Thank you for clicking through and interactively completing the process of my ad parody “Positive, Encouraging Lyrics, by You!” As you probably expected, I am not selling the fictional ConchLyghtTM app here.
I trust that my satirical rant about Christian Pop was entertaining, unoffensive, and perhaps contained something worthy of consideration. As an occasional songwriter, I have myself been responsible for plunging listeners into a sea of cliché. Although I took a little dig at the music, more specifically its lyrics, I love Jesus and his followers. Galatians 6:10 says, we are to “do good to everyone, especially to those who are of the household of faith.”
As such, if this humor post was more offensive than humorous to you, please bear with me and consider this:
1. Contemporary Christian Music is a genre, not “Christian” in the same way as an individual can be. Not all “Christian” things or churches glorify Christ; facing that should help clarify and promote the cause of Jesus. I think CCM could be more precisely described as “Christianity-ian” music, but that’s a mouthful.
2. Lyrics in the CCM genre can be formulaic and cliché-ridden, inferior to what should and certainly could emanate from those who follow Jesus—the creator of music and language, and a brilliant wordsmith as a human. Many artists do indeed put it out there richly. But the industry is market driven, so it isn’t entirely the fault of those artists who don’t.
3. Lyrics written for the purpose of believers worshiping God together are by necessity general and universal, and often use strong biblically sourced metaphors. Repetition has an important role in the meditative aspect of worship. This applies to both contemporary worship music as well as traditional hymns. I do not criticize what engages people gathered in the worship of God. Although there exists some overlap, I don’t consider worship music to be in the same genre as CCM produced for the promotion of an artist or band. My dig was at some of the airplay, not what is happening in churches.
So that’s enough about that and I’ll be on to something different next week anyway (which won’t compel me to write a disclaimer), so please enjoy, and again, thanks for reading!
Copyright © 2023 Richard Berndt – All Rights Reserved.