40 Best Christian Rock Albums (that pushed the boundaries of CCM)

In alphabetical and chronological order, here are my picks for the 40 best albums that pushed the boundaries of what Christian rock could be. These by and large didn't get played on radio because they were either ahead of their time or said more than just the party line of mainline Christian evangelism. Several of these delved into philosophy, history, social justice issues, etc. before that was en vogue for Christian artists to do so. Those are my criteria for this list.

Many of these artists have lots of other deserving albums, but these are the ones that I believe propelled them past recycling the lowest common denominator CCM groupthought.

But they are all very excellent albums, a lot of fun to listen to, and are some of the things that helped to shape my faith and my understanding of Christianity.

Ping Pong Over the Abyss 77s 1982
The 77s 77s 1987
Sticks and Stones 77s 1990
Drowning with the Land in Sight 77s 1994
Art of the State AD 1985
Homeboys Adam Again 1990
International Anthems for the Human Race All-Star United 1999
Gut Level Music Altar Boys 1986
Lead Me On Amy Grant 1988
Exodus Andy Hunter 2002
Snakes in the Playground Bride 1992
The Secret of Time Charlie Peacock 1990
Love Life Charlie Peacock 1991
Alarma Daniel Amos 1981
Darn Floor, Big Bite Daniel Amos 1987
Delusions of Grandeur Fleming and John 1995
Flyleaf Flyleaf 2005
Miracle Mile Guardian 1993
Swing Swang Swung Guardian 1994
Tribal Opera Ideola 1987
The Book of Kells Iona 1992
Jars of Clay Jars of Clay 1995
Invisible Girl Julie Miller 1994
The Turning Leslie Phillips 1987
Soak Your Brain Lovewar 1993
Revolution Mind Magdalen 1993
The Big Picture Michael W. Smith 1986
Two Seventeen Pax217 2000
Sunday’s Child Phil Keaggy 1990
Freedom  Whiteheart  1989
Between Heaven and Hell Rez Band 1985
A Liturgy, A Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band Rich Mullins 1993
Rick Elias and the Confessions Rick Elias and the Confessions 1990
Spirit, Love, and Fire Southside Blades of Eden 1993
I Predict 1990 Steve Taylor 1987
Squint Steve Taylor 1993
Chase the Kangaroo The Choir 1988
Strength The Violet Burning 1992
Romeo Unchained Tonio K. 1989
Forum Undercover 1994

Over the next few weeks, I'll highlight each album and tell you why it deserves its spot on the list.

Existential Truth and the Eternal Jerkness of Being Right

 

Yes, I believe that what I believe about God is true at the expense of all other beliefs about God or Not-God being false. I own up to that cosmic bit of egoism in my chosen faith. However, I also believe that believing that does not now, nor has it ever given me the right to be an jerk about it or talk to other people without love and peacefulness in my attitude.

Fight Like a...

In light of current events recently (many of which are circulating on FB and other social network sites with lots of anger and vehemence in the comments) I would like to say again --

Fight ideas. Fight them with passion. But fight people with gentleness and mercy because we're all made of the same water and blood and flesh and bone, and ultimately we still need each other.

This holds true, I believe, even, and perhaps especially, to those of us who think we don't need anyone and those who think there are those among us we can do without (particularly from among their opponents). It's important to remember what John Donne taught us: that if even a grain of sand is washed away from the beach, the country is the lesser for the missing grain.

When we adopt violence or hatred ourselves, we only become part of the problem. Being strong in the face of an enemy is effective. But spewing back hate is not.

Gentleness and mercy don't necessarily mean being peaceful. You can embrace gentleness and mercy even during a battle. It's an attitude you bring into the fight with you. It's the opposite of writing hateful slogans back again the people who hate you. It's the nature of not making the fight personal of not vilifying the enemy.

Peace wouldn't have stopped the Nazis. But neither did American soldiers have to embrace the "Kill the nasty Krauts" mentality to fight them.

Peace won't stop those who endorse terror. But neither do we have to embrace the cultural attitude to hate the terrorists.

It is enough to have to fight them. It is enough to have to resort to killing them in some cases to stop them. But there's no reason to hate them too.

It gets down to the reason we fight. Changing things because it is right to do so, not changing things because you hate those idiots who oppose you and your truth.

Becoming like the enemy always lessens us and our position. It never makes us better.

When I err, granted, I err to the side of the turn the other cheek, civil disobedience, Ghandi-Martin Luther King Jr. side of fighting. I will always promote patient, slow, steady change over violent, expedient upheaval.

I think too many people on both sides of most cultural arguments nowadays would prefer a Russian Revolution (1905)/French Revolution approach, come what may, as long as they get they way, rights, political power, cultural control, etc.

I indict all beliefs and lifestyles in that, Christians, Muslims, Gays, Anti-Gays, Pro-Lifers, Pro-Choicers, you name it.

What saddens me is that for the most part among those I've known in these groups, WHEN they feel that way (and most don't feel that way, but sadly, some do), they have little regard for the people involved on the other side. They become mere straw men that are little more than symbols for "What we fight against."

As a Christian I have a mandate to pursue truth, but also to love people and follow the example of Christ. This is the ONLY way I can figure out how to do both.

Incarnation -- Not Just for Messiahs

Here at onset of Christmas, let's get one thing straight: Christmas is fun. Songs are fun. Carols are a blast. Presents are fun. Remembering family and friends and spending time together is fun. The story of the birth of little baby Jesus is fun.

But that's not what Christmas celebrates.

Wait... What?!

I had you with me until that last part, didn't I? Well, I stand by my statement. Christmas isn't about the baby Jesus and no crying he makes and all of his visitors (some of whom may or may not be biblical, but that's an essay for another time).

"Okay, smarty-pants," I hear you saying. "If Christmas isn't about the birth of Christ, then what is it about?"

Challenge accepted.

Are you ready?

Christmas is about the incarnation of Christ into the world. It's about something way, way beyond mere humanity emptying itself ("it" because we only ascribe pronouns to something that cosmically powerful in order to help us keep it in a box we can open and shut and package and name) and putting what it could of itself in a tiny package of human flesh. Christmas is about incarnation, pure and simple.

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14, KJV)

Christ (somehow one of a triune God whose physical nature I can't even being to remotely comprehend) became human. The closest approximation I could make is that I might feel bad for cockroaches who are getting close to poison so I let my big, human body become so completely cockroach that I could help those vile creatures hope to avoid the poison. But even that pales in comparison to the bigness of the truth of what incarnation really is, and not just because Christ genuinely loves us and I couldn't care two figs about a bunch of gross cockroaches.

God loved us and loves us so much that he sent Christ as his son to become human and take on all our sins and then die in our place. If that sounds like mythology, it's because it is, but not just mere mythology. It's the best story that can be imagined. It's the greatest myth of all. It's Prometheus with redemption attached. But best of all, it's true. It's history. But that doesn't make it any less mythic.

(Having typed that, I do realize that to those outside my faith admitting something that sounds so ludicrous that can make me seem like a clueless idiot who would believe anything. After all, it's designed that way. The wisdom of God comes off as foolishness to men after all.)

[Link] Is Sunday School Destroying Our Kids?

Several years ago I met with a woman distraught over her son’s rejection of Christianity.

She said, “I did everything I could to raise him right. I taught him to be like the ‘heroes of faith,’ with the faithfulness of Abraham, the goodness of Joseph, the pure heart of David, and the obedience of Esther.”

She wondered why he had rejected Christianity.

I wondered why it took him so long.

Here Is How We Destroy the Gospel Message

Look at almost any Sunday school curriculum and you’ll find the following:

• Abraham was faithful, and God made him the father of a nation. So be faithful like Abraham.
• Joseph was a good little boy (unlike his “bad” brothers), and God made him prime minister of Egypt. So be good like Joseph.
• David had a pure heart (unlike his brothers), and God made him king of Israel. So have a pure heart like David.
• Esther was an obedient girl. God made her queen of Persia, and she saved God’s people. So be obedient like Esther.
• Finally, if we fail to be good, Jesus will forgive us. (This comes as a PS tacked onto the end.)
• What’s so bad about these Sunday school lessons?

Nothing really. Except that they lie about God, they lie about these “heroes of the faith,” they lie about the Bible, and they lie about the gospel. Oh, and they create “younger brother” rebels and “older brother” Pharisees. Apart from that, they are pretty good.

Is the gospel our central theme, or is it a PS tacked onto the end?

The Gospel Is More Than Good Morals

We need moral people. In a world where darkness expresses itself in everything from petty theft to genocide, healthy morals enable us to peacefully coexist. And that is good. Essential, even. It just isn’t the gospel.

Continue reading: http://beliefsoftheheart.com/2014/12/02/is-sunday-school-destroying-our-kids/

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Editor's Note: For me what this article gets right is that we focus too much on teaching children that God loves the good kids and is willing to forgive the bad ones, but don't be a bad one. Whereas, the truth of the gospel is that we're all bad, through and through. Filthy rags and all that.

It is also testament to the reigning maxim of cultural Christianity that we are far busier looking for outward signs of what we believe is morality rather than inward signs of true Christlike character. Just my thoughts though. Your mileage may differ.

Life mottos

Sometimes people ask what are the goals, rules, mottos, etc. by which I live, and I tend to fall in the following three:

1. "I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now." -- Bob Dylan

2. “If by setting one's heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the Way. His whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling.” -- The Hage Kure

3. "Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends," and "I have called you my friends." -- Jesus of Nazareth

In short, live young, realize you could die any day, and always be ready to put the good of others ahead of yourself.

I figure if I can live this, I will have a full, satisfied life regardless of any situations that I may encounter.

Fred Phelps is Dead

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/20/us/westboro-church-founder-dead/

Fred Phelps did not represent my understanding of what it means to be a Christian. But if I treat his death like a holiday or rejoice in it (or Ted Bundy's or even Hitler's death) then I also  fail to represent my understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

As John Donne said so long ago, no man is an island, and every man's death diminishes me. We are all grains in the sand of humanity, and to encourage and be entertained by the death or destruction of another makes me less of a person in the long run. It's a tough line to walk because I want to hate Phelps. I want to despise him for his venomous statements and his hate-mongering and his propensity to showboating and grandstanding at what should have been personal, private occasions. But if I do, I fail as a member of my own faith, and I fail myself.

So, I'll let Donne sum up my thoughts with his own words:

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

And besides, I'm lying if I even try to believe my filthy rags aren't just as dirty as Fred's or anybody else. I'm just better at hiding them behind civil behavior.