The Tulip Driven Life

By: Jared Jeter Christians often seek to “engage” their surrounding culture through the arts. Some do this for the sake of evangelism, others so they can have “Christian” versions of things they enjoy. Still others seek to reflect God’s glory in the art they produce. None of these are inherently bad goals. Christians should produce art to reflect God’s glory, to enjoy the art itself, and to utilize for evangelism. Since “Christian” art should intentionally reflect God’s glory, Christians must do art well. Christian music has long been marvelous at this, as the music of men like Bach and Handel evidences. Recent Christian music, however, has often failed. In order to reach the people of the culture, many Christian musicians have sought to divorce the medium from the message in favor of taking popular music and inserting Christian lyrics. The medium and the message often do not mix, leaving the music fragmented and incoherent, thus not fully reflective of God’s glory. One alle...

I love Shai Linne. His lyrics are incredible. His latest album seems to be of high quality musically as well. Lecrae lays it down every time, though I think he certainly mixes more entertainment in there, which is why he is so popular. And I am okay with that. What does concern me is trying to have it both ways- entertainment and worship, all at once. That can't be done. There's the rub. I checked out Sam Guzman's article  here . It's a few years old, but relevant to this discussion. Guzman argues that music itself has a message, not just the lyrics. With that I agree wholeheartedly. I used to deny that vehemently. But when you start going to St. Andrew's, Sproul's church, and get good teaching from the professors at RBC, you have a hard time denying there is something to music itself having a certain mood, and that some words, themes, concepts, and lyrics are more suited to a particular tune than others. Having said that, I find reformed rap, stripped down t...