I don’t understand why people tag secular musicians to be sinners and
gospel musicians as Christians. The only difference between the two –
the former’s lyrics is without the ‘God’ word (non-religious) and the
latter has the ‘God’ word in the song. Gospel means truth and a secular
musician singing ‘drugs are bad for you’ is singing the truth just as a
gospel singer saying ‘God is good’ is also singing the truth.
Now, does the secular musician whose lyric does not mention God a
sinner? Does all secular music contain profane words? There are many
secular songs that have catchy melodies, thoughtful insights, and
positive messages. There are many secular songs with no mention of God
that still uphold good values such as honesty, purity, and integrity.
Singing a gospel song does not automatically makes one a Christian
neither does singing secular make one a sinner.
Every song has its purpose. Some secular musicians use their songs to
preach about HIV, teenage pregnancy and a whole lot of social vices.
Let’s think Miriam Makeba, Doris Day, Paapa Yankson, and a whole lot of
musicians whose messages do/may not contain the ‘God word’, but their
songs are very uplifting. T
here are some gospel singers who love everything ‘ungodly’ and
absolutely the most un-Jesus-like people you could ever meet. Likewise,
some who don’t even sing about Jesus or never mention Jesus once in
their lyrics, are humble, Bible-believing, family men/women who are
faithful believers in Christ. When a gospel singer is embroiled in a
scandal, he/she is a disgrace to Christianity, and the comment that
follows: ‘It is secular musicians who should be behaving that way’.
Are secular musicians devils, sinners and idolaters? If a secular
musician (the sinner) sings gospel, God has touched/called him/her. So
while the person was singing the song without the God word, he/she had
not been touched? Sad thought of life.
A Christian is a follower of Christ. Just because the content of a
song is Biblical doesn’t mean it was necessarily written and/or
performed by a Christian. Majority if not all Gospel musicians are
merely doing the gospel for the money. They don’t factor drawing people
to/worshipping God into the business plan. It has nothing to do with the
faith of the person singing that song. Anybody can join the gospel
trail. It is a matter of grabbing the bible, pick two verses, add
instrumentals – then bingo, he/she is the latest gospel singer in town.
The question is does the person believe in God – NO, a Christian – NO.
It is just a matter of checking your geographical location. If
everything the country does is associated to God, go gospel; if they
don’t believe in God – you go secular.
It never ceases to amaze me the amount of Christians who condemn all
secular music but then have no problem watching ‘secular’ TV. It’s like
going to the pick-n-mix sweet stall, pick the sweets we like, condemn
what we don’t. Some Christians declare their preferred style of music to
be the only “biblical” one and declare all other forms of music to be
unwholesome, ungodly, or even satanic. It is the content of the lyrics
that should be the bone of contention but not the person
singing/performing. Some Christians even think listening to a song
without the ‘God’ word means they are going to hell.
The Bible nowhere condemns any particular style of music. Can the
lyrics in a secular song be true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable,
excellent, and praiseworthy? If so, then there is nothing wrong with a
Christian listening to a secular song of that nature.
There is nothing inherently wrong with any particular style of music.
It is the lyrics that determine whether a song is “acceptable” for a
Christian to listen to. We should stop being Pharisees (self-righteous
people) when it comes to nominating hell goers and heaven goers. On
judgement day, the people we may meet in heaven will even tempt us to
sue God!
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