I was a teenager in the 1980s and remember well the popular Christian perceptions of rock music and culture as a hotbed of decadence and sin. This was the era of the discovery of “backward masking” on records, of the hermeneutics of hidden satanic symbols in album art, and of Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center. Those who did not live through that time, such as my undergraduate students, can have difficulty imagining what the public discourse was like. (And that there were congressional hearings on the matter!)

A while back, someone sent me a clip of a more “recent” (as in last decade) commercial that purports to give information about how rock music threatens the salvation of generations of fans:

Is it a hoax? The interpretations of the songs are so wooden, the song quotations so fundamentalistic, and the use of language and graphics so potentially arch (they actually use the word “rockumentary” a few seconds in), that it is difficult to tell how green are the valleys of irony at work here.

But as a child of the 80s, and as someone who has a reckless passion for theology, and also as someone who has seen many sides of rock and roll, I find such anti-rock Christian interventions engaging to watch.

Not because I think the theologies (of salvation, sin, grace, culture, music) that they are advocating are defensible, but because they so richly symbolize many aspects of rock and theology at once, for example: reminding us how hard it is to find serious theological engagements with popular culture in general and popular music in particular; showing us how complex is the location of theological material in popular music (lyrics? interviews? fan behavior?); and, if we have the patience for it, helping us remember that there are some rock personae and some parts of rock culture that are way out there in a bad or dangerous way. (Not that this video has necessarily identified any of them.)

But no Christian critic has the right to a realistic hope that their criticisms will be taken seriously over the long haul unless and until they also acknowledge and integrate the criticisms and insights that there are parts of Christian theological culture that are way out there in a bad or dangerous way. No inquiry comes with clean hands to make theological sense of culture. (Including, if it needs to be said, the very inquiry of this blog posting.) This provides a much different space for inquiry than that usually presumed in Satan-sensitive commercials — or in academic theological engagement with pop culture. And this is why all the basic terms must be revisited — not only Christian colonialism but christology itself, for example — each time one begins a new inquiry in theology of culture, especially from the advantaged theological position that I and others take in this research.

Tom Beaudoin

Hastings-on-Hudson, New York

2 Comments »

1. 

   11And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. 12And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. 13And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. 14And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

   Revelation 20 : 11-20

   Solution: John 3:3-16

   The harpazo is just around the corner

   Comment by stivivortex — December 14, 2012 @ 8:06 am

2. 

   Forgot this one: … it’s about the former Choirmaster of Heaven … (Luxiferus “the King of Tyre”) …

   12Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

   13Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

   14Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

   15Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

   16By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

   17Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.

   18Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.

   19All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.

   Ezekiel 28:12-19

   9Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.

   10All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?

   11Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.

   12How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

   13For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

   14I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

   15Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

   16They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

   17That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?

   18All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house.

   19But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet.

   20Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned.

   Isaiah 14:9-20

   7And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, 8And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. 9And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. 10And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

   Revelation 20:7-10

   Avoid all satanic muse-ic like the plague.

   Comment by stivivortex — December 14, 2012 @ 8:13 am

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