The Christian Music Thread Genre • Page 91

Wow, those are some recs I can get behind! Checking this out tomorrow.

 

Yeah, as soon as mewithoutYou was added at the end I thought I’d better get involved.

 

Gonna be honest.

Fuck those self righteous lyrics. Bullshit.

 

Oh no, I was just excited about a Showbread album, but what's happening with the lyrics?

 

Haven't listened to it yet... oh dear. I know it was originally released as a free download with his book against deconstruction.

 

There’s a lot more, but the first track right off the bat is this:

 

Second track:

 

Song after song is like that with indifferent digs directed at people who’ve deconstructed.

 

Has he/they talked about the lyrics at all? Like is he trying to spin it like this is all in jest or is he being serious?

 

Regardless it’s weird for sure I’m just curious

 

I never read his book, but it was mentioned in this thread by someone else a while back that he seems to completely disregard legitimate trauma for reasoning behind those who’ve deconstructed. This song is one of the worst:

 

Oh neat. Just got to the last song.

 

He sounds like he's going through some stuff...

 

what the hell

 

I think it has come up previously in this thread, but I read his book about deconstruction, and yeah, not super on board with his views. He seems very dismissive of religious trauma in particular and also seems to imply that people who leave the faith never made enough of an effort to understand it in the first place. While I think that does happen in some cases, it's a bit reductive.

He's also a member of a non-affirming church. It's disappointing because I always looked up to him based on his views on social justice and politics.

That said, his lyrics have always been super weird and creepy, so this isn't really anything new.

 

It's disappointing to me as someone who isn't a Christian but still enjoys the music and is respectful of the bands that show their faith in an open and positive fashion.

I have no problem with bands being honest about their beliefs, but it feels like a bunch of bands in this genre that I enjoyed have been showing their whole ass lately, and it's a shame.

 

Who are other bands that have done so?

 

Well Skillet's frontman's been pretty openly anti-vaxx for a while now, arrogantly claiming that bands like RATM sold out because they're no longer "anti-authority" just because they happen to have fucking common sense.

And there's stuff I've heard on here about Lacey Sturm, and then there's Anberlin with the Watashi Wa nonsense, and Underoath touring with Falling In Reverse.

Just bands making a lot of ill-advised decisions and spreading beliefs that are depressing and destructive.

 

I was very much a Tooth and Nail/Solid State/Facedown kid back in the day, and it has been disappointing to see how many bands from that scene have developed some not-so-great views over the years. It has also been mentioned on a few podcasts that a lot of the bands just called themselves Christian because it was trendy at the time.

 

Yeah, definitely don’t appreciate being viewed as someone who never tried to understand it in the first place. I was born into Christianity through my father. Went to the same church he went to literally his entire life and was brought up in a strict Baptist household predicated on a lot of that Bill Gothard shit. My parents divorced and my whole family was excommunicated by the church and our old friends and still we carried on and found a new church. As a teenager I was on our youth group’s leadership team. I studied the scriptures, had a great memory for verses, and briefly considered going into youth ministry before changing my mind. Why? Because I got tired of witnessing sexual, physical, and verbal assault being swept under the rug (particularly in the youth group) repeatedly and questioned much. I was eventually victim to assault myself under the pretense of Christian love, and that led to a catalyzing depression that completely unraveled me. I deconstructed long, long ago before the modern day use of the term and I had no idea that was even what it was called. All I knew was that it broke my heart on a daily basis and was the loneliest period of my life spent in total isolation that I genuinely wish I could just erase. Even now I look back fondly on the aspects of the faith and the community that came with it that I loved, and I feel that hole. It was never some flippant decision on my part. It took me years to let go of the anger and settle into a comfortable position where I can respect believers of the faith so long as they’re not harming anyone.

This shit, however, is indicative of why I left in the first place. Do not ever tell me I never tried. It was my whole world and it came crumbling down around me and I’m still dealing with it today. There’s a reason I’ve been in therapy for years now and am heavily medicated. Sorry for the tangent, but this kind of thing fills me with that old familiar rage I have been working so hard to set aside.

 

I'm so sorry this happened to you. I can understand why you would want to distance yourself.

It sucks that what should be a good thing is so often twisted into controlling and abusive behavior. I genuinely don't understand how so many people can read the gospels and come to the conclusions that they do, doing basically the exact opposite of what Jesus preached.

 

Thank you very much for saying this. You know, tangentially related I guess but a few weeks back a couple Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on my door (younger girl and an older woman) and they apprehensively asked if they could have a moment of my time. I knew what they were there for, but I told them sure and decided to engage with them as kindly and honestly as I could. When I explained why it really wouldn’t be for me, they got very quiet and genuinely thanked me for engaging even for just a few minutes and before they left the older woman turned back to say something. She was teary eyed, said basically exactly what you just said, and I could see in her eyes that she really meant it and knew what I’d been through without explicit detail. That was a really nice moment of human connection that meant a lot to me and that’s what I take away from this interaction as well. I guess I can only hope that one day Josh could manage to do the same.

 

biggg same. I loved all those bands. Hell I still get down to Zao and Becoming the Archetype lol

I know you've shared some of your story before and yeah I'm sorry this happened to you. I've grown up in the church my whole life as well and you're spot on with a lot of the stuff that goes on. Very traumatizing and uh not normal and it's hard to realize that when you're in it. There's a reason so many other millennials my age who grew up Christian are also deconstructing their faith right now

 

Yeah, you know someone posted a TikTok (my wife’s on that deconstruction algorithm) once that struck a chord with me and I think about it a lot these days. Gist of it was that we all grew up hearing about the “coming revival” from our parents and, well…it’s here. Much to the Boomers’ surprise, it’s not what they thought it would look like.