The Devil's Music

A part of me cringed just a bit today.

The church I used to go to had a picnic, and I showed up just to say hi and bye to my friends. They had set up a speaker system next to the large gathering of those sitting in little groups munching on burgers, pasta and baked beans. It played background music...

... But the background music was CCM worship music. CCM criticisms aside, words about the glory, love, and power of God was, at that point, relegated to being background noise, nothing more than the equivalent of elevator music. Kickball, volleyball, barbecuing, bantering, all of the normal Memorial Day hubbub, was baptized and christened in CCM as opposed to classic rock or some of this weeks top 10.

Yes, some will say I am being too harsh... it's just a church social. It's just music. It's not like someone sat down, took music (supposedly) written for the explicit worship of God, and decided to desensitize it for everyone, using it as a cheap and clean substitute for the devil's rock and roll. It was unintentional, if it can even be considered an offense.

But this is why I'm sad and not angry... the fact that it was unintentional. The fact that music used to worship in one setting is used as noise filler in another, without bothering anyone, says something about the role of that music in our lives. It's not really set apart... it's just a replacement for the worldly version. In this case, I wonder what is more harmful, letting the sacred and holy become mundane, or "subjecting" ourselves to the mundane and worldly.

I had really wished they would have just turned up Classic Rock 103.7 or 99.3 The Buzz and broke out the brewskies instead. I could have at least gotten jiggy to Foreigner and Shakira.

To top it off, on my way out, a man in a wheelchair sat on the outskirts of the group, by himself, watching everyone else have a great time. Perhaps it was just that moment, and perhaps I'm wrong, but no one was talking to him and he looked a little alone. No one in that meeting of Christians, seemed to see him.

To make it worse, I saw him but continued on my way out even after making that observation.

"Jesus said, 'For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.' Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, 'What? Are we blind too?' Jesus said, 'If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.'" -John 9:39-41