A large percentage of Contemporary Christian Music artists worship a rock & roll party Christ. The Eternal Jam Machine, which collaborated with Crystal Nicole in the newly released “I’m All Yours,” is built on the concept that heaven will be an everlasting rock party. Their first song, “Dancing in Heaven,” was advertised as follows: “God hereby invites you to the biggest welcome home party the world has ever known, with DJ Jesus in heaven. ... Eyes have not seen and ears have not heard a party like this before.” The party-dude Jesus is not the Jesus we see in Scripture. Jesus is indeed a friend of sinners. He came to seek and to save that which was lost, but Jesus is not worldly cool in any sense. Jesus’ disciples are not rock party dudes. There is no evidence that Jesus’ close friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were rock party people. When they were with Jesus, it wasn't party time; it was time to be discipled (Luke 10:39). The Jesus we see in Scripture warned all men to repent and “go and sin no more” and spent a lot of time describing the horrors of hell and warning men in the sharpest language not to go there, which would put a halt to any worldly party (Luke 13:5; Mk. 9:43-48)! Rob Williams of the Eternal Jam Machine describes the philosophy as follows: “Just because you are a Christian does not mean that your life has to be boring as though everything cool about you should be held back or denied. The truth is that your life should be the complete opposite of boring. God has a desire for his children to know that they are made in HIS image which means you ARE cool. God created cool and He gave each of us gifts to use and not to keep hidden for ourselves. God’s ‘cool’ is limitless and as His children we can inherit the character of God. He wants us to have fun and celebrate life in relationship with HIM, our Creator” (“Vision behind Eternal Jam Machine,” eternaljammachine.com). We don’t see this in the New Testament, not in the life of Christ in the Gospels, nor in the book of Acts, nor in the Epistles. While the Christian life is anything but boring, it doesn't have any element of “cool,” which is a concept derived from the world’s pop culture. Jesus never hosted a dance party for the disciples. The disciples didn't celebrate Christ’s resurrection with a dance party. They didn't have a dance party in the upper room while waiting for the coming of the Spirit. They didn't celebrate Pentecost with a dance party. What we see in Scripture is the call to walk as pilgrims in a fallen world filled with spiritual and moral danger, to separate from the evil things of the world (1 John 2:15-17), to avoid being a friend of the world which is called spiritual adultery (Jam. 4:4), to avoid even the appearance of evil (1 Th. 5:22), to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness (Ephesians 5:11), to live a life of self-denial (Mat. 16:24), etc. At the heart of the battle about music in the churches is the very character of God. (Friday Church News Notes, April 3, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143) Comments are closed.
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