Let’s Get it Right

Today, I was listening to a Christian house mix, yes there are Christian DJs that spin house and some of it is really cool.  I love techno and house mixes, and when I found a website that promoted Christian house mixes, I jumped on it.  However, the second song that I listened to really disturbed me, so much so I felt it was necessary to discuss its theological inaccuracies and its impact on our generation in this blog.

In our generation, our culture has several misunderstandings of proper biblical doctrine and many things we promote are not theologically informed.  We have some serious problems, even as Christians, with our biblical understanding.  We say and promote things that are not biblical and thus they become very dangerous to our generation.  We can easily find this in the health, wealth and prosperity gospel that is being preached in many of our churches, in music, in media, and books.

Truly, I believe many believers don’t know that they are promoting biblical and theological inaccuracies.  I would even extend this to some pastors who unknowingly preach this dangerous gospel (But as the bible points out, even if they don’t mean to damage the Gospel, they will be held accountable to what they preach).  These inaccuracies stem directly from a nation full of people who fail to seriously read scripture and meaningfully reflect on its implications to life.

The song I was listening to had a line that went like this:

“Once you learn to love yourself you can love someone else. 
‘Cuz He watches over you.
Yes, ‘cuz He watches over me.”

First, that statement doesn’t really make much sense as far as the cause and effect relationship they imply.  But that really isn’t what bothered me.  It was the first line: “Once you learn to love yourself you can love someone else.”  This statement has to be the result of the self-help era that has plagued our culture, and unfortunately as soon as you think it is ending it comes back in full force.  (Ironically, and sadly, it occasionally gets a boost from the Christian church)  The self-help theory is basically the world’s way of dealing with low self-esteem, or someone who is not satisfied and unhappy with themselves and/or their current living environment. 

Why did it get under my skin so quickly and painfully?  It preaches skewed doctrine. It points people struggling in life to themselves before it points them to Christ.

Matthew 22:34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Christ amplifies the Leviticus law of love others as yourself, to first point believers to Himself (the fulfiller of the law, the perfect, the savior).  In order to love others (and yourself) you must first learn to love God.  This is a first and a must.  You cannot do the latter without the first.  There is no self help in scripture; there is only a redefining of the paradigm and a conforming to the one who saved us.  So how do we love?  We simply receive the love that God has showed us as defined by the Gospel. (Read John Owen’s Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost)

This song, and many other self-proclaimed Christian books, speakers, and pastors are buying into the world’s view on self-esteem and promoting self-help instead of a life transforming, soul empowering, undeniable, overwhelming free gift from God.  The idea that a Christian Self-Help book can even exist is absurd, yet in almost every Christian book store there it is, the aisle named “Self-Help.”

Please read the bible.  Seek to understand scripture and study it, don’t just clothe worldly quick fixes in a Christian façade of language.  Truly, the only help there is for the lost and suffering is the hope of Christ.  Our generation must learn to deny the self-help mentality and begin to embrace scripture. When we do that we can begin to produce songs that are gospel based and theologically informed.  This will glorify our God, by singing the testimonies of Christ.

TagsCulture, Love, Music, Self-help