Watched an interesting sermon, “The Distraction Dilemma 5”, on Firstlight, by a charismatic, (not in the religious sense – just that he had an intelligent, engaging style tinged with humour) , preacher – Christian Berdahl. (shepherd’s call.com – related to 7th-day adventist church?) He has gone through the history of music from the 70s on, and effectively, by aligning all types of such music with roots of voodoo, and finding Satan’s influence in basically all of it, condemned it all as unacceptable for christians to listen to. He makes a good case for anyone who believes in the supernatural, and is afraid Satan is waiting to pounce on them. I’m sure lots of them will have gone home and deleted their entire music collection from their iPods. Unfortunately, he doesn’t cover a point I consider important, but which doesn’t suit his thesis.
For example, should one listen to any music otherwise considered by christians to be harmless or even good, if it is by a person known to hold non-christian beliefs, or who has written other music considered harmful or anti-christian? I think that for consistency, one should assume all is tarred with the same brush.
He mentioned Mozart approvingly, but was he aware of Mozart’s masonic beliefs, or, for instance, Mozart’s most wonderful opera, The Magc Flute, with its masonic theme? Surely that alone would have to be enough to put Mozart on his list of personae non gratae? I hope that he was ignorant of this, and that he will delete all his Mozartian music as soon as he finds out. Or could there be an element of hypocrisy here? Then, of course, there was the anti-semitism of Wagner. If that is unacceptable, which I would expect him to say, then wouldn’t that disqualify all his music? So, that should be the last time “Here comes the bride” should be heard in any christian wedding ceremony then, if the christian way is to be faithfully followed. There are probably many other famous composers of the past, whose music should likewise surely be disqualified by virtue of their licentious, wicked, unchristian ways and deeds. But of course, here’s the other interesting point. They probably all had done things, which we don’t even know about, considered unchristian by this preacher. Surely out of an abundance of caution, all music should be dispensed with – simple.
rsvpaa 