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rabbits-of-negative-euphoria · 27 days

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I don’t mind taylor swift (although my mom’s convinced she’s a satanic worshiper, well according to her all the secular musicians/actors are so at least she’s consistent)

I actually liked some of the songs on TTPD but I wasn’t comfortable with the religious imagery she uses, at times it felt mocking

LOL, consistency is all I ask!

What a person is comfortable with is what they're comfortable with, and I'm certainly not advocating FOR Christians to listen to Taylor Swift--I think that's a matter of individual conviction. I'm not much of a TSwift listener for a variety of reasons not limited to her terrible worldview and frequent strong language. Nor do I think Christians should be naive when it comes to the secular, which hates God and His people.

That said, I want to invite everyone into my world of music. When I was a teenager, I created a playlist called Sense of the Divine, a phrase which I borrowed from a talk given by Vic Mignogna, but which refers to a concept I was raised from infancy to hold close: Humans are made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, and every human knows this.

My Sense of the Divine playlist included artists such as OneRepublic, Tonight Alive, Bastille, Bear's Den, and Panic! At The Disco, with lyrics such as:

and

(This is one of my favorite lines of all time.)

But eventually, I stopped adding to that playlist, because 80% of all music I now listen to contains some kind of religious language, imagery, allusions, illustrations, allegories, etc. Any time I am listening to music, I am thinking on spiritual realities: how are God and man conceptualized correctly and incorrectly in this song and by the artist? How have I encountered those misconceptions in my own life? My own heart? Where do they come from? How do they affect us? How can they be defeated? Oftentimes, I'm asking, "How can I recontextualize this line in a way that is theologically correct?"; "How does this correspond with the themes of X Story?"; "How does this correspond with the themes in my WIP?"

If this sounds tedious to you, it's just second nature to me, like breathing. From childhood, my parents always asked us spiritual & worldview questions after any secular movie we watched or book we read, and yes, many songs we heard. I guess I've always assumed all Christians engage with media this way out of necessity, the only other option being to disengage with all media not written or distributed by Angel Studios.

Am I saying all Christians are equipped to regularly take in theologically questionable or downright incorrect content? No, certainly not. The discernment we receive from Scripture is a prerequisite, and I do draw the line for myself in some instances. But I feel it would be a safe bet that what most Christians miss in overtly religious poesy, they make up for tenfold in the covert philosophical assumptions (materialism, existentialism, nihilism, gnosticism, mysticism, scientism, etc.) found everywhere else, and which are arguably much more damaging to our relationship with God.

#- HK #(anon don't think I'm directing all of this at you it is more of a general PSA)#on a secondary level listening to overtly religious ideas in music is a great reminder that Western civilization was built on Christianity #it is still inspiring art like it did Milton and Shakespeare and Dante and Steinbeck #the artists can hate us but they still have to give us air time to do it #analysis #x #Christianity

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