True Top Ten Reasons

1. Light has no fellowship with darkness. 2 Corinthians 6:14. This passage is linked with ideas in 2 Corinthians 6:1, 14, 16; 7:1 urging believers not to receive God's grace in vain. It urges us to live the covenant command to come out and be separate, cleansing ourselves from the filthiness of the flesh and perfecting holiness. Our lives are lived against the sharp backdrop of positive and negative moral realms, and that what pertains to one moral realm cannot be linked with the opposite. The light of God's Word would is unlinkable to Satan's word. In the wilderness temptation, when Satan linked his temptation to God's Word, Jesus rejected it, saying "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." To link God's light-bearing Word to lyrics or music partaking of the style of "Christian Rock"/CCM darkness attempts to bring light into fellowship with darkness. This music style is associated in the minds of worldlings with the music of the world, rendering it incapable of transmitting Bible values untainted. Scripture admonishes us not only to have no fellowship of light with darkness, but to reprove the unfruitful works of darkness. Ephesians 5:11. Secular Rock, "Christian Rock"/CCM are works of darkness, and rather than our taking a passive position of neutrality, we need to reprove them or we are not being faithful to Scripture.

2. "Christian Rock"/CCM is a manifestation of the works of the flesh, which Galatians 5:19-21 lists as "adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings . . . " First Peter 4:1-2 tells us that because Christ has suffered, we should no longer live "in the flesh to the lusts of men." Several vices in the Galatians list are evidently applicable to "Christian Rock"/CCM. Historically, this music arose in the near term from the anti-institutional, anti-authority period centering in the early 1970s. Its styling may be traced back to the proto-pentacostalism that arose at the turn of the century--itself a form of modern spiritualism, emphasizing a subjective, emotion-manipulating style. In this paradigm, subjective feeling becomes the authority rather than objective Scripture.

3. SDAs in particular have been warned through the Spirit of Prophecy of a specific demonic use of music in the end-time. We know the attack is coming. If not now . . . when? Letter H-132-1900; 2SM 38. Ellen G. White saw in vision that just before the close of probation strange music would be brought into our camp-meetings. You can read all about it in Selected Messages, vol. 2, pp. 25-47. Within these pages are five statements which could be understood as predictive of a closing recurrence of the false-revival of 1900 at Muncie Indiana. These statements are located on pages 35, 36, 36, 37, and 38. While the first four statements may be understood as not conclusively predictive, the statement from page 38 plainly is predictive: "Those things which have been in the past will be in the future. Satan will make music a snare by the way in which it is conducted." The context of this statement leads to the unmistakable conclusion that under inspiration, Ellen G. White predicted a future false revival within the Adventist church in which the use of music would play a prominent role. Can there be any doubt that the present situation qualifies?

4. The "Christian Rock"/CCM music style is of the world. John 17:14. This manner of music is physiologically antithetical to rational thinking, producing a taste for subjective, feeling-inducing music. It is a short-term path to feeling good and a long-term path to destruction. This manner of music is known to provoke dancing and uncontrolled bodily movements; it sensualizes. To partake of it is to promote an inward desire for it. How can God's last-day church become a promoter of an addiction-inducing form of music? "Christian Rock"/CCM can scarcely be described as godly music. It's nature is the very essence of worldly lusts and ungodliness. cf. Titus 2:12, 14.

5. "Christian Rock"/CCM is of the World in its Marketing. John 17:14. The paraphernalia of the "Christian Rock"/CCM scene is a pale aping of its secular model: from album covers, poses, clothing of the band members, style of the sound, videos, posters, promotional materials, etc. It is an exact echo of the world's music. The major CCM labels are all owned by non-Christian companies. Their motivation is profit, not uplifting Christ. If Christian values were held dear by these companies, then they would not market the material with worldly marketing techniques that play on the worst in human passions. Furthermore, they would cease their foisting upon our culture the demeaning, morally toxic secular musics continually provoking to sexual adventure and to violance.

6. The time and energy and money spent in producing Christian Rock/CCM music represent a misguided use of personal resources that could be reinvested in more productive ministry options. If the time spent writing, recording, marketing, traveling, pitching, practicing, playing and listening to this music were spent instead in giving Bible studies, holding meetings, and one-on-one evangelism, what a vast reaping of God's harvest might occur.

7. Christian Rock/CCM is part of a theological package that includes a quasi-evangelical concept of grace and salvation that is utterly opposed to the Bible teaching and Adventist understanding of it. This theological link was epitomized in a recent quote in the Review:

Q: "Was this [ConneXions99] the first time you've seen a worship in which electric guitars were played and the three angel's messages were preached?"
A: "Yes, it was--and it encourages me greatly because I think there's a connotation between electric guitars and grace, grace, grace, and nothing else." -(From May 1999 Adventist Review, pg. 45 (vol. 176, No. 18), article titled "The Other Spring Meeting," by Andy Nash).

8. We cannot present anything that judges the world while using the "style" of the world, without finally looking entirely stupid in its eyes. To do music like the world does music is to give the appearance of evil.

9. The duration of marital relationships of famous Christian Rock/CCM musicians presents little evidence of heightened spirituality.

10. Christians should sing new songs--but the world's style is not new: it is old. New songs are songs not chronologically new but spiritually new. That is, a new song is a song sung by a renewed person who, having entered into the power of positive life-change flowing from the gospel as Biblically understood are undergoing spiritual transformation. Psalm 33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 98:1; 144:9; 149:1; Revelation 5:9. Still, many urge that we need to use this worldly music "evangelistically." Nevertheless, the Bible shows that the music of believers is never evangelistic in purpose, for unbelievers cannot worship God.

Last Modified 17 March 2001