Christianizing Secular Music
Is it Watering Down or Creative Transformation?
a comment by Leah Headley (Hendrix College Student)
Christian Metal |
Christian Rap |
Christian Trap |
Christianizing Popular Songs
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A Comment by Leah Headley
In the Lyre of Orpheus, Christopher Partridge expresses his final comments on Religion with the succinct quote:
There have been two principal religious responses to this question: (a) the negative demonization of popular music as a profane threat to the sacred, and (b) the conversion of popular music from the profane to the sacred. (242).
For decades and decades, there has always been tension between secular music and "religious" music. This tends to follow the trends mentioned above. Those who avidly favor the Christian artists' productions often demonize the secular/profane. Those who favor the secular often dismiss the Christian artists' work as "not good enough."
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Partridge goes on to say that "without embracing transgression, Christian bands and Christian music festivals seek to replicate as closely as possible the affective spaces created by profane culture... All the key signifiers of profane subcultures are allowed with the bounded area of the sacred" (242).
The second sentence is primarily in reference to Christian music with Trap, EDM, and Metal undertones, arguably some of the most transgressive sects of popular music. In this way, Christian music provides a Splenda for those who prefer sugar.
This imitation however has more and more frequently begun to merge into duplication and replacement. Scrolling down my Facebook feed over the past few years, I have seen more and more posts of artists reimagining popular songs into Christian songs, without replacing style or tonality.
In the Lyre of Orpheus, Christopher Partridge expresses his final comments on Religion with the succinct quote:
There have been two principal religious responses to this question: (a) the negative demonization of popular music as a profane threat to the sacred, and (b) the conversion of popular music from the profane to the sacred. (242).
For decades and decades, there has always been tension between secular music and "religious" music. This tends to follow the trends mentioned above. Those who avidly favor the Christian artists' productions often demonize the secular/profane. Those who favor the secular often dismiss the Christian artists' work as "not good enough."
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Partridge goes on to say that "without embracing transgression, Christian bands and Christian music festivals seek to replicate as closely as possible the affective spaces created by profane culture... All the key signifiers of profane subcultures are allowed with the bounded area of the sacred" (242).
The second sentence is primarily in reference to Christian music with Trap, EDM, and Metal undertones, arguably some of the most transgressive sects of popular music. In this way, Christian music provides a Splenda for those who prefer sugar.
This imitation however has more and more frequently begun to merge into duplication and replacement. Scrolling down my Facebook feed over the past few years, I have seen more and more posts of artists reimagining popular songs into Christian songs, without replacing style or tonality.
Response from Jay McDaniel
Reimagining popular songs into Christian songs may be an instance of watering down or, to use a process phrase, creative transformation. Or both. Leah Headley's comments bring to mind the following:
- The transgression can be in the style and tonality, in the lyrics, or both.
- A song can be transgressive tonally but not lyrically, or the other way around.
- The sense of transgression will depend on the social context of the listener (consumer). What may seem transgressive for one may not be transgressive for another. Call it contextualized transgression.
- The value of transgression lies in the effects on the listener in his or her daily and emotional life. If some of the spiritual moods below emerge from the transgressive material, and if those moods are accompanied by constructive engagement with the needs of the world, the transgression has been productive, whether Christianized or secular.
- The very dichotomy between Christian and Secular is problematic for those who find the spirit of God in life itself, whether "religious" or "secular."
- When Christian music becomes overly sanitized, lyrically or tonally, it loses its transgressive power.
- When secular music bleeds into violence or objectification, it loses its spiritual power.
- The key is to bring empathy and discernment to the discussion.
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