Ephesians 5:11 “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.” 

Music has always played a huge part in my life. When I was only 9 years old, I started traveling and singing for The Columbus Boy’s Choir. Throughout my early years, I would perform for various churches, concerts, plays, etc…. In my teen years, I entered many singing contests performing solos, duets, large and small ensembles, and I/we won 1st place every time (except for one 2nd place in my first singing contest). So I know a little bit about music. My wife, Amy, is a skilled pianist and singer who earned her Bachelors in Bible and Music at Ambassador Baptist College. Amy also regularly writes our voice and instrumental arrangements for our CD’s. She has a brilliant mind when it comes to the theory of music and how music should be written and performed. 

I was saved as a teenager at the age of 14. I was never really into secular music. But when I was introduced as a new believer to CCM, I was hooked. My thought was, “I can have my cake and eat it too.” From then on for years, the only songs I listened to, sang and performed were CCM and entertainment Southern Gospel. 

What is CCM? CCM is short for Contemporary Christian Music. CCM is a section of the Gospel Music Association that ranges from rock, acid, pop, country, rap, etc…, and every year awards are given out to various artists, song writers, etc… at an event called the Dove Awards. Although there are very good songs being written today (which is what contemporary means), the music written and performed for CCM is not good and godly.

Concerning Southern Gospel, around the mid-1900’s Southern Gospel split between traditional and entertainment gospel music.  Even secularists are aware, that entertainment Southern Gospel was and is progressive.  When Southern Gospel hit mainstream with groups like the Statesmen, future rock artists like Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis wanted to emulate them. With songs like “Happy Rhythm”, phrases like “rockin and rollin’,  their rock beat, and their boogie woogie piano style, it was obvious that this was not old-fashioned, traditional, biblical Southern Gospel.  Soon others like the Gaithers, JD Sumner and the Stamps, the Imperials, etc… quickly bridged the gap between secular and sacred music.  A number of the Gaither’s early songs popularized and recorded by the likes of Elvis Presley are still printed in modern hymn books as if they have always been traditional gospel music.  Heavy or soft rock rhythm (maybe syncopated bass and guitar, but also drums), jazz, bluegrass, “boogie woogie”, ragtime and country music are a good description of progressive Southern Gospel music.

The main idea of CCM is to take the devil’s music style and make it palatable to believers by adding Christian lyrics. This is like slapping the word “Christian” on cigarettes, drugs, pornography, or alcohol, and calling it good, Christian fun. This may seem ridiculous, but there are those who are trying to do that very thing these days with each of those sins. Music is no exception. These same enemies to Christ are slapping “Christian” on jazz, pop, rap, country, and rock and calling it Contemporary Christian Music or progressive and/or entertainment Southern Gospel.  (II Cor. 6:14-18)

CCM sings supposedly “Christian” lyrics to syncopated rhythm, discordant chords, and unresolved chords. Most CCM lyrics, though, are very generic. So much so that many CCM songs are played on unsaved, secular stations since their lyrics are nearly the same as the unsaved’s words. 

Even if the lyrics were perfectly strong and Biblical, though, the devil’s music structure makes it impossible to sing a godly song. If you have been carefully reading our various articles on music, you should know by now that Satan’s methods of heavy rhythm (which is just soft rock), syncopation, jazz chords, discordant chords, unresolved chords, etc… have no place in God’s music. God did not make music that way, and God will not accept or allow it in the lives of believers or His churches! God demands “a new song” different from the lost and this world (Ps. 33:3, 40:3, 96:1, 98:1, 144:9, 149:1; Is. 42:10; Rev. 5:9, 14:3). In our text, Eph. 5:11, God makes it very clear that believers are not to have to fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. The unsaved works are unfruitful, and using the unsaved’s music styles is unfruitful. Many in ecumenical churches, in CCM, and in entertainment Southern Gospel claim the salvation of souls from their rock concerts as proof of their music being godly, but God calls them “unfruitful works of darkness.” God is not a pragmatist, and since God is the Great Judge of the universe (Jms. 4:12), what He says is the only truth that matters. God doesn’t accept any person who takes “the unfruitful works of darkness”, slaps the word “Christian” to it, and calls it good. You can read further in the CCM and Southern Gospel series that the damage created by CCM and progressive Southern Gospel is far worse than the supposed “good” proclaimed.

(Please check out the rest of both the Music series and the CCM and Southern Gospel series.)