We have adopted a mentality that "new is better" instead of remaining wise enough to simply recognize that better is better. This is why the church has not cared much for its own heritage of song in America. Of course, today the people in our churches who are clamoring for heritage are merely asking for a return to the favorites of their past-they are largely as ignorant as teenagers. Recorded music has essentially bombarded our daily lives with popular music. Thanks to the record industry, young people are not learning how to train themselves to become musicians. Why should they? They can buy a digital recorder and release their own CDs in a just a few days. As musicianship wanes in our churches, the simplicity of popular styles is doubly appealing: it is the latest thing and it is easy to "make"-either by purchasing a soundtrack or by strumming a few chords. Who is really reading music anymore?-let alone teaching young people how to?

Music and Morality

This matter deserves a dissertation-length address; however, I must be concise. There is a great debate on all sides of this issue, so I will just discuss those matters that are critical to my own thinking. Morality exists in the realm of ethics: is something RIGHT or WRONG. Axiology depends entirely upon whether the assumptions that support moral clams rest upon TRUTH. Truth-claims are the subject of the all-too-often unexamined field of knowledge theory: epistemology. I believe that epistemology precedes and informs axiology. What is true precedes and informs what is right and wrong.

There is another field of study that has long gone without much discussion: aesthetics. Aesthetics is the study of BEAUTY. I do not believe that beauty informs axiology. My reasoning for this is that aesthetics places one foot squarely upon the "eye of the beholder" and the other foot on the "testimony of experts." Beauty is given credence, to a degree, by a canon of great works. Truth, however, does not rest upon any such canon. Certainly there are collections of things that we would assent are "true," however, epistemology does not depend upon them. Aesthetics does. This makes aesthetics a shaky foundation for axiology. I realize that Jonathan Edwards "Dissertation on Virtue" seeks to center upon divine beauty for the foundation of his argument about virtue-but I have not found his argument altogether convincing. There is certainly a divine and perfect beauty-as there is a divine and perfect truth; but God has built the gospel upon truth rather than upon beauty.

I believe that it is correct to teach Christian's how to exercise discernment in the matter of aesthetics. I do not, however, espouse to a philosophy that makes aesthetics a guide for axiology. That would amount to one person's semi-personal / semi-professional persuasion regarding beauty to assign as "immoral" (wrong) the aesthetic persuasion of others. I do not believe that this sort of aesthetic revelation has been the substance of divine revelation in scripture. Yes, some things are clear-but God has primarily revealed his truth in divine revelation. His degree of aesthetic revelation is part of common grace-ascertainable by all men in general revelation. I believe that general revelation is too subject to the myopia of the human mind for me to ground my axiology on.

Rather than base my axiology upon aesthetics, I believe that aesthetics provides a door to wisdom. Rightly apprehended, good aesthetics-grounded in general revelation-makes wiser decisions than poor aesthetics. This means that the cheesy banners hanging in a church somewhere amount to poor taste rather than sin. This means that the wretched pop-tune your youth group is barking out loud to with all their sincere little hearts amounts to poor taste rather than sin. So, I believe that musical decisions are informed by degrees of aesthetic wisdom rather than by moral virtues.

Another matter for discussion is the "guilt by association" discussion. Is rock music bad because it was like the New Testament, "meat offered to idols?" This is tricky-even for Paul under the influence of the Holy Spirit-to address plainly. It is a complex matter. Scripture's teachings on such matters-including not causing a weaker brother to stumble, to view others more highly than ourselves, and to do what we do with a clear conscience as unto the Lord-beg a lot of practical out-workings in our particular situations with church music. Meat offered to idols eaten by the Christian with a clear conscience is not a matter of sin. I would argue that the style of music called "rock music," when enjoyed by a Christian with a clear conscience, is also not necessarily a matter of sin. I would argue, however, that a belligerent attitude on behalf of those who enjoy it is sin. That attitude manifests itself all too quickly when people who are challenged by the association of that style with a life of sin (often their own past) question its appropriateness in a service of public church worship.

The generational divisions that our churches have fostered in the 20th century have paralyzed earnest listening and wise discussion on this matter of "guilt by association." I believe that God is most pleased when we are most satisfied in Him. That means loving him-and loving neighbor. As who is our neighbor? Christ cracks this wide open with the parable of the Good Samaritan and with the exhortation, "but I say unto you, love your enemies." I John drips with the sincere plea to be grounded and rooted in love. If our churches were intergenerationally in love, I submit that the "stronger brother" would care more for the "weaker brother" than for a style of music. They would set it aside with JOY. Further, I submit that this would be followed by the "weaker brother" growing in Christ-perhaps to the point where the "meat offered to idols" represented by the contemporary musical styles no longer belong to the demons behind the idols to whom it was originally intended, but can be a source of energy and nourishment to the whole body. Perhaps.

Finally: What is "Christian" Rock Music?

Christian rock music is (a) music in a one of the many different categorizations of the term "rock"-more currently known as "pop"-to which is added a message in lyrics that are decidedly Christian in that such lyrics confess the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the gospel that he preached in the New Testament; (b) this music is intended to teach, exhort, and testify the goodness of God in the face of the evil of sinful mankind-sometimes with the intention that such songs be sung corporately by the church. This has been often labeled "praise and worship" music by the CCM (Christian Contemporary Music) industry; (c) it is written by and enjoyed by Christians who do not feel that its stylistic roots or association with a godless world culture amount to a moral impropriety in its aforesaid uses.

Two questions:

1. What are the principles which must guide the church?

2. What are the problems which we must address?

1-Scripture is profitable for doctrine, reproof, and instruction in righteousness. Its principles must guide the church. Reason and general revelation is given freely by God to all men, and must be employed by Godly elders who submit their lives to growing in these matters (epistemology, axiology, and aesthetics in particular). Our pastors and teachers-including our musicians-must be EDUCATED WELL!!

2-The key problem that obviously needs to be addressed is: how to unite the generations in church under the headship of Jesus Christ while secular society is intend on dividing generations through socialistic educational systems and highly specific mass marketing machines. I believe that the music issues will take a totally different shape after this is addressed.