Why Christians should not try and spiritualise secular music

Heard this pop song today whilst listening to the radio in my car this week with lyrics

“I keep going to the river to pray….”

Its a song called ‘Ghost’ by a someone I’ve not heard before called Ella Henderson.

Got me thinking, hmm, is there worship music in the charts these days?

In the past I would a secular pop song on the radio and be excited that had a ambiguous connection to following Jesus. Lets face it, most pop music has lyrics that don’t really make a lot of sense, its too symbolic and metaphorical for anyone to figure out in a simple fashion apart from the band members. I’ve heard one Christian from my home city of Portsmouth describe Bono from U2 as a prophet. Er, I really that is too much of a big award on a very good band that have some Christian background, I can show examples of good and bad lyrics from U2 but that’s for another blog post.

I keep google searchAnyway strangely when I Google searched for this song being curious, I was amazed to see this came up so quickly with only two words I typed!   Must be other people curious about this!

Heres are the lyrics from this track:-

I keep going to the river to pray
‘Cause I need something that can wash all the pain
And at most I’m sleeping all these demons away
But your ghost
The ghost of you, it keeps me awake…

I won’t post any more as to be honest, its a load of rubbish.

In my relationship with Christ, if I sleep through my troubles they get worse, this week I find myself waking up early (5am, sometimes 3am) to pray about something the Lord has put on my heart and stuff not right in my life, as I’ve neglected to find time during the normal hours to spend time with the Lord.   Sleeping anything away isn’t possible.

Washing away the pain can be done only by the blood of Jesus to counter our sins.    I’d ask this artist Ella Henderson do you have to go to the river and pray love? I think maybe if she part of some Indian religion (Hindu?) which the river Ganges is significant for a particular faith.    Really a lot of modern culture wants to take their favourite bits of various religions and meld them into something that someone finds agreeable.

Here’s another song that makes no sense.

“I wish I was a punkrocker with flowers in my hair…” This was a 2005 song I remember but by an artist I also don’t know so well called Sandi Thom (sounds Scandinavian)

Eh?  when did people where flowers in their hair in the punk scene?   Here’s Ms Thom’s Wikipedia page. Er, shes born 1981. So shes not going to remember the punk era.   The punk era started around 1977 spikey hair into a coloured brush type shape, piercings, tshirts and leather jackets which made it peak in pop music with bands like the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, the Clash, the Damned and more.   This rebellious new wave in pop culture was as radical in its attitude as well as in its fast tempo and loudness.   But wearing flowers in your hair is probably apt to the Mommas and Papas song from 1967.

If I’m honest, I probably only have 10 Christian CDs out of 250, I’ve not got into a lot of Christian music, as my music diet has been stuff I heard on radio, TV and through friends over the years.

What a I trying to say?  If someone knows Christ then they will sing or proclaim him without any ambiguity.    Jesus was straight forward in his sacrifice for us, so we don’t need to be too symbolic in proclaiming him either.