The Christian Music Thread Genre • Page 92

“that deconstruction algorithm”

lol. Social media is wild. I do my best to bend my TikTok algorithm primarily towards cats and goth ladies.

 

Oh it’s a hole lol. I don’t even know how many people she follows anymore, but I’ve overheard an awful lot of very sad stories and personal information from complete strangers I’ll say that. She tells me that sometimes she’ll get sucked into a very depressing TikTok about someone’s baby that passed away after birth and suddenly that’s all TikTok wants her to watch so she has to start actively throwing the algorithm off toward more lighthearted affairs like the guy who cooks old recipes from the early 1900s.

 

lol, this kinda reminds me of my brother, who always ends up bringing up some really unpleasant shit that happened or is happening to people he knows when we’re just, like, hanging out with friends or family. Like, come on, lol, how’s that helpful?

 

What happened with anberlin and watashi wa?

 

Well, you can start here in this thread to see where the discovery was made that Seth wrote his latest Watashi Wa album geared toward his anti-vaxx views, along with the racist/misogynistic/homophobic stuff he was posting on Twitter before he realized we were all looking at his profile and he locked it up tight. As a result, a lot of the tweets in there are no longer viewable, but you’ll get the overall gist.

https://forum.chorus.fm/threads/eager-seas-mine-as-well-2018.45074/page-2#post-4855286

As for Anberlin’s involvement, Stephen was featured on one of the songs, calling people who were vaccinated “zombies” who can’t think for themselves. When some folks tried calling them out for it because they were going on tour with Watashi Wa, they ignored it and Stephen was very vocal about his support for Seth and the album thereafter.

 

It is generally displeasing to me that “right-wing social views” and “Christian” co-mingle so much

 

that’s pretty crazy. I saw them at FF and met Seth and he couldn’t have been a sweeter or kinder person. I just don’t understand how people can be that ignorant.

 

There are definitely plenty of us that don’t abide by the Christian=Conservative and it’s definitely very frustrating

 

Oh yes, I know. Seth always came across as a very levelheaded person years ago and I remember going to watch him play and being moved by his sincerity. I wrote a post in that thread about a podcast Seth did in the lead-up to the album release because I think that podcast was pretty illuminating in figuring out what exactly happened to him. Essentially, Covid/2020 really did a number on him.

 

@Nyquist i feel terrible that you had to experience all of that.

reading through that made me realize some of my own experience and what I’ve recently been referring to as trauma but have been made to feel weird about calling it that because I wasn’t abused or anything like that.

I’ll try to share my experience and thoughts on it later, if anybody cares.

I need to get ready for, of all things, VBS at our church tonight haha

 

I care! Trauma is trauma no matter how you slice it. You shouldn’t feel weird about it at all. If it had a profound impact and you know what it is, no one can take that from you. It comes in so very many shapes and sizes and stories and I really feel like we’re facing a cultural reckoning with a lot of it. I remember a long time ago in college I was working at a bookstore and one of my coworkers told me about something from her own past that really had her down, but she said she felt bad bringing it up because there are people in the world who have it worse. I told her outright, don’t do that to yourself. Does it matter to you? Then it matters. Just because there are people out there who are hungry and abused and dying and in dire need, doesn’t also mean your pain just magically disappears because of it. It all matters. There are parts of yourself that show up in your life to remind you of those times because they’re trying to communicate to you that they need you. Those parts of you that responded the way they did to whatever it was that happened to you at the time, they were just doing whatever they could to get you through it in the moment, and they’re still here. When they show up, it’s because they haven’t forgotten either and are looking for the one and only person who can give them what they need and you’re it. You matter and your trauma does just as well.

 

please do share

and also good luck, VBS is a loooooooooot lol

 

The agency I run is trying to hire a new chaplain, since ours is retiring. And it feels impossible to find a chaplain who is LGBT affirming and cool with left-leaning people.

 

Oh boy you aren’t kidding.

Day 2 down and I’ve decided I don’t like 3rd Graders.

Not to mention being outside for several hours and it’s still 100 degrees at 8pm

 

I've never been more tired than I was at the end of a week of bible camp as a counselor lol

 

All this goes to show that we can be thankful for threads like this where there has been (over a number of years now) a general acceptance of different views and different ways of expressing faith.

Also thankful for the faith based music that continues to inform, encourage and inspire.

 

Had a listen to this. Didn't hit me initially but there are some really nice layers on some of the songs. Need to spend some time with it.

 

Anyone have recs for some newer bands/artists that aren't problematic?

 

Alright, here it goes, and sorry for this being long winded/rambling...

Much of my upbringing is very similar to @Nyquist growing up in a small town in Texas going to the same Southern Baptist church that my Dad and Grandparents attended. I am unsure if this is what was actually taught or if it was more what my young child brain interpreted, but I vividly remember various points where things were said or comments made that made it seem like I was destined to go to hell if I did anything "un-Christlike" such as drinking alcohol, smoking, cursing, tattoos, piercings, premarital sex(although worded much differently), etc. I distinctly remember that seeming extremely daunting and realizing that that was a lot to strive for. I also recall at one point being told that only Baptists are going to heaven and all other denominations were seemingly going to hell, which even at the time made no sense to me. How can so many other people have this whole religion/Christianity so wrong that they aren't going to heaven too? I even remember my Dad telling me that he wasn't allowed to be a deacon or something at our church because my mother and him were divorced. To me, even then made me sad, and I think I realized how messed up that is/was. It was basically forced upon me for the first 13 years of my life that I had to go to church every Sunday morning and Sunday evening, and Wednesday nights, which Wednesday nights was actually quite fun, I got to see my cousins/friends, etc. and it didn't feel so church-y for lack of a better term.

Fast forward to being 13-14 and getting the opportunity to go live with my Mom and attend High School in a much larger city/environment. I went from a small town and having a class size of roughly 60, most of which I was related to some how, some way to being in a class size of close to 600, which I absolutely loved. Ultimately, this was the biggest turning point of my life, I was getting out of the small town lifestyle and actually able to see some diversity in the world and not feel so secluded and stuck and having more freedom. While in high school we started attending a non-denominational mega-church type of thing and I enjoyed that because I felt like nobody knew me and it wasn't so strict and confining as it previously was. That brings me to the point where I started discovering all these heavy Christain bands and Solid State/Tooth & Nail, etc and that excited me because I could still claim being a Christian but listen to music that didn't sound that way to most people and it was a huge part of my life at that time, as i'm sure it was for a lot of others here.

Fast forward to college and the internal rebellion really started, by simply getting my ears and lip pierced and getting my first tattoo! At that point I had denounced Christianity all together due to the extreme perception from my early upbringing, it didn't help that there was a fire and brimstone evangelical group at my college lol. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with God, Jesus, Christianity, religion, etc because to me i felt like i could never live up to those expectations of what a Christian truly is by the standards set throughout my childhood.

All of that changed when I met and started dating my wife. She grew up in a Lutheran household and Christian schools and whatnot but the way she carried herself and how she acted and still identified as Christian at the same time shocked me. In the early days of our relationship we would talk about all these religious, Christian things, but only when I brought them up because she knew that was something we differed greatly on.

In January 2020, I had a medical incident and passed out at work and busted my head open. This incident basically broke me mentally, to the point that I had nowhere else to turn to for help except to God and I started praying out of necessity/desperation. With help from a psychiatrist and getting on medication it changed my perspective on God and everything. My wife's 10+ year presence in my life and her never wavering faith, made me see what being a Christian truly looks like. Back in October 2022 we actually started going to a church regularly again, to the point that we actually became members just a few weeks ago. My main motivation for doing so is my kids, because we saw how much they've enjoyed going and what they are learning has been awesome to see. For me getting back into the whole church environment has been a whole slew of past experiences rearing there head here and there and i realize part of experiencing this is reconciling the past trauma with current situation, it's just been a lot to deal with at various times, and maybe this will only last for this particular season of my life who knows, but i'm definitely trying my best to stick to my convictions and teach my kids that while also still being in an environment with other people that have differing opinions and being okay with that.

 

Also want to add that the conversation yesterday re: deconstruction is something that I wasn't aware of until now and i appreciate it, because it is definitely a lot of how i feel about things and wasn't sure how exactly to express it or what it was.

 

Oh god, sooooo much of this is insanely relatable. Off the top, I’m very glad your wife was such an instrumental aid to you in how you relate to the world and your faith. So foundational to a strong partnership. While my wife came from the exact same church as me, she always approached the world of the faith from a completely different perspective, partially because she was removed a bit from a lot of the traumatic things my family and myself personally went through. When we first started dating she always knew I had a very difficult time being honest about my feelings toward the church and religion in general so she was pretty patient with me. I was extremely guarded and held a lot of my thoughts and feelings close to my chest out of fear of repudiation. I always had that fear grounded in me based on the verse about being “unequally yolked” and thinking she’d leave me, which I couldn’t bear. I lost her so many times over the course of my young life that I still have nightmares about it. So like you, it was a shock to my system as well to see things through her eyes and how easily she seemed to be able to remove herself from the views of those around her. Realizing she genuinely just loved me for who I am and always had was such a relief.

I remember being told the exact same thing as you about other denominations. I think for some reason I recall the “Methodists” being spoken about with particular disdain. And also that Catholics weren’t Christians either and were doomed to hell because they prayed to idols and confessed their sins to men rather than God or what the hell ever. I had the exact same thoughts as you about all of that, wondering constantly as a child how any of it made sense and where you were supposed to know the lines were drawn. Didn’t really seem like those lines should exist, let alone all those rules you mentioned about drinking, smoking, swearing, sex, “obedience”, etc.

My dad was and still is extremely devout and I always tell my wife that what hurts the most is that he never acknowledges anything that ever happened to me and will never carry on a conversation with me that doesn’t revolve around God, the Bible, and whatever scripture he’s memorized that day. I know that he’s disappointed in me and that he fears for the lives of my children. He has tried very hard on more than one occasion to push salvation on them and filled my anxiety ridden seven year old’s head with fears about hell. I know he looks at me as the black sheep. My older and younger sister both belong to churches and have baptized their children. My dad’s been front and center for each one, singing praise and worship songs as loud as possible for all to hear like he always has. Sometimes I want so badly to remind him that piety is a sin too. I just feel so distant from both of my parents and it makes me very sad, remembering the happy kid I was with such a close family before everything changed. I heard it described once as being with a group of friends, having the time of your life, when suddenly you all hear this song you’ve never heard before and you absolutely love it right away. You’re bouncing around excitedly when suddenly the music stops, but only for you. You’re then told by the adult in the room that not only do you not get to hear how the song ends, you’ll never get to hear it again. That’s when you look around the room at the others having fun singing and dancing together and building an experience together you’ll never again get to be a part of and you’re never more conscious than now that you are alone.

Therapy is a real game changer. My therapist told me, when I really started opening up about religion’s role in my life, that she’s Jewish and wanted to make sure it wouldn’t bother me or affect my ability to be honest. I remember telling her of course not and then feeling this nagging need to tell her how sorry I am that the Jewish community has been so historically oppressed and that my father played a role in that too. She smiled, said she understood my feeling the need to say that and thanked me, but then followed it up with a question I’ll never forget:

“But do you see, Tim, what your mind just did to you? After all these years now that we’ve known each other, how far we’ve come together, your mind still tells you, right away, “maybe she won’t like you anymore.” You have been living in fear for so long. Those parts of you, so afraid of being left alone again, do what they’ve always done best and step in to implement damage control. Let’s take a moment to thank them for their help, for helping you survive all this time. Thank them, and then tell them it’s okay to let go now because you’ve got this.”

 

Oh and yeah, the music part. When I look back I think my first degree of separation from the rest of my family started with Five Iron Frenzy. I then started reading the liner notes and which bands were getting thanked. I sought those out and that led me to Tooth and Nail. Never looked back after that. Developed an intense connection to Further Seems Forever and thanked god that my parents were cool with my selections because you could buy them in the Christian bookstore and obviously that meant something. Discovered Solid State as the hardcore branch of the label, and my parents were pretty skeptical about that lol. Tooth and Nail also led me to The Militia Group and bands like Copeland and Brandtson, and also several Floodgate bands like The Myriad and Forever Changed. I’m really grateful for all of those labels and bands at that time. A lot of them expressed things in ways I never knew how to say. When I found Pedro the Lion…hoo boy.

 

Been reading through these posts, and not to separate the conversation from the context, but I wanted to say this struck a chord with me and I absolutely relate.

Not because of anything religious, mind you, but just because of my own mental insecurities that I honestly still struggle with.

I remember when I went to therapy, my therapist would talk about the story we create in our mind. When you get used to seeing things a certain way, it gets hard to shake yourself out of those trappings. It becomes instinctual, almost.

 

Absolutely. It completely rewires your brain. My hardest hill really has been not only accepting the parts of myself that I’ve come to hate over the years for the way they’ve reacted to certain events, but also recognizing that they are not my enemy. I remember how awful it felt some time near the beginning of therapy when I said that it felt like my parents, the church, the person who took advantage of me, had broken my brain and she…didn’t say anything and just kind of nodded. I was sitting there like “…oh. Oh I see.”

 

I knew about the controversy surrounding that album but not the Anberlin stuff specifically. Didn’t Relient K and some others have their features pulled from the album at the last minute?

I have often wondered how Anberlin seems to get away without much criticism from people on this website because of lot of the stuff they’re connected with - Stephen with the evangelical scene and the church he leads worship at, the stuff you mentioned, etc. Things like that have led people around here to jump ship with other bands in similar situations. Yet with Anberlin, there still seems to be a lot of support for them and they are regularly posted about on the front page. I’m not stating an opinion either way, I just find it surprising.