YOUTH MINISTRY MINUTE

Group, May/Jun 2004 by Lawrence, Rick

the trojan horse

In Homer's Iliad the Greeks offer their sworn foes, the Trojans, a giant wooden horse, ostensibly as a peace offering. But after the unsuspecting Trojans drag the horse inside their city walls. Greek soldiers drop out of the horse's hollow belly and open the city gates to their army, which rushes through the gates and captures Troy.

We know this story well. In fact, "Trojan horse" is still a term we use in our everyday lives. In the computer world, a Trojan horse is a "destructive program that masquerades as a benign application." Often, these programs promise to rid your computer of viruses, but instead they introduce viruses.

I think youth ministry has its own Trojan horse, one that also promises to eradicate a terrible "virus" from our midst but often operates as a destructive virus instead. Its name is contemporary Christian music. Hang with me here...

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with a group of parents who meet monthly to explore issues related to parenting their teenagers. They invited me to talk about strategies for engaging their kids around their cultural influences-the music they like, and the TV shows and movies they watch. Much of what I offered these parents was a game plan for developing critical and biblical thinking skills in their kids.

When I told these parents the Christian music their kids listen to might be a bigger threat than Eminem, their jaws dropped. To them (as with most Christian parents) Christian music represents a welcome alternative to the sex-saturated, greed-motivated, disgusting mainstream music they hear spilling out under their kids' headphones. And in many cases, it is1.

But a lot of what's popular in today's Christian music has nothing to do with the real gospel-it's Trojan horse stuff. Eminem sings about hatred and misogyny-we all know these things are wrong, even the kids who listen to him. They're not really opening their gates to him because they'll never live their lives based on his worldview. Christian music offers a similar template for understanding the world, and kids do open their gates to it because it's, well, Christian. . .kind of.

Trojan-horse Christian music teaches that Jesus will make your life a whole lot more warm, fuzzy, and workable. In fact, my local Christian radio station bills itself, over and over, as "positive and encouraging." That's fine, except that the Christian life (as you know) isn't positive and encouraging for long stretches, nor was it ever portrayed that way in the New Testament.

I told the folks at the parent meeting that one reason Christian kids still gravitate to mainstream music is that it embraces the broad range of God-created emotions, including anger. "When's the last time you heard a Christian song portray the kind of anger Jesus leveled at the Pharisees?" I asked. You have to search for that kind of music on the fringes of the Christian music scene, not in its center.

I think CCM veers into Trojan-horse territory when it:

* portrays happiness as a kind of "birthright" that God can bestow on those who decide to sign onto his team. One popular Christian band sings: "We are all as happy as we make our minds up to be. I have just decided that nothing's gonna take this joy from me. Say, hey, it's a good day. Even if things aren't going my way. Jesus is Lord and I am saved. So say, hey, it's a good day." Well, there are a whole lot of kids out there who are having bad days, bad weeks, and bad years. Jesus prepared his disciples for those kinds of days when he said, "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you... If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you" (John 15:18-20).

* communicates that God's promise of eternal life comes to those who spend their life doing good things. Recently, we asked more than 10,000 Christian kids a series of questions about their basic beliefs. About four out of 10 (38%) said "a good person can earn eternal salvation through good deeds." That commonly held belief is not only wrong, it makes the sacrifice they just watched in MeI Gibson's The Pass/on of the Christ a horrific waste. Yet Christian music is still full of do-gooder theology.

* portrays God as the great fast-food intercom in the skywe order what we want, and a guy we don't really know passes us a bag through the window. One popular Christian singer describes God as a trusted service-provider: "Faithful are your ways. I always feel your grace around me. Quickly will I call, quickly will you answer my cry. Carefully will you bring everything I need in my life." Do we exist for God's pleasure, or does he exist for our pleasure? It's a crucial distinction not always made in Christian music.

The bottom line is this: Teenagers (and adults!) need to think critically and biblically about all the "truths" thrown their way by popular culture, including the Christian subculture. Troy learned the hard way-not every horse is a horse, of course.

1 There are great Christian artists out there-some of my favorites include The Normals, Andrew Peterson, Jennifer Knapp, Jars of clay, Rich Mullins, Polarboy, Vigilantes of Love, Chris Rice, Sam Phillips, Gillian Welch, David Wilcox, Bruce Cockburn, and, of course, U2.