Big Blog 2 Christian Rock

 

When I was young and in elementary school I went to a Christian private school in Durham, NC where my parents went to church. At that time my parents were starting to get more involved in the church and we went to church every week. It was at this time that I started to listen to Christian rock music (also called Contemporary Christian Music). My parents listened to it all the time in their car. They really did not listen to anything else at that time. They mainly listened to a station called K-Love. I don’t listen to Christian rock anymore but I still thought this was something that was interesting to look into.

Christian rock history began in the 1960s. I was not aware of this since my parents only started listening to it in the 2010s. The beginning of Christian rock seems to go back to a man named Larry Norman. He had a song that came out in 1969 called “Upon this Rock” that was one of the first Christian rock songs ever released. Mr. Norman looked like a hippie from the 1960s and 1970s as he had long hair and did not dress in a conservative way. Mr. Norman made over 100 albums during his music career and was in several bands. He started in the band called People! in the 1960s and later went on to have his own bands. He even played in concerts with the Grateful Dead, The Doors and the Byrds as an opening act during his career (Hevesi). Another one of his most well-known songs was called "Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?” and was considered controversial as it was looked as a way to reconcile the big differences between Christianity and Rock music (Lytle). Even though Mr. Norman made songs that talked about things that society needed to address, like racism and sexually transmitted diseases, he was not looked upon kindly by most of the Christian community. In fact, most in that community did not like him nor his music. Although Mr. Norman is not as well know today, he was one of the most important figures in Christian Rock. Below is his song "Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?”. It sounds like Rock and Roll from the 60s and 70s.

 

One of the biggest issues for Christian rock has been that it is a genre that was not looked upon nicely by either the Christian church or the music industry. Think about this, Christian rock was looked upon as “devil’s music” by the church and at the same time was considered almost as a joke by most rock and roll hardcore fans. The church has looked upon rock and roll music in a negative light as it is supposedly part of people’s sinful behavior which is not accepted inside the church. To many in the church rock and roll music was connected to drug use, sexual immorality, and worldly possessions. In fact, Martin Luther King Jr once said in response to a question from a young person about if it was ok that he enjoyed both gospel and rock and roll music "The profound sacred and spiritual meaning of the great music of the church must never be mixed with the transitory quality of rock and roll music. The former serves to lift men’s souls to higher levels of reality, and therefore to God, The latter so often plunges men’s minds into degrading and immoral depths.”(Sanneh). However, as time as gone on some churches have become more accepting of Christian rock as the lyrics of these songs are uplifting, positive and praise Jesus. In fact, may churches have started to play some Contemporary music as way to attract young people. There are now large music concerts that bring together many Christian artists together in hopes of getting young people to listed to the Gospel through this music. One of these is Winter Jam and I went to this at the RBC center in Raleigh with my church’s youth group a few years ago. Still there are some churches that do not want Contemporary and Rock as part of their worship and only want the older hymns as their worship music.

 

Today’s Christian rock has a lot of variety especially compared to the early days. There are a lot of very popular groups that have made many successful albums and are well know throughout the world. One of these groups is Casting Crowns. Their first album “Casting Crowns” was double platinum and their 2^nd album “Lifesong” was platinum (Wikimedia Foundation). Also we see another very popular world wide Christian music group in Hillsong which was based from the Hillsong church in Australia. As of December 2011 Hillsong had sold more than 12 million records world wide (Wikimedia Foundation). If you have ever listened to Casting Crowns and to Hillsong they sound nothing alike. They have very different styles but both are considered Contemporary. Casting Crowns are definitely more of a rock group as they have a lot of the musical instruments that secular rock bands use like electric guitars, electric keyboards and large drums. In addition to these groups there are others with even different styles like Toby Mac who has some rap/hip-hop themes mixed into his rock sound. More and more churches are beginning to see how these songs can help with their worship and also many of these groups have a mission to help bring people to some to know and worship Jesus through their music. Below are a couple of songs from this era. One is Casting Crowns “Glorious Day” which took a old hymn and remade it into a Contemporary/Rock song. Even though the song itself is very old they make it into a very catchy song that would be appealing to people today with contemporary musical instruments. The second is “Give me your eyes” by Brand Heath. I chose this song because it is one of my favorites from when I was younger. I remember listening to this sone a lot back from my elementary school days.

 

Sources

Sanneh, K., & Cunningham, V. (2018, September 17). The unlikely endurance of christian rock. The New Yorker. Retrieved December 4, 2021, from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/24/the-unlikely-endurance-of-christian-rock.

Hevesi, D. (2008, March 4). Larry Norman, singer of Christian rock music, dies at 60. The New York Times. Retrieved December 4, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/arts/music/04norman.html.

Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, November 11). Casting crowns. Wikipedia. Retrieved December 4, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casting_Crowns.

Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, November 7). Hillsong Music (label). Wikipedia. Retrieved December 4, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsong_Music_(label).