In the first part of this two part blog, I wrote about music often considered dangerous by the christian marketplace and suggested that it might be more dangerous to allow the marketplace to determine what is dangerous in the first place.

I also suggested that some of the songs we sing in church are contributing to the sluggishness of many church-goers. I want to be clear here that I am not making a sweeping judgement of ‘church music’ as a whole. I happen to really enjoy a great deal of church music. In this case, the sweeping judgement is not only about the particular songs we sing or listen to, but at least as much about our ability to actually hear what we are listening to.

So, just as it would greatly benefit listeners to take a long look at the lyrical content (and musical craftsmanship) of Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs” or The National’s “High Violet,”  it would be equally beneficial to take a look at some of the songs churches are already singing and are familiar with.  There are some dangerous songs in rotation Sunday mornings.

For instance…

“In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song.”

I’ve sung this or led this song well over one hundred times and it wasn’t until reading Brian J. Walsh’s “Colossians Remixed” that I connected some dots regarding the claim Keith Getty and Stuart Townsend make with the song.

Jesus Christ’s exclusive claim of Lordship (to which the song is referring) stood against the claims of Roman leadership and supremacy.  The community in Colossae (to whom Paul’s letter was written) knew that claiming Jesus was “the image of the invisible God” and that “He is before all things.. in Him all things hold together” would fly in the face of Roman and power.  Walsh writes in Colossians Remixed that

“Proclaiming a lord other that Caesar would result in immediate imprisonment and a closer view of imperial games than anyone would want… a threat to the empire.”

The obvious question here is “Does the exclusive claim to hope only in Jesus sincerely mean something when we sing it?”  Because if the answer is yes, that’s an awfully dangerous thing to claim.  The Supremacy of Christ is a threat to all else. Our comfort, our politics, our career path, etc.. And yet how often have I sung that it is “in Christ alone” that my hope is found but not considered the very real consequences of such a statement?

The dividing line between that which is “of God” and that which is “not” cannot and should not be trusted to the Marketplace.  But quite often it is.

The Dividing Line
The pastor of a church I recently played in was a self-professed Nine Inch Nails fan.  Aimee Mann as well.  So, as we talked through the tension between wise shepherding and over-protectiveness, we found a great deal we agreed upon.  Still,  he had reservations about my playing cover songs for his congregation.  He was concerned that I was giving his people license to buy and listen to music that at least has the potential to be socially and philosophically dangerous.

We agreed that no one needed permission to seek out damaging media. Perhaps the goal, then isn’t so much to prevent people from engaging with certain forms of media but teaching ourselves and our communities how to be discerning consumers, listeners, readers etc… Part of that comes in approaching media with a different set of questions.  Particularly the question “what can I  see of God in this?”

You see, somewhere before this conversation took place, a decision had already been made about what art is beneficial for christian (mostly Protestant) churches.  We were only dealing with material on “the other side” of the sacred/profane line. But what criteria was used to determine the sacred or beneficial nature of the music played in his church or mine? It seems to me that line is drawn with the same pen that draws the line between what is sell-able and not.  In other words: We sing this song here because it is sung elsewhere or because the artist who wrote it has other successful songs.  That’s not a pastoral criteria.  It’s a market criteria. In more cases than not, monetary success draws the line.

The Danger of Falling Asleep
That pastor and I were having a conversation about Aimee Mann. That’s to be expected. But does a similar conversation happen regarding songs by Chris Tomlin, Brenton Brown or anyone on the CCLI top 100?*  Are these songwriters above such a conversation?  Is there need for similar discernment when it comes to church music?  After all, these songs are sung repeatedly and memorized by church congregations. The language and imagery in these songs helps shape the way thousands understand the mystery of God.  So, what if it’s off? How would we know? Perhaps we’d recognize it in the fruit such art bears.

It’s no secret that the blogosphere (as well as more than a few coffee bars across the US) is choc-full of church leaders lamenting the immobilization or selfish tendencies of far too many congregates.  These same church leaders often acknowledge that the machinery  of church can not only contribute to but encourage such immobilization and selfishness.  If we’re willing to point out the potential dangers of exposure to media, it is vital that we take a more discerning look at art that has likely played a part in lulling many “to sleep in their faith” with repeated blessed assurances that it is well, not only our souls but well with the world, so long as we recognize and acknowledge how He loves us.

When the next hot, church sing-a-long hits the circuit, will it be evaluated? Will it even be thought about? Or will its status as “beneficial” be established the way Truth is established in Stephen Colbert’s world, where once the Market has spoken, it must be true.

I’m finishing Part 2 of this post and will have it up soon.

(The CCLI Top 100 is a list of the 100 most popular songs sung in churches)

Along with covering Christina Aguilara during last night’s FEJMILRS webcast, I debuted a new song I’m currently calling “Take One On The Chin.” It will eventually make its way onto the Untitled II project I’m working on (a follow up my my 2001 Untitled EP). Below are the lyrics to that song.  Also, if you missed the FEJMILRS Webcast, we’re leaving it archived at Ustream for the time being.

Take one for the team
Take it on the chin
Pick yourself back up
And brace yourself again
They don’t come to fight
They only come to win
So take one for the team
And take it on the chin

Take another step
A mile beyond the call
Bear the weight of choice
The choice to bear it all
At times you want to stop
At times you want to crawl
But take another step
A mile beyond the call

Honestly, you should know
You’ve been there
Sad and slow
Patience waited on you, though
So, honestly, you should know

Take a moment now
To ponder your next move
Is what you’re giving back
The honest best of you?
I truly understand
You’ve got to know I do
You took one on the chin
But you were swinging, too

The second First Ever Justin McRoberts Interactive Living Room Session is Wednesday, October 6th, Follow Justin at Twitter to catch the announcement or catch the broadcast at this blog starting at 6pm PST.

I’ve been writing a series of blogs on the songs that make up my most recent release, a covers project entitled “Through Songs I Was First Undone.”  The moments I’ve had with the artists whose music makes up this album have been sacred moments. These artists and their songs have been central to the necessary undoing of the expectations and limitations I habitually place on God and humanity.

Here is part two of why Aimee Mann’s “Save Me” is on the album:

In the same way that Aimee Mann’s work has guided me towards a responsible undoing of my expectation/temptation to resolve songs, the cultural counterpart to this same thought also resonates with me.  Despite having grown up outside a particular religious tradition (raised by wolves) I had been somewhat culturally trained to think of “being saved” as a specific kind of resolution; particularly that it was something very final… something that happened in a singular moment with a one-time agreement.  Like chancing upon a lifetime membership to my Happy Place.

The odd thing about this understanding of “being saved” is that, since I’ve followed Jesus, it has all the more grated against my experience of life and faith.  My ‘conversion’ didn’t take place all in a moment and certainly has been a happy experience at times but never consistently.  My being “saved” never felt like something snapped into place after which I was then on my way.  I’ve experienced the waxing and waning of actual change in my life and the same waxing and waning of faith that my life’s change is authentic and lasting.  Less than a one-time agreement, it’s been more like fits and starts, in all honesty.

Sara Miles, in her book “Take This Bread” writes: “Conversion isn’t a moment: it’s process and it keeps happening, with cycles of acceptance and resistance, epiphany and doubt.”

A process of cycles and seasons.  That sounds like it.  Something more like the growing of a branch connected to a vine.. born invisibly, growing in shoots and perhaps too quickly… needing to be pruned.. growing again and bearing fruit.. but then.. Fall.. Winter and the long, dark hope that Spring will come again, bringing a greater abundance of fruit.  The work of a good gardener, salvation is not the magic and surgically sterile removal of my life from “this world” or even the mystical transcendence of my own base humanness.  It is the strange, messy and (dare I say) unfinished business of becoming a complete human being… one like Jesus.

I’ve been writing a series of blogs on the songs that make up my most recent release, a covers project entitled “Through Songs I Was First Undone.”  The moments I’ve had with the artists whose music makes up this album have been sacred moments. These artists and their songs have been central to the necessary undoing of the expectations and limitations I habitually place on God and humanity.

Here is part one of why Aimee Mann’s “Save Me” is on the album:

Magnolia is one of the only movies I have ever gone back to the theater to see.  Cast with the likes of Julianne Moore, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and WIlliam H. Macy, there really isn’t a weak performance anywhere in the movie (unless you hate Tom Cruize instinctively,… which is really more about you than the movies you see).

I watched Magnolia the first time with my wife and some friends.  Our friends didn’t care much for the film, commenting that it was “bizarre,” “pathetic,” and “unlikely.”  We agreed that those were accurate descriptions but, to the contrary, Amy and I both thought those were exactly the elements we enjoyed most about it; it was so much like life as we knew it.

Along loving the story, the cinematography and the performances, I also fell in love with the movies soundtrack and in doing so, discovered Aimee Mann.  (little did I know she was the vocalist for the band Til Tuesday, whose single “Voices Carry” echoed through my head through much of the late eighties).  My understanding is that much of the Magnolia’s motivation and theme is derived from Aimee Mann’s music.  In fact, a few of the character Claudia’s lines are directly lifted from Aimee Mann lyrics.  In one case, she turns to Officer Jim Kurring, who is desperately in love with her and says

“Now that I’ve met you
Would you object to
Never seeing each other again.”

…which is the opening line to the song “Deathly”; a song I seriously considered covering for Undone. Instead, I chose the “Save Me.” which was written specifically for the film and is one of the the most pivotal songs in my musical history.

Much of its importance to me is strictly musi-technical.  Its darker tone, melancholy mood and seemingly-too-slow tempo don’t add up to “Save Me” being a downer song at all.  In fact, Save Me is incredibly catchy and has plenty of the energy one would want in a pop song.  What was revelatory for me was that It’s life and energy are not fabricated by bright, shimmery guitar tones or an uplifting, major-chord-driven chorus.  The song is alive because of the tension within it; a tension that never resolves but keeps the song trudging from verse to chorus to bridge and and and on.  This element was liberating for me as a writer.  I could leave a song “in the dark” as it were and let go of the temptation to force a feeling of resolution in lyric or in tone.

Until I let “Save Me” sink into my skin a bit, I didn’t quite recognize how strong the temptation to “resolve” a song actually was. I believed, as do most young artists, that I was being entirely authentic and transparent in my work.  But even looking at my 2000 release “Father,” an album ostensibly about wrestling with my father’s suicide, I could see very clearly where a few of the songs were somewhat forced; at least in the way I finished them… as if I was tying together broken limbs with pretty bows and wrapping paper.   Mann’s work guided me to see that art’s job was seldom to resolve.  More often, a great work affirms the mysterious nature of the human experience just as it is, which is a form of redemption in and of itself.  In this light, I would even go so far as to say that to force a resolution is to give in to the fear that a true resolution might not be there at all; that I must create or even fake it.  It strikes me that this is what is most disappointing about much art in the christian marketplace.  Not that it’s cheesy or even that it’s particularly bad; what is most disappointing is that it is insincere.  I wanted to distance myself from that temptation and the machinery that is angled toward giving in to it.

My 2002 release “Trust” was, as a whole, inspired and fueled by the musical revelation I found in Aimee Mann’s work.  From guitar and drum tones to chord progressions and even lyric choices, Trust was shaped by the freedom to leave songs in the dark; to create a tension and allow that tension to sustain the life of a song and even an entire album.

You can listen to a full length video preview of my “Save Me” at the top of this blog.
You can pick it up at iTunes or at my Online Store.