Christian Rock Documentary PART: B

Seriously.

It pains me to post this, because I am not really happy that the term "christian rock" exists and that there's a whole money making scheme in it that subverts even the most honest "believer" on their quest for whatever.

At the end this pointless tirade is a clip from the Christian Documentary on Christian music entitle Bleed Into One: The Story Of Christian Rock.

Love it or hate it. Take it this for what it is, another branch into the American psyche.

Half of me wants to deny I was even part of this and put as much distance between me and it as possible, but the truth is, is that I know why I was out there doing what I was doing and it wasn't to make people into Jesus followers. It was to just love people. To be with them doing something I liked and with a furious passion. Sharing that with them. It was a good time in the smelly van roving from town to town for 5 years playing as punk rock as one could flying in the face of an entire religious way of thought.

Here's my opinion and my history. Though you've not asked for it. I didn't grow up on Christian music. I rather was in a household during my formative years that attended a church where even that kinda of music was satanic. So I grew up on a steady diet of County & Western Gospel music. I got to hear a lot of Johnny Cash tunes, prior to his resurgence in the mainstream, when I was a kid. Fortunately, my parents weren't as convinced "the devil" was in all music. Also, thank God for the early 80's cable channel MTV and two older brothers, about 8 years or so older than I, who had led me early on into things the Beastie Boys and Metallica.

My growing up was a lot of me from the time i was 6 or 7 on up watching my older brothers fight to use music as their expression and voice and be turned down time and again by "the Church". My oldest brother felt that if "the world's" music was the problem then maybe he'd be allowed to listen to the Christian band Stryper. Not so, says the Church. Stryper in all their relevance to the mid-80s glam rock was still satanic. So this led my brother to just quit trying to do what he thought was right since it got turned down at every instance and just flea the whole culture of Christianity.

That's what I watched for over 10 years. During those years, I decided some of this music spoke for me and moved me too. I started where my brother left off. I inherited a tape somehow of Metallica's - Black Album and that's when I discovered my love for the guitar. I didn't know if I, as a 11 or 12 year old kid still at the same church with my parents, was allowed to listened to it, but I did regardless. I found out it wasn't welcomed but it was permitted for me to listen to. I later found that there were other bands who where just as good and entirely fascinating to me and claimed to be Christian too. What!? This boggled my mind. It was metal and hardcore punk at its finest. At least to me. this was maybe 1991 or 1992 (or it could be later, my memory is a spotty of when this actually happened). The band was the Crucified and the song was Hellcorn, and I learned of them by way of compilation that had a bible verse on the front. Weird! But it was good.

Moving on I collected a bunch of hip-hop from Christian record stores as that spoke to me as well and then the thing that no-one could stop. Nirvana. Nirvana wasn't Christian, but it began to teach me a lot about my self and the way I saw te world around. I used to spend many days after highschool with my friends I grew up with hanging out in Kent, Ohio on campus at a coffee shop called Brady's Cafe trying to commune with the vibes of thinkers and creators of earth shattering things past. At the end of '94, the year Kurt Cobain died, I took a trip to Seattle for some family things and this put the capstone one my worldview of music and passion.

I joined a hardcore band not really all too long after. One that spoke for me. I just wanted to love people and show them love. So the hardcore I played was within the context of Christianity as I saw it, but not as the Church would have it. We were passionate people touring the country side playing with many bands who shared a similar and some time distinctly different worldview. It was one of the best times in my life.

Which brings me to my uncomfortably with this film. I don't like ANYTHING that comes in the name of Love and sells it to you. I don't like anything especially that sells you any part of your identity back to you even if it's “lite” on the dogma.

I played music with a handful of the bands in this documentary and most where more punk rock against American Christianity than the other half. They other half wanted a paycheck and found a quick way to turn that around. I know that's a broad statement, but it's the truth as well.

My friend, musician and sometimes Subpopular writer, Stephen Sarro who also has had his share grief while trying to balance a heart that wanted to love people and an organization of people saying you can't do it that way.

To put it bluntly the Church and the Christian industry don't take too kindly to honesty. So songs from people who claimed to be Christian that were about human nature, masturbation and the like was absolute heresy.

So I have issues with Christian music, as a "label" or an idea, and more so because it's a heresy unto itself. To be be something entirely rebellious or freeing and then to again limit and regulate it is a heresy more than just writing it all off as Devil music as the Church of the 80's did.

I believe there is a clip of Bill Powers (one time president of Solidstate Records and member of the Art Rock band Blenderhead in the early 90’s) in this trailer stating that he believes “music is just music”. There should be no difference in the way you handle a bunch of bands that grew up in a youth group and a band formed in a shitty trailer in a trailer park by a bunch of 14 year olds that like skateboarding and listening to Helmet and Pantera. Sadly there is a difference for some reason.

My favorite thing about this clip is the Southpark episode about Christian bands. Probably the most accurate take on the whole thing.

So this film, if you are unfamiliar with the "genre" of Christian Rock and what it was and what it is now should be something I'd would recommend watching.

It will be informative and either make you A. Laugh, B. Vomit, C. Shake your head in disgust, or D. Feel afraid.

If the film, as Stephen Sarro says, is done correctly it should done minimal of the aforementioned reactions and maybe enlighten the world on something that happened to alot of people and is happening. And how those people (me, Stephen Sarro and others) are dealing with it now.