Me in my small corner: Popular Music and Religiosity

The United Church tends to be quite a moderate church, and I've never come across a UCCer that would say things like ''when I accepted Jesus into my life''. I tend to say things like that though, maybe with a touch of irony. My best friend will respond to phrases like this by rolling her eyes.

This might be atypical, but I had a specific turning point this summer when ''I accepted Jesus into my life''. I had been going to church for 15 years, but I was never sure if I should call myself a Christian because I didn't know for sure that Jesus was the son of God. Actually, I still don't know. I've started to think that being a Christian is less about dogma and more about action, a way of life, loving thy neighbour as thyself. I think it should be anyway.

All of this is really preamble to what I really wanted to write about today: how popular music lost its shine after I found Jesus. Some background information here: before I was saved, I listened mostly to music that would be classified as folk, indie and oldies. But once I had started settling into my faith, I turned on my old music and I found it distasteful. It wasn't lewd or anything, it just didn't offer me any hope. I'm a big fan of the poetry of Charles Bukowski, but his stuff is dark. I've been in dark places, but I don't want to stay there forever. That is not the role of a Christian. When I listen to the lyrics of popular music I hear a lot of despair in the songs I previously enjoyed, I. When it's not despair, it's often materialism and objectification of human beings as love-objects (or worse).

So I'm starting a list of music that I don't find repulsive. I thought I would share a couple of songs today.