The Church Sofa

We’re sharing the sofa with Amanda today, who is wondering about God, and what would he be playing if he really was a DJ:

If God was a DJ, He’d rock

In case you were wondering, this particular conjecture comes from Planet Rock, digital radio station ‘where rock lives’, doorbell playing the intro to “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple.

Being a bit of a rock fan myself, and therefore subjected to the above statement several times a day, I’ve thought about it quite a lot. It’s fair to say that God does like a bit of loud music – just look at the party Nehemiah threw when they’d finished rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem! But would he confine himself just to rock? Or even tolerate rock? It is, after all, often thought of as the root of all musical evil – and plenty of other evils as well.

But is that really fair? Just like anything else it has it’s extremists and bad people. Even churches have those – but at the end of the day, you know it’s not down to us to decide who’s right and who’s wrong. You just have to look at Jesus in the Sermon on the mount – the part about trying to get specks out of other peoples eyes when you’ve got a dirty great plank stuck in your own. It seems to me that most people’s opinion of rock is a bit like that in some ways.

It’s the general idea that all rock stars & fans are long haired black leather wearing miscreants that’s a bit unfair for a start (well, my hair’s getting there, but black leather ??).(Are leather jackets ok? – Editor) And don’t they all bite the heads off chickens or bats or something? You might be surprised to know there are actually Christian rockers out there in the ‘mainstream’ world – Iron Maiden’s drummer is a Christian and of course there’s Alice Cooper, Mr Halloween himself, also describing himself as a Christian. I do have to concede here that I’m really not at all sure about how exactly that fits with the contents of his shows…but let me draw your attention to Romans chapter 2 – a warning against the judgement trap again. Who is perfect, after all? Not me, that’s for sure. Should I ever run into Mr C (unlikely, but you never know!) that is something I’ll be asking him about. As this exciting scenario has yet to take place, we’ll just have to leave that one as something between Alice and God.

Perhaps instead of questioning their sincerity, we should be admiring and praying for these people. Although they’ve changed their outlook on what they do and all it’s trappings, they’re still there, standing up for their new selves, trying to live it out – in the world, if not still of it. Surely that’s just what we’re all supposed to be doing? With the previous reputations of these guys maybe they’re just doing it on a grander scale, and so much more publicly.

So – if God were a DJ, he might rock – just a bit. But do you know what I really think? I reckon He’d be a bit more Radio 2 actually – something for everyone, nothing too ‘out there’ to be included – as long as it came with the right heart.

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