I’m not a fan of CCM. That’s “Christian Contemporary Music” if you didn’t know. I suppose, if you go through life thinking Jesus is your boyfriend and it’s all about sweet love songs, CCM will work just fine. But if you’re more interested in the meat and less in the milk, you’ve got to find something that’s going to give it to you.
I know I’m too hard on the genre – and I don’t mean to be hurtful. But what do people want out of their Christian faith – is it all about feeling good? Really, what is it about? That you were good and sweet enough that Jesus just fell in love with you?
We all need a little lift sometimes, and I’m sure there’s CCM out there that does it for you. I like plenty of CCM songs on their own, but for a steady diet? I just can’t see how it’s done. I need to know there’s hope – but I need to know why there’s hope too. I don’t need someone telling me to “hang in there, it’ll be alright” unless they can tell me why. Anything less is just talk.
And a look at the Christian top 40 right now provides exhibit A: It’s topped by a song called “Together,” which is a “hey gang, we can get through this Covid thing” song no different than could be made by any non-Christian group.
Sweet. Like I said, we all need a cheerleader sometimes. But we can’t live on the platitudes of cheerleaders. How many times do you need someone smiling at you and telling you it’s going to be alright before you start to get the feeling that maybe it won’t be? That maybe they don’t know what they’re talking about? Maybe this whole “God” thing isn’t the candy-canes and gumdrops you thought it was, but then again, what did you expect when it’s all about you?
I won’t say that all CCM is shallow, but it’s like any other business. It’s got to appeal to the largest audience it can to make its money, so it also has to be as generic as it can and still be called “Christian.” It’s more broadly one of the biggest problems with American Christianity. We don’t have to look too closely at “Together” to find that it says nothing of Jesus or God, let alone any meaningful biblical themes that make up the foundation of orthodox Christianity; and yet there it sits at the top of the “Christian” charts. It’s a perfect demonstration: a song about “hope,” but a hope entirely in our own ability to overcome difficulties. Certainly not a hope in God that goes beyond our current circumstances.
And yet the Christian music scene is not entirely hopeless. As much as all sub-genres within the genre itself have their good and their bad, I have not found one so rich as in rap. Sadly, Christian rap doesn’t get the attention it deserves, and this most likely because American Christianity has a reputation of rejecting any culture other than the one that made America great (whatever that might be). It’s a problem at least as old as the days when those long-haired hippies and their rock and roll were going to ruin us.
But any honest listening to the genre tells us it’s about the words. Rap is a beautiful medium for words. The artist is free to tell the story without the typical pattern of popular music; with its rhyming verses, bridges and choruses that tend to overuse and repetition. Rap has a flow. It tells a fuller story. It can teach more theology and meaning in a 4-minute song than an entire chart of CCM.
I can’t do much more to describe it though than to give you exhibit B of this post: This piece by Shai Linne and Beautiful Eulogy does the favor of giving you the words. Try to follow along and pay attention. To all the words…