Condemning Contemporary Christian Music

Q.  The pastor of a church I’ve recently visited gave a sermon on how all Christian Contemporary Music, especially Christian rock music is not an acceptable form of worship music, and he asserts that God is not pleased with that style of worship music.  His argument is that since rock music “originated for the purposes of sin, darkness, and sexual immorality,” rock music is a bad tree that can only produce bad fruit. He said that even if some Christian rock musicians are sincere in what they do, they are still producing sinful music because rock music was created “for the sole purpose of sin, darkness, and corruption.”

A.  This pastor is stating an opinion based on his own personal preferences.  The earliest worship music consisted of what we call the Psalms. When it was first sung in the Temple it was contemporary music.  The same is true of the traditional hymns. When they were first sung in Church they were contemporary compositions, and some of them were secular songs with Christian lyrics substituted for the secular ones.  Rock music originated in black churches and the first criticism of it was from people who complained that rock musicians were secularizing “church music.”

Personally, I prefer some traditional hymns to some contemporary music. But neither form of worship is either all good or all bad.  And nobody gets damned to hell because of the music they sing.  They get damned to hell for refusing to accept the blood of Jesus as payment for their sins.