Once America was founded, cultural issues began to developed. Since blacks were only good enough to be slaves, our freedom and integration into society was bad enough. But when elements of our culture began influencing society, then there was a big uproar among conservatives, especially fundamentalists. Just look at areas such as music, where first, jazz, and then the African beats and rhythms that were instrumental in rock & roll, disco and rap, are condemned. Other things like demonic influence and distraction from worship when these styles are adapted for the church are pasted on to add weight to the real problem they have with it. All of this in ignorance of the fact that the traditional styles they like were once also condemned by the Church. That is just what the Church has always done; everything people werent used to was to be condemned as of the world, the flesh and the devil. With the old social culture the Fundamentalists have cherished so much fading away into the past, one area they have really have focused on within the church is Music. This is one of the most slickest, cleverest ways they have come up with to put down ethnic culture and influence and uphold their own. They raise concerns about the world, the flesh and the devil, but this is just another issue where the offense of the Gospel is constantly appealed to, and becomes a burden required of everyone else while having little or no cost to the ones preaching it. The music theyve always listened to, including secular classical is OK, so there goes the world argument. This flies in the face of history and scripture, as ancient Hebrew (Mid-eastern) music appeared to be rhythmic rather than melodic (Lion Encyclopedia of the Bible), dancing was accepted by God in the Psalms. King David danced until his clothes came off. They get highly defensive when the racial questionability of these teachings are brought up. Meanwhile, on a website called Bible-believing Fundamentalist says, bad charismatic music that is destroying our churches is criticized because it comes from Africa(the land of Ham). Now what does this mean? Are they referring to the infamous curse that was the staple of racism in our Christian past? There still lies the perception in this circle that the people of Ham are more prone to demonism (and also sensuality) than others (justifying all of this racial separation, in music), and that blacks have corrupted white society with our music and sensuality.*. Most of them will not come out and say this directly anymore, but this is in their past, perhaps more so than others. Only now, it has simply been hidden behind carefully crafted arguments about rhythms and beats which suggest that African culture is more demonic than anyone else, and therefore totally unusable to Christians, and unacceptable to God. Thus the real question is not the association of the beats with African voodoo, but why Africa is always singled out when it comes to this issue of origins. And classic European music always comes out as good. THIS is where the race issue comes in. This obsessive focus on African demonism completely ignores that ALL of us have descended from the Fall, and all societies have in their backgrounds pagan false religion (including idol/demon worship) and sensuality, until God revealed Himself. Europe had the pagan Greeks and Romans, Druids, Wicca (traditional witchcraft), etc. The ONLY real difference between them and the Africans, and everyone else is that they embraced Christianity earlier. Even after God revealed Himself to people, they continued to degenerate back to idolatry (Ancient Israel) or corrupting the truth to their own use (European Christianity), which also included pagan elements! This gave birth to the Catholic system that the Fundamentalist critics condemn so hard. It is really time that this music issue is put to the Cross! We really need to think about how you can call our styles unbiblical. Implying that everyone has to give up what they were used to. Yet, fundamentalist traditions and your old lives, though baptized as traditional Christian are OK. We should see here where a legitimate cultural issue can be drawn. And given the background these teachings are coming from, isnt it understandable to question these teachings? I even sense an almost gloating sorry, you cant have your music; it just isnt acceptable to God. You must listen to what we say.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 19:54:40 +0000
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