Christianity in Metal
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We recently received the following humor in our inbox here at the ol' anus, and since this issue has been ripe for some time for a brutal reply, out came the pen and down came the iron fist. Read on for comedy and then a hard dose of reality for Christians, Jews and others who believe in supernatural beings, morality, egalitarianism and other unnatural, completely bizarre and delusional concepts.
Dear John, Thanks for sharing your viewpoint. Here's the basis of my argument against yours: Thesis: Metal is a romanticist movement which was inspired by the classical era of European humanity, including as part of its view many Romantic philosophical ideals which are pre-Christian in their derivation and anti-Christian in their values.
I. Black Sabbath
II. Metal After some years of heavy metal, the movement had solidified much of its artistic technique but had degenerated into hedonism, and fortunately was able to merge with the more dogmatic punk to form the first generation of speed metal. These bands were alarmingly preachy and leftist and as a result quickly self-destructed, prompting the extreme side of metal to go "underground" and dispense entirely with morality and, in the lead of heroes like Bathory and Slayer, who arguably invented the next generation, to preach an imaginative, Romantic "Satanic" outlook which like Black Sabbath was more fascinated with the occult than with preaching its values. The music of Slayer for example uses metaphorical Satanism to describe the errors and horrors of war, disease, violence and crime. Following these bands was a genre made more alienated by the increasing failures of society to recognize its error, and made somewhat bitter by the increasing resentment rising from a society (America at least) that in 80% of its members found an affinity for Judeo-Christian beliefs. Death metal and following it, black metal, as a result were more violent and more dogmatic toward Christ and Judea; part of this was inherited from their "hidden" ancestors in hardcore punk music, who as part of their alienated nihilism recognized religion as the social control mechanism which many of us allege it is.
With the state of metal now, virtually every formative band in the underground has taken a negative stance on Christianity (and many have attacked Judaism and Islam as well). This is a result of the evolutionary process within the genre detailed above. Times have changed since Black Sabbath, and to a perceptive youth of today the strengthening role of religion and secular moral symbolism derived from religion is not only clear but alarming. Consequently, the most popular metal genre ever, black metal, is unanimous in its destructive impulses toward Christianity and its parent religion, Judaism from the middle east.
III. Paradoxes in your logic I'm just going to write about this part of your message here.
There is obviously more to be said along these lines of questioning, but it's not necessary here. I'd like to close by mentioning something else: that every single "Christian metal" band that has ever existed has been a poor copy of a "secular" band. Even the most popular, "Believer," were a ripoff of an Atheist album coming out a year earlier. The separate nature of "Christian metal," and that the genre itself draws a clear distinction between "secular" and religious music, demonstrates how Christians view "Christian metal": a tool for preaching acceptable lyrics into a genre that has otherwise on the whole rejected Christ.
In our current time, Judeo-Christianity is not only dominant in social thinking but has become secularized and dominant there as well. Prior to Judeo-Christianity's arrival, concepts such as "morality" and "equality" and dualism were rejected by the inhabitants of Europe as insane or alien. After years of slowly working its way into that culture, Christianity became the dominant religion through its influence among the poor, the downtrodden, the pathetic, the less-capable and the spiteful. Currently, Judaism and Christianity are the dominant religions in America and most of the Western World. For example, both presidential candidates in the last election spoke extensively of their relationships to "God" and of the "morality" of their ideas, including vice-Presidential candidate Joseph Liebermann who considers himself "the moral voice of the Senate."
This article is not an attempt to smear the people ensnared by these sick ideas; on the contrary, I view them as "victims" also in that their consciousness has had a control mechanism implanted within it. This goes for secular people like yourself, who in good faith sit down and write me a letter like the one quoted above in which you espouse humanist ideals of "individual choice" and "belief." In the cases of believers however, those ideals do not exist; what does exist is conformity to an ideal of social control, and metal rightly rejects it.
At a time when the West is about to invade the Middle East in a crusade evocative of our last series of disastrous religious wars, it's time to recognize these religions (Christianity, Judaism) and their secular counterparts (humanism, egalitarianism) as the superstition that they are. Maybe the question should not be "Why doesn't metal accept Christianity?" but "Why aren't more people sane like metalheads, who reject this plague of illogical and delusional behavior?" S.R. Prozak Update!
Brief response: If religion comes down to faith, why does an individual need religion to express their faith? Whether or not most black metal lyrics are crap, the points remain regarding "Christian metal" lyrics. I think no ideology actually believes in individual rights, because to have the individual right to be against that ideology insures its own demise, so the intelligent ones at least will attempt to put a stop to that. The sneaky ones say they don't, but do anyway. My final question is: if Christians are really playing what they feel, why are they emulating secular bands?
Copyright © 1988-2008 the Dark Legions Archive |
Metal, in Black Sabbath and related bands of that era including King Crimson, Led Zeppelin, and Blue Cheer, reflected a tendency toward darker worldviews which could best be described as Romanticist in the spirit of the literature, art and music of the post-Renaissance in which artists disaffected with the humanism of the time sought a greater meaning than a moralization to existence through art. Poets like Keats, Wordsworth, and Shelley were a revolution against a secular Christian movement in which, despite little talk of afterlife and spirituality, a tendency existed for the first time in European art to preach a secular morality to which one adhered or drifted into the ambiguous, obscure and "evil." The works of those poets and others from the modern Romanticist movement were invoked by the similar themes of early proto-metal bands, including a fascination with the morbid and with ancient times, a desire for transcendence within the world itself, a ruthless sense of self-discipline and heroic character, and a desire for more significance in life itself more than a concern for post-death salvation.
1. First, if people should write about what they really believe in, why should they spread the dogma of a religion that they didn't invent?
"From these two religions we find at least all of our last ten presidents and their ancestors, and among the believers we find the owners of every major media establishment in the country as well as most of the smaller ones. Virtually every Congressperson has prominently featured in his or her campaign propaganda the Christian or Jewish nature of his or her morality, and most television anchors will make reference to secularized Christian moral concepts or the Judaic "God" in the midst of a supposedly objective broadcast. Before Judeo-Christianity, these concepts did not exist in the Western world; their sole origin is in the religions of Christ and Moses (who were both Jewish).
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