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CCM’s Responsibility |
Our own practice of broadcasting the gospel should include something like the same balance of concerns that Jesus had, and still has, for people. This website invites clear-headed analysis of CCM recordings with an eye to the ratio of First and Second Great Commandment topics addressed by an industry that, by its very growth, has acquired the cultural responsibility to represent Scriptural emphases evenhandedly. The New Testament offers two more-or-less-congruent expressions of the Second Great Commandment's importance; one in Matthew's gospel, the other in Mark's. Matthew's narrative interestingly shows how Jesus, asked only about the First Great Commandment, seizes the opportunity to define the Second as well--as if to make sure that it cannot be dissociated from the First. In Matthew's telling, Jesus seems to hurry to include the Second before his questioners can say another word: Mat 22:34 (NRSV) When the Pharisees heard Although its service-mission work has been increasing for at least the last decade or so, the evangelical Christian community has at times been guilty of undertaking the "Great Commission" (Mark 16:15--"Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature") to the virtual exclusion of the Second Great Commandment. Some evangelicals think of the gospel as exclusively a verbal message primarily about eternal life in heaven--not a hybrid of words and actions speaking to the "horizontal" (earthly) as well as "vertical" (eternal, afterlife) well-being of the hearers. If asked how such an understanding leads to fulfilling the Second Great Commandment, such people may offer three common answers: (1) that the "vertical" part of The Message, being more important, automatically takes care of our "horizontal" obligation or reduces it to insignificance; (2) that the time-consuming work of showing concern for people's "horizontal" well-being simply delays the "vertical" presentation unacceptably; and (3) that there is danger in overemphasizing the Second Great Commandment, thus presenting a merely social gospel that may fail to direct unbelievers into following the First Great Commandment. On the other hand, evangelicals of different stripe may insist to a fault of verbal reticence on a Fransciscan notion of evangelism ("Preach the gospel every day. If necessary, use words.") believing that the verbal message is insufficient or cannot be understood thoroughly without nonverbal enactments. The CCM industry, like all of us individually, will do well to take its lessons about song-topics from Jesus's own hybrid ministry. His works of compassion for people's earthly conditions accompany, express, and embody the Good News. We need to teach ourselves again to sing about such compassion and to move each other--by singing--toward fulfilling our "horizontal" responsibilities as bodily expressions of the Gospel. Songwriters, performers, producers, recording-company executives: all need to take the responsibility to teach the "We" Gospel at least as much as the "Me" Gospel--no matter what marketing consultants may say at first. The spiritual selfishness ("Christian hedonism") of Christian music consumers may be a marketer's most valuable principle, but it must not be the basis for Christian songwriting--unless in satire. When the CCM industry has adjusted its own priorities and revived Christian-consumer taste for topical balance, even the marketers--out of whatever motive--will come around. And then perhaps Christian music can finally take the cultural lead, as it could (and perhaps should), in addressing social ills. See "Categories for Application of the
Preferred Fast" and “Barrier Ethics: A
Causal Chain” |
© Nathan H. Nelson, 1999/2000. All rights reserved.