Russell Moore introduces a thoughtful post about how the subjects that are sung about by people outside the Christian faith should be thought about and considered from a Biblical perspective.
I think it is a balanced and well-considered approach that does not slide into prohibition or permissiveness.
A few weeks back I posted a question from Coal Miner’s Daughter, a mother who asked whether she, like her parents did before her, should play country music in front of her child. (Her question can be read here.) Y’all gave your responses. Here are my thoughts on the question.
It’s amusing:
When I was a very young boy, I came under the fiery chastisement of my grandmother because I was singing Conway Twitty songs. I think the song in question contained the lyrics, “I can tell you’ve never been this far before.” Or maybe it was the Twitty classic, “Darlin’, how I love to lay you down.” Whichever it was, she told me it was “nasty.” I can remember wondering how on earth songs about geography or napping could be “nasty.”
Sometime in my teens, I was humming along with Mr. Twitty and stopped to think: “Oh. Wait. I get it now.” And then I didn’t want to see my grandmother for at least six months or until I had completely forgotten about Conway Twitty, whichever came first.
And thoughtful:
But this prudence doesn’t mean sheltering your child from the dark side of life and from the consequences of sin, even in lyrical form. Quite the contrary. Part of the power of temptation, after all, is to mystify sin as that which is forbidden and thus desirable (see the serpent’s line of questioning in Genesis 3). The sin is then presented as being free from future consequences (again, listen to the snake’s words).
The Bible takes the opposite tack. God never glorifies sin. He tells us about it honestly, including the fact that it is often temporarily pleasurable (Heb. 11:25), and then he shows us the wages sin demands.
Think, for instance, of the father’s counsel to his son in Proverbs 7 about sexual immorality. The father describes, in poetic detail, what leads up to such an encounter, why it would seem to be so desirable. But he gives the telescopic view of the sin, including the deadly end (Prov. 7:22-23).
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