secular or christian

My brother in law was in Neath this past weekend, on sunday while heading out to Living Word Church Carmarthen, we were listening to some music and I recognised one tune as being Rhianna's Unbrella, only it was a guy singing and the lyrics were not the ones written for the original song. That was my introduction to Coffey Anderson, a guitarist from Texas. If you have never had the change to listen to this guy, I recommend you change that right now

HERE

At the end of the video he says ' You gotta re-do that if the aint do it right' and sitting up at almost 1am this morning with my 3 week old daughter, I was listening to some worship songs ad remembered something that was said during a preach back in my Elim pentecostal days. Now for the life of me I can not remember who said it, at least not the first time but it stuck me as interesting at the time.

This guy said that we should not try to seperate the secular from the christian, as it cant be done. Now at first I didnt really agree with that statement, and found myself thinking, 'this guy is off his rocker, obviously never listened to someone like Slipknot. But I started to look into hat he was saying a little more.

Lets start with the Gospel of John - chapter 1 verse 3 ESV version
All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made.

So music was created by Him, and since we know from the beginning of John that the Him we are talking about here is Jesus, then all music was created by God. Can anything then be 'secular' it would appear not.

Throughout the bible as well as many other recorded bits of history, music plays a major role in the lives of us humans. The Bible documents music as a means of readying an army for battle (Ps. 68), inspiring people to worship (Ps. 100), evangelism (Rom. 15:9), prophecy (Is. 23), lament, testimony (Is. 27:1-3), and celebration (James 5:13).

Music has essentially a spiritual nature.

Now dont misunderstand me, I am not saying that all songs as they are written can be used for worship, I dont for a second think that you can use The Animals 'House of the Rising Sun' in its original form as worship, however you can take it and redeem its content much in the way that Coffey Anderson did with umbrella, and as such this has been done in a number of cases: -

these are a few links

Blind Boys of Alabama - Amazing Grace, a fantastic example of just what I am talking about

Ken Norburg  - another example of taking the supposedly secular and redeeming it for the Lord

It is said that Martin Luther used tavern songs in writing his hymns, having looked into it, ther are as many references to say he did as those that say its baseless, however common is the case that at least one song was 'secular'. And others from german folk songs.

For me, I dont think this happens enough, there are many genres of music that are largely viewed in the church today as the devils music, metal is one such example, however if nothing was created outside of Jesus as the bible tells us then how can the enemy have any music, its all open to redemption by the saints.

we gotta redo that if it aint done right