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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   3193 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 16, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Good morning. I have two questions:

  1. Any suggestions on good websites/forums on Christianity that are by and for Christians? The subreddits (Christianity, Christian, and TrueChristian) aren’t very good for a variety of reasons.

  2. Is there any good Christian music (rock, folk, country) out there? I hear songs here and there, but a lot of it isn’t very good.

Thanks!

Edit: THANK YOU EVERYONE! Great suggestions. Already started listening.

I'd second Hoffmeister's statement that there is some very good Christian music out there, it's just that the ones that don't tend to explicitly evangelise are typically not classified as "Christian music". One folk artist I particularly like is Sufjan Stevens, who incorporates a ton of Christian themes into his music and does it in a very natural and sincere way. His lyrics are often not explicitly about religion, but you'd have to be mentally challenged to miss the constant allusions to faith in it. I have recommended this multiple times now to multiple different people, but his album Carrie and Lowell is probably one of the finest folk albums I've listened to.

This was a great suggestion! I only knew his Christmas music, which I loved, and I knew that he was a Christian, but that’s about it. I listened to Carrie and Lowell and it blew me away. Beautiful and sad and haunting. I actually listened to a good chunk of it while on a walk on a beautiful day that led me to a church I hadn’t known was there. I don’t want to be cliche, but I had a bit of a “religious experience,” in a way. I’m going to keep listening to other albums he has done. Thank you!

Listen to Wovenhand: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y4p9Iv4agb0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=F2D98Y1p3eU https://youtube.com/watch?v=YWUESqoZ7xAe

If you do discord Paul Vanderklay's bridges of meaning server is worth looking at: https://discord.gg/KCfju3Ts Its not strictly only for Christians and hard to really encompass the weirdness of the project, but there is overlap between what goes on here and what goes on there. See this conversation with one time Mottemod BJ Campbell and Paul Vanderklay: https://youtube.com/watch?v=FY4Fil_nB_c

/r/DankChristianMemes?

For 1, I'm not on it, but puritanboard is out there, if you fit the demographic. (see also /r/reformed, though those are pretty different, despite largely agreeing on a bunch of things—not really too well acquainted with the other two you listed, but it's leagues beyond /r/Christianity)

Is there any good Christian music (rock, folk, country) out there?

Uh, more or less everything U2 made up to Achtung Baby?

This is an opportunity for me to bust out my nonbeliever’s defense of Christian rock from a few years ago. There’s a ton of great Christian-inspired music out there, it’s just that a lot of it is hiding in plain sight! The commenters telling you that contemporary Christian music is uniformly terrible are ignoring all of the music that’s not just going “CHRIST CHRIST CHRIST HAVE YOU HEARD OF CHRIST”, likely because they’re missing the blatant Christian themes unless they’re being beaten over the head with it.

Is there any good Christian music (rock, folk, country) out there? I hear songs here and there, but a lot of it isn’t very good.

What's some music you like in general?

There's lots of great old folk in the "Wayfaring Stranger" camp. Lots of God-haunted classic country.

Not in those genres, but very American feel -- I had this on repeat through a long Utah road trip: https://youtube.com/watch?v=WQIbsm8VVLg

Despite some well eared mockery of Devil Music, the church ladies of a couple generations back may have been right that rock does not mesh so well with Christianity, and it's really hard to get true Christian rock that isn't kind of stupid. I listen to Christian pop anyway, out of nostalgia (Gungor, Andrew Peterson, "Build a Boat" by Colton Dixon "Kyrie Eleison" by Citizens...), but will not vouch for any of it being good

Thank you! I’m give some of these a listen. As for me, I’m pretty open with music. I tend to love folk, singer-songwriter stuff, power-metal, pop-punk/emo, country, alt-country, and whatever The Police count as.

Is there any good Christian music (rock, folk, country) out there? I hear songs here and there, but a lot of it isn’t very good.

Bob Dylan's 80s oeuvre is not to everyone's taste, but it's certainly better than what you would tend to find in the 'Christian Music' section of the record store. (if there were still record stores)

EDIT:

Actually now that I think about it a big chunk of his whole damn oeuvre post 1965 or so is deeply informed by hard reading of obscure biblical verses -- this one is technically part of the 80s oeuvre, but didn't make the cut for his albums at the time; try it out and see if you aren't mad as, uh... heck:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LC2roZjsv44

More laid back, deeply Christian:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=L22Ipc4F95U

Modern Christian music as a genera is (ironically) 100% soulless garbage retreads of pop but with all the nono words and impure thoughts stripped out.

There is really good Christian music (Johnny Cash's The Man Comes Around for example); but it isn't categorized as Christian.

That said, there us about 1200 years of really excellent liturgical music to be had if you like choral or classical or bluegrass stylings.

On (2), contemporary Christian is mostly terrible, but if you like classic country style then bluegrass has quite a bit of fairly good Christian themed non-hymn music, albeit with a more fundamentalist theological bent than you’re probably looking for.

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