Family Friendly Radio..What's the big deal?

Ever been in the mood to listen to some good music? Music that is clean with a Christian message, something you can listen to while your children are in the car with you and not worry about hearing lyrics that are obscene or promoting ungodly values that you really don't want your children to be exposed to. 

Well just turn it to the family friendly christian contemporary radio station, like K-Love or The Fish. Where you can listen to music that you don't have to worry what your children will hear, because it's good clean Christian music, or is it?

Discernment is something that many American Evangelicals seem to lack, we have thousands upon thousands of professing Christians who send in their money or follow many of the false teachers on Christian Television, such as TD Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, John Hagee, Kenneth Coepland, Paula White and Joel Osteen, just to name a few, believe me many more could be named. However, that is not the purpose of this article. I only stress this fact because so many individuals who claim the name of Christ lack discernment and follow false teachers. Calling out false teachers, especially those mentioned above is like picking at low hanging fruit on a tree, it is so easy to do because their teachings are so bad that you think how can anyone be so deceived. 

When it comes to christian contemporary music that is promoted by these family friendly radio stations, we don't always know the theology of the ones behind the music.

The music also doesn't only stay on the radio, many songs find there way into many churches across the United States and abroad. 

Hillsong is one of the most popular music groups out there today, with many of their songs being used by churches to sing worship to God on a Sunday morning, and even if the song you choose to sing by Hillsong or any other group like them has good words to the songs you choose to sing, many fail to realize the danger they are setting up for individuals in their own churches. 

For example it would be like quoting Joel Osteen from your pulpit each week in your sermons without giving a qualifying message behind it that he is a false teacher. By quoting Osteen you are basically affirming his teaching and may just lead others in the church to start listening to and following his teaching. That would be a really bad idea!

The same thing happens with music except for some reason we seem to give it a pass, while many in the church who know Osteen is a false teacher wouldn't quote him week after week, those same people would use music by Hillsong, Jesus Culture, Matt Maher and others. 

Because these groups along with many others, either have really bad theology or are heretical, and should not be promoted by family friendly radio and most certainly not promoted by churches. 

Maybe you are thinking to yourself some of the songs these groups sing aren't necessarily worded with heretical teaching, and some songs aren't but I think by stating that we miss the point. The point is not so much whether or not a song they write is in error but rather the association with the one writing the song.

Let's take Matt Maher's song "Lord, I need you", the song is a beautiful song and there is nothing inherently wrong with the words of the song, yet many people don't realize that Matt Maher is a Roman Catholic. Why should that matter? It matters because in affirming Matt Maher and his music, whether you want to acknowledge it or not you are affirming Roman Catholicism by pointing your people to his music and blurring the lines for the very reason in why we are protestants, we are still protesting against Rome and their false teaching. 

Jesus Culture another very popular music group out of Bethel Redding in California, that is entrenched with heresy and false teaching, has been using their music to introduce more and more people to that false teaching. The more popular the band gets the more people follow Bethel. Just like Hillsong they are using their music to draw more people to the teachings of their churches. 

Now when I say churches I am not doing so in the sense that these are actual churches of God but only in identifying them by how they are represented in the world as being a church even though they go against the biblical teachings while promoting their heresies.

I've used this analogy before but consider this, these individuals have a different gospel and a different god, they do not follow the one true and living God, therefore when they write these songs they are speaking of the idol in which they are singing to, not praising and worshiping the King of Glory. So by that alone we should stop singing and promoting their songs in our churches.

Imagine writing a song for an ex-girlfriend, someone you had a long relationship with that many said was the love of your life, and sadly it didn't work out and now you are married to a lovely woman and your anniversary is coming up and you want to give her something special to let her know just how much she means to you, so you think I should write her a song, and you remember this amazing song you wrote long ago for your ex-girlfriend, and you think all I have to do is change the name to my wife and she'll love it. 

Do you seriously think your wife would love a song given to her on your anniversary that was actually intended for another woman but just changing the name. I don't think that would cause your wife to love you more but most likely you will be sleeping on the couch for a week maybe longer. NO......that would be disrespectful to your wife to just change the name from your ex to hers.

Is that not what we are doing by singing songs to God that were written to false gods when we sings songs by these individuals who have a different gospel and different god. 

We need to exercise discernment in many areas of are Christian life and this area is not an exception. Don't be deceived by these groups that promote there false churches and false beliefs by allowing them to deceive those around us in our churches. 

We must have a discerning ear when it comes to what we listen to and what we allow our children to listen to and what we sing in our churches. 

I am not saying if a church sings some songs by these groups that it automatically makes them a bad church or heretical, sadly some are just uninformed, which can be any of us. I for one do not always look up an artist and dig deep into what they believe by doing extensive research to find out and make sure before I turn on the radio, but maybe we should be, or at the least do a better job about what we allow to come into our churches.

Let's go back to the song by Matt Maher, 'Lord, I need you", if the song comes on in the car, I use it as a way to teach my family to be discerning, to inform them of who it is that is singing this song so that they are aware. The last thing I would want to do is mislead my family into thinking something is solid or okay. Some songs are catchy, and they are clean that you find on the family radio shows but at what cost.

Exercise wisdom, be cautious, and seek to be discerning in all areas of life, including the music we are listening to.

​by Ricky Gantz