{"id":1177,"date":"2007-07-24T15:46:27","date_gmt":"2007-07-24T15:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/introducing-burn-or-burn.html"},"modified":"2007-07-24T15:46:27","modified_gmt":"2007-07-24T15:46:27","slug":"introducing-burn-or-burn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/introducing-burn-or-burn.html","title":{"rendered":"Introducing &#8216;Burn or Burn&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"burnorburn.gif\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/import\/burnorburn.gif\" width=\"184\" height=\"106\" style=\"float:left;margin: 5px\">Growing up Christian means growing up conflicted about popular music. Different families and churches handle it in various ways, but it&#8217;s generally true that all secular music (What Everyone Listens To) is seen as either potentially dangerous or completely taboo, and all Christian music is God-ordained, having been baptized and all that.<br \/>\nFor many Christian adolescents and young adults, there&#8217;s a two-fold problem with this dynamic of their religious culture:<br \/>\n1. Christian music is usually not as good, and definitely not as hip, as secular music.<br \/>\n2. Some secular bands sing Christian messages, hail from Christian backgrounds, or occasionally sport Christian t-shirts. (&#8220;The record label says &#8216;EMI,&#8217; but they sure do seem to be singing about Jesus. And I hear their drummer goes to church!&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nThe issue of what&#8217;s Christian and what&#8217;s not is, therefore, complicated. It was easier when I was a kid, because secular labels were secular labels (with their Cure and their George Michael) and Christian labels were Christian labels (with their Amy Grant and their Michael W. Smith). But even then <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stryper.com\/\">Stryper<\/a> came along and confused things, and Amy Grant went all VH-1.<br \/>\nToday things are murkier, since most Christian labels are owned by major mainstream labels, and artists from Common to Arcade Fire have compelling religious undertones, and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.switchfoot.com\/\" target=\"_new\">Switchfoots<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrieunderwoodofficial.com\/\" target=\"_new\">Carrie Underwoods<\/a> of the world make any kind of doctrinal distinction in the pop landscape seem silly. Is it okay for a Christian band to create vague love songs that can apply to God as well as to human lovers? If a Christian band has a mainstream hit, has it sold out? What about all the sexy pop singers&#8211;Britney, Jessica, and virtually every American Idol contestant&#8211;who were raised in church? Are they somehow still sufficiently Christian?<br \/>\nIn short, what&#8217;s a Christian to listen to?<br \/>\nBurn or Burn is here to help.<br \/>\nFrom time to time, we will review a new album or video by a musical act that falls into this precarious borderland between Christian and secular. We&#8217;ll ascertain the meaning of the band&#8217;s message, and render a verdict: Either &#8220;burn&#8221; the album in the virtual bonfire, never to be listened to again for want of clear religious value, or &#8220;burn&#8221; the album onto multiple CDs and MP3 players and share with all your friends. (We&#8217;ll have two writers weigh in for one side each when it&#8217;s a major band or very important album. <em>That means you, R.E.M., so hurry it up<\/em>.)<br \/>\nNext up: Yours truly takes on the curious case of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mutemath.com\/\" target=\"_new\">Mute Math<\/a>.<br \/>\nFollowed by: Nicole Symmonds on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.common-music.com\/\">Common<\/a>&#8216;s latest release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Growing up Christian means growing up conflicted about popular music. Different families and churches handle it in various ways, but it&#8217;s generally true that all secular music (What Everyone Listens To) is seen as either potentially dangerous or completely taboo, and all Christian music is God-ordained, having been baptized and all that. For many Christian&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-burn-or-burn"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Introducing &#039;Burn or Burn&#039;<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/introducing-burn-or-burn.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Introducing &#039;Burn or Burn&#039;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Growing up Christian means growing up conflicted about popular music. Different families and churches handle it in various ways, but it&#8217;s generally true that all secular music (What Everyone Listens To) is seen as either potentially dangerous or completely taboo, and all Christian music is God-ordained, having been baptized and all that. For many Christian&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/introducing-burn-or-burn.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-07-24T15:46:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/burnorburn.gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Patton Dodd\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Introducing 'Burn or Burn'","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/introducing-burn-or-burn.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Introducing 'Burn or Burn'","og_description":"Growing up Christian means growing up conflicted about popular music. 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For many Christian&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/introducing-burn-or-burn.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2007-07-24T15:46:27+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/burnorburn.gif"}],"author":"Patton Dodd","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/introducing-burn-or-burn.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/introducing-burn-or-burn.html","name":"Introducing 'Burn or Burn'","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/introducing-burn-or-burn.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/introducing-burn-or-burn.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/burnorburn.gif","datePublished":"2007-07-24T15:46:27+00:00","dateModified":"2007-07-24T15:46:27+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/186e2b80f15c2a749e18f6781b9e4dbe"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/introducing-burn-or-burn.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/introducing-burn-or-burn.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/introducing-burn-or-burn.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/burnorburn.gif","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/burnorburn.gif"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/introducing-burn-or-burn.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Introducing &#8216;Burn or Burn&#8217;"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/186e2b80f15c2a749e18f6781b9e4dbe","name":"Patton Dodd","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/ea6\/ea67ccdc30915dc0263069ec4253344bx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/ea6\/ea67ccdc30915dc0263069ec4253344bx96.jpg","caption":"Patton Dodd"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/pdodd"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}