Providing a critique of pop culture, analyzing secular trends, the media, and Western worldviews.
The Scholar's Corner exists to challenge the Church to higher righteousness and to engage contemporary culture with the claims of Christ.
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Dear Amy,
I am continually astonished by the way we, in the Body of Christ, shoot our wounded.
Knowing that you are a victim of the ignorance, small mindedness, and prejudice
of our own brothers and sisters, I wanted to write you a letter of thanks.
I appreciate what you have suffered for the sake of the Gospel. Since I don't
know how to reach you or know that you would find this letter among the thousands
of letters that come your way each day, I thought I would write you an open letter
in hopes that someday you will find this message and it will be an encouragement
to you.
First of all, let me thank you from the bottom of my heart for teaching me about
the beauty and graciousness of our God in music. You turned me on to Christian
music. Before I heard El Shaddai, I thought all Christian music was
insipid, boring, dull, uncreative or syrupy sweet. I loved the old Christian
masters, like Bach, and I loved a lot of hymns, but contemporary Christian music
was bland and unchallenging, created for those who had no ability to believe
in the power of the Gospel for today. Reactionary Christians retreated from
the world, and blamed you for being different. Traditionalists failed to reach
contemporary culture with a relevant message. They thought it safer to go back
to the old ways than engage the new world with God's message of Love. You, however,
went out into the world to preach and reveal that message of power.
Your music revealed that we, the people, could actually enjoy God and
sing with our whole heart and mind and strength. Your music showed me that
energy, creativity, and power could be combined with love to express the glory
of God and the joy of our salvation. Your music changed my attitude, and I thank
you for it. Thank you Amy. I wanted you to know that I still appreciate your
gift after all these years.
So, it was with great distress that I witnessed the attacks against you by others
who would rather sit at home and criticize than fulfill the Great Commission.
You reached those outside the Church with a relevant message of the Good
News. I could not believe the lack of understanding of these "Christians"
who attacked you because you did not conform to their dull and ineffective
tradition of insular Christianity, which reaches out to no one outside the walls
of the "church" with the message of salvation. You were criticized
by the Body of Christ for doing what Jesus told us all to do: Go into all
the World and preach the Gospel. The narrow minded people heaped their criticisms
upon you for doing what they failed to do. It was unbelievable. I am sure you
were deeply wounded by this mistreatment, and I wish I had had the power to come
to your defense. But alas, I was no one respected and had no voice to
stem the tide of banality and vindictiveness vented against you. I am sorry,
my sister, that you suffered so. What part this rejection played in your subsequent
difficulties in life and marriage, I do not know, but surely being crucified
continually by fellow "believers" could
not have helped you in your struggles. It must have felt like you had been abandoned
by God's own family. There seems to be this weird desire among us to crucify
those who are blessed and actually succeed. It is a form of perverse
greed I think when we rejoice more in someone else's difficulties (simply because
they do not agree with all our petty ideas and doctrines) than we rejoice when
we see the successes of salvations come through their labors. It speaks of
an evil, jealous heart on our part. We would rather have someone else fall and
thousands be lost forever than see God succeed through plans and methods of
which we do not approve.
Having suffered rejection myself by the Body of Christ, I can state with some
sympathy that I am sure you have been made much wiser by God through this ordeal.
You have come to understand, as have I, why Jesus did not "trust himself
to mankind, because he knew himself very well what was in man." And perhaps
you understand also, what David went through when he found more comfort and safety
among the Philistines than he did among his own people, his own faith, and his
own kind. I once wrote an article about the irony of acceptance: that it is easier
to find unconditional love in your average
bar than it is in your average church.
In churches, we are first presumed guilty and then judged instead of given mercy
and the benefit of the doubt. It is no wonder why Jesus found
better fellowship among social outcasts, tax collectors, and prostitutes than
he did among the religious people of is own day.
We, in the Church, are such
hypocrites! It is odd that the standards and expectations imposed upon you
as a musician are so different from those imposed upon other believers by the
Body of Christ. For instance, no one criticizes believers who are leaders of
secular corporations for "working for the world instead of for God." How
is it then, that you could not be a Christian and also be a musician whose calling
might be to work in the secular music arena and give your testimony in the marketplace
just like other business leaders? Why is a higher standard imposed upon musicians?
Is it because we are idolatrous and worship them as better than other brothers
and sisters in Christ? Do we make them out to be heroes who are somehow more
"worthy" and perfect, and, in putting them up on pedestals, do we take
away their right to be human? What narrow, vindictive idiocy pervades the "Christians" who
would criticize your evangelistic calling? It is pure hypocrisy, and I wish to
say to all who have judged you with such foolish standards: "Leave Amy alone,
she is my sister in Christ."
I think, Amy, I also understand why you are glad to be free of the constraints
and shackles imposed upon you as a "Christian musician," and have
instead identified yourself with regular, old Country music. I am sorry for you
and for our sake that it has come to this, but I am sure that you have found
more normal people, with saner heads, among your current fellowship than you
had when you were yoked to the unrealistic expectations of the religious idealists
among us. Dare I say it? The Pharisees rejoiced to see Jesus fall and be crucified.
Their lust was not satisfied till they saw the blood draining from his veins.
When you failed to be a "perfect" Christian, our present day Pharisees
were no less intent upon seeing you bleed. God forgive us and have mercy upon
you for what you have suffered on His behalf. You bear His stripes and know what
He felt.
Amy, I sincerely hope that your new life is blessed and much better than the
previous one destroyed before our eyes. I just ask you to remember that there
are a lot of us thinking believers out there who accept you, miss you and your
gifts, and would enjoy a new song from you unto the Lord. Only this time, do
in under a secular label for
all our sakes!
Love,
Your Brother in Christ,
Jeff