George Perdikis, co-founder with Peter Furler of the Christian rock band Newsboys, has come out as an atheist. The band has always had at least one foot in the world. They were “influenced by everyone from the Police, Cure, and Rolling Stones to Keith Green and Jimmy Swaggart” (Jesus Rocks the World: The Definitive History of Contemporary Christian Music, vol. 2, p. 101), and, “Initially they played for the rowdy patrons of the local clubs and pubs, who threw beer bottles at them if they didn't meet their standards” (Ibid., vol. 2, p. 100). In his testimony, Perdikis says that he was only ever really interested in rock & roll and living as he pleased. He says: “I always felt uncomfortable with the strict rules imposed by Christianity. All I wanted to do was create and play rock and roll... and yet most of the attention I received was focused on how well I maintained the impossible standards of religion. ... I left the band in 1990 and went back to Adelaide. ... As I carved out a life for myself away from the church, I began my own voyage of inquiry into what I believed. My perceptions started to transform when I became interested in cosmology in 1992. I soon found myself fascinated by the works of Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Lawrence Krauss, Brian Cox, and Richard Dawkins. I learned so much and was blown away by all the amazing scientific discoveries and facts. When my marriage dissolved in 2003, I turned my attention to human psychology. By 2007, I renounced Christianity once and for all and declared myself an atheist” (“Co-founded of Newsboys: ‘Now I’m an Atheist,’” standupforthetruth.com, Jan. 22, 2015). For a man to believe that Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins are men committed to scientific facts is evidence of the grossest sort of spiritual blindness, which is always driven by the desire to walk after one’s own lusts (2 Peter 3:3). Perdikis concludes his testimony by saying, “The truth is--from someone who knows what went on then and what goes on now--the Newsboys aren't as holy as they profess.” That Perdikis is doubtless correct in this observation is obvious by the Newsboys’ history. Christian rock is worldly music produced by professing Christians who love the world. In the fourth chapter of his epistle, James pronounced Ichabod and Tekel (1 Sam. 4:21; Daniel 5:27) over the entire field of Christian rock with the following words: “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4). (Friday Church News Notes, January 23, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143) Comments are closed.
|
Archives
February 2020
|