03.05.07 An Insider’s Look At Christian Radio Pt.4: Positivity Or Phylactories

My friend Brant is a smart guy.  He uses words like “phylactories”.  Yes, phylactories.  He used that once.

I’ll one up him though with the Hebrew version: tefillin.

Boo ya!  Anyone can whip out a Greek word.  I just went Hebrew on you, Brant

OK, in-your-face-ness aside for a minute.  Brant once said - I’m paraphrasing - that a Christian radio station isn’t a church so it can’t do all the stuff a church does or be held to the same standards we hold churches to.  Totally agree.  A radio station can, he said, be like phylactories in the Jewish faith.  Phylaca-what?

Phylactories are small leather boxes containing tiny scrolls.  Those boxes, called tefillin by Jews, are tied to the forehead and to the bicep in certain sects of Judaism.  They serve to remind Jews of something.  But what?

There are two passages used by Jews to support their use of tefillin.  Exodus 13:1-10 and Deuternomy 6:4-9, 11:13-21.  Let’s look at just one of those: Deuteronomy 11:13-21.

In it God warns that His anger will “burn” against whoever worships other gods and whoever “turns away” from Him. To avoid this and continue a life of obedience and devotion to God, the Jews are to remember something important.  What are they to remember?  The commands He’s just given.  What commands?  The big ten.

So the tefflin contain small scrolls with these passages prescribing the use of tefflin written on them - passages that warn of God’s anger against anyone who doesn’t obey His commands.  Obey, or die, the tiny scrolls say.  THIS is what the Jews remember - remember the laws of God, remember to fear God, remember that God’s anger burns against the disobedient and the idolatrous, remember to teach this to your children.

Is a station defining “positive” as “happy” capable of being a phylactory in the Christian’s life?

I agree with Brant, that a radio station, just like a church and a Christian individual exists in part to remind others of God.  The trick is to not only remind each other of the “happy” bits of God, because in so doing we actually construct a false god and the real God doesn’t like that so much (more on that next time).  He calls it profane, actually.

Stations devoted to reminding listeners of only the “happy” side of life, faith and God must have to do some major mental gymnastics to justify their actions.  They must skip large portions of the bible to pull that off.

THE UN-POSITIVE BIBLE
Many Jews, the ones who use phylactories, have to memorize Torah.  Jesus was this kind of Jew.  The Torah is the law and it’s full of warnings and other unpleasantries.  They also memorize large chunks of the rest of the Old Testament.  Just because I had the time and I was curious, I read through the first few books of the old testament recently, just to see how far I could get without hitting something not-positive.  I didn’t get far:

Genesis: 2:17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat f it you will surely die.

Exodus 1:11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor…

Leviticus 1:5 He is to slaughter the young bull before the Lord, and then Aaron’s sons the priests shall bring the blood and sprinkle it against the altar on all sides at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

Numbers 1:51 Whenever the tabernacle is to move, the Levites are to take it down, and whenever it is to be set up, the Levites shall do it.  Anyone else who goes near it shall be put to death.

Deuteronomy 1:26-27 But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You grumbled in your tents and said, “The Lord hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us to deliver into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us.”

Joshua 1:18 Whoever rebels against your word and does not obey your words, whatever you command them, will be put to death.

Judges 1:6-7 Adoni-Bezek fled, but they chased him and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and big toes.  Then Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off have picked up scraps under my table.  Now God has paid me back for what I did to them.” They brought him back to Jerusalem, and he died there.

Ruth 1:3-4 Now Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons.  They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth.  After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.

1 Samuel 1:10 In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the Lord.  And she made a vow saying, “O Lord Almighty, if you will look upon your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.”

2 Samuel 1:12 They mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the army of the Lord and the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.

But, you know, that’s the Old Testament.  That was before Jesus and grace and “For God so loved...” So, what about the Sermon on the Mount - the largest sermon on record from Jesus Himself?  How positive was that?

It begins, “Blessed are the poor in spirit...” And it ends with a warning: If you don’t build your life right it’ll get dashed to bits when the tide comes in.  And in the middle there’s a bunch of stuff about sin, murder, war, hell, divorce, persecution and what not.  That’s a bummer, but what about the epistles?

Romans 1:18,19 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

1 Corinthians 1:11 My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.

All right, that’s not so positive either but this is music and not letters to churches or laws handed down by God Himself on a mountain.  Maybe David, the most prolific song writer in scripture was positive?

Psalm 1:4-6 Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Well, that didn’t take long. David goes all negative on us in the first song of his hymnal.

But Shaun, you may protest, don’t you think if you wrote a song that was about the kind of “negative” stuff the Bible contains, even Christian radio stations defining “positive” as happy would play it...if it were a good song?  Do you seriously think they wouldn’t play Paul or David?  Really?

I know so.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH THE POSITIVE
I wrote a song called Twilight that was too negative for a major AC network.  It’s based on the words of Paul in Romans 7.  The PD didn’t disagree with the theology, didn’t dislike the music (that he said) but the lyric didn’t fit his mission to be positive.  Twilight is the most requested song at the merchandise table when I play it in concert.  I have a stack of e-mails to prove it gave people in Paul’s very not-positive situation words to pray, it helped them, saving one guy from suicide - he says.

I wrote a song called Amen based on three psalms of David’s.  I wrote it after a fan said he didn’t think David would write about anything negative.  David, he said, would focus on the positive and not lead others to sing about the bad.  I turned to the Psalms.  I read them all.  I noticed the phrase “have mercy” showing up from time to time, usually when David was sick or tired and in need of strength and healing, or running from the enemy and in need of wisdom and divine friendship, or after he stole a man’s wife and needed forgiveness.  I’ve been weak, alone and ashamed.  So have my fans.  So I wrote a song that more than a few radio stations rejected because it was a downer.  Not musically (at least they didn’t mentioned that to me) but lyrically.  Forget that it’s a paraphrase of David’s own words.

LIFE IS HARD THOUGH
Of course radio listeners have hard lives, I’m told. They’re stressed and tired and they turn on the radio for comfort and encouragement.

Really?

So, let me get this straight.  Living in the second wealthiest nation on the planet (behind Switzerland), having a car, a house, kids, a spouse, an education, the lowest unemployment rates in the industrialized world, more churches than grocery stores and schools, heat, air, three meals a day and clean drinking water - THIS is so stressful and hard on listeners that playing a song about anything unhappy would push them over the edge?  Really?  So, they’re more tired than say, um, the Israelites wandering through the wilderness when God spoke the though shalt nots?  And more stressed than the Jewish Messiah-seekers living under Roman oppression when Jesus told them they would die for following Him?

PARADOX
Look, I’m not saying happy songs are bad.  Not playing happy songs would be just as fraudelent as playing nothing but.  What I want to hear is paradox.  God is paradoxical.  My faith is paradoxical.  Life is paradoxical.

The day your first born says, “Daddy” for the first time, your boss yells at you in a meeting.  The day the cancer is cured, your bills are due.  Your wedding day is full of both fear AND happiness - same for the honeymoon.  The day Jesus was slaughtered by the Romans He atoned for all sin for all time.  Paul wrote of his hardships but acknowledged his weakness made him strong.

Paradox.

To actively fend off the paradox by only broadcasting the “happy” parts of our faith and God’s words is fraud.  A false god gets erected where God (both Abba Father and Sword spitting warrior) once stood.

PHYLACTORY MAKERS
Brant is a phylactory maker.  He broadcasts conversations and songs that unflinchingly deal with the good and bad, the bitter and sweet, the comfortable and uncomfortable.  His listeners are reminded of who God is.  Who He REALLY is.  And there are many many more like Brant working in Christian radio - it’s a shame Christianity Today chose not to write about them even after I listed them for the interviewer by name.

So allow me to brag on those that got left out.

KSBJ is VP’ed by Jon Hull, a man who - I think - believes as I do that the full spectrum of faith and life needs to be heard by his listeners.  He hugged me - very hard - after I taught this very idea of paradox at a GMA event for AC radio folks.  His morning show folks have talked to me on air about positive and not-so-positive topics like child poverty and not liking who God is sometimes but worshiping Him anyway.

KXOJ is headed up by my friend Bob Thornton, and you can’t find a more transparent person in radio.  He’s quick to share a book that’s helped him through a hard time or made him think, plays songs that aren’t positive if he thinks they’re meaningful and good - even when the record company hasn’t released them as singles.  Our friendship is in large part built on conversations over the years about what bothers me, what bothers him, what we find difficult - and of course, on encouraging each other through all that with an e-mail here and there or a plate of Tex Mex.

I did an interview with Star 99.1 out of New York once and was impressed with how in touch with reality the interviewer was.  I can’t remember her name, but I remember that she questioned on-air whether what she does makes a difference.  We told stories to each other about how Christian music had actually made people think, change their lives etc.  We walked away encouraged but we got there by being flagrantly honest about our wondering whether what we do matters at all.

I did an interview recently with WJLF in Florida.  They asked me about Compassion International and didn’t edit out the hard to hear parts.  They didn’t try to lighten things up.  They allowed listeners to hear about children who die because the Church isn’t saving them.  And we talked about my love for kool-aid and pop tarts too.  Nothing was off limits.

I could go on, mostly without names of DJs or stations, but I could go on.  I have a head full of instances in which Christian radio stations have been unafraid to tell the whole truth of who God is and what life is really like.  Some of them play my music, some of them don’t.  That’s not the point.  I just wish there were more of them.  I wish the “happy” stations would change - that they’d be phylactories reminding listeners of ALL God has instructed and is and does - and not just the parts that make them happy.