People are afraid to say what they mean, or keep on talking if it's not about them
I don't say I hate them before they hate me, I’ve just shut down cause I know what we're all thinking
We're just going by the numbers, dragging along
We’re just clinging on to someone, anyone suck the blood and leave the carcass, Now we're full. 
Lie to not disrupt the balance, it balances.
We're all fake
We want to understand the point, let us drive it through your naive head
Murdered by self-righteous, we've killed humility dead
So is the flesh weak and the spirit willing? Or is Jesus inside a building?
The rituals, rules and things we make up,
It takes so much to wake us up to trade the funding and turn the cheek,
to exchange the proud in for the meek
to say to our reflections "I deny you," feel the splintering wood on my back, and follow
You love the men who drove nails through your wrists
I know enough to know that love does exist if you bled for the fakes that are just like me
Why do i want to make all the fakes bleed?
Jesus, forgive us... we know not what we do
Jesus, have mercy on us, I am what I hate, but I want to be just like you!

             Showbread is a new Tooth and Nail band. If you don’t know the production company, this is one of the leading “Christian” labels. Their music could be classified as hardcore, mostly screaming and pretty much no singing. The title of their CD is No Sir, Nihilism Is Not Practical. The band would appear to be a pretty strong Christian band.  If I were to categorize them from their song titles and lyrics I would consider them theistic existentialist Christians.

            From looking at the lyrics we can see where their hearts are. The last line alone is probably the most powerful. “Jesus, forgive us… We know not what we do. Jesus, have mercy on us.  I am what I hate, but I want to be just like you”. These guys are not just that cheesy Christian music known to most Americans rather they are a strong sound with equally strong lyrics.

            “So is the flesh weak and the spirit willing? Or is Jesus inside a building? The rituals, rules, and things we make up…” These lines do reflect a sort of cynicism towards the American church. It would appear that this band is not fond of what we have become, with merchandising, commercialism, and fads. But they do appear serious about their faith.

From the opening banjo line and haunting melody of Seven Swans you can tell that there is something, well, different about this album. Not that that fact should necessarily surprise anybody, coming from folk musician Sufjan Stevens. Sufjan himself is plenty different. To use a well known example of his “different-ness”, he’s out to record a concept album for every one of America’s 50 states. Yes. Every state. Probably even Idaho! But I digress…

Every track of Seven Swans is fundamentally about God. And not just about “god” as some great ephemeral thingy out in the great ephemeral somewhere, but a pretty specific idea of “God”. After digging through some obscure idioms, the listener realizes that this is a God that Sufjan seems to know. A God who is a lot like a father, who speaks from a cloud, who provides a sacrifice for his faithful ones. A God who went up on a tree for his people, who gave his ghost, who all the trees of the field will clap their hands for. Sound familiar? It should for those who have read the Bible.

The worldview of Seven Swans is definitely theistic. Frequent references to biblical themes and the work of both the devil and Jesus reflect a distinctly Christian point of view.

To sum things up, Biblical imagery, creative music, and introspectively spiritual lyrics makes Seven Swans a fascinating album that will quietly nudge hearts and minds closer to the God of the Bible.

Thrice is a band that has been around for many years. Even though they do not look like your typical Christian band, they do stand for Christ or at least some theistic message. The initial impression one might get from their screaming, semi-hardcore sound and their somewhat cryptic lyrics is perhaps to assume that this is not theism.  However, by looking more deeply into their lyrics their message does emerge. For example:

“We're more than carbon and chemicals
We are the image of the invisible
Free will is ours and we can't let go
We are the image of the invisible
We can't allow this, the quiet cull
We are the image of the invisible
So we sing out this, our canticle
We are the image of the invisible

We all were lost now we are found
No one can stop us or slow us down
We are the named and we are known
We know that we'll never walk alone”

 

            These are just one example of amazing theistic lyrics that you can get from this band. Some of their older lyrics also show some of the best lyrics about the Holy Spirit I have ever seen. So this band is theistic even though, it is tough to see sometimes.

            Incidentally, the album name Vheissu is a word play on the common German phrase, “Wie heist du?” meaning literally “What are you called?” and is the common way of asking “What is your name?”  This brings out all the more the emphasis on the line above, “We are the named and we are known.”

Christian artist Brandon Heath released his newest Album What if We on August 19th 2008. According to an article in the Cleveland Leader, The song “Give Me Your Eyes” reached over 12,500 downloads on iTunes by its second week: putting it at the top of Christian music charts.

“Give Me Your Eyes” reflects Heath’s Christian theistic faith in a loving and compassionate God. Heath’s song is a plea to have a God’s eyes and heart for a world of broken-hearted people. Heath stands surrounded by a culture of “familiar shock, of confusion and chaos,” and asks, “Are those people going somewhere? Why have I never cared?”

Heath’s biography on his webpage reads, “One of the things that bothers me about this world is that we're all in this for ourselves. We're looking out for number one.”

“Give Me Your Eyes” is an appeal for the followers of God to live out their faith and engage the world with the love of God.

The song’s style promotes Heath’s message well with a catchy and consistent beat underlying steady piano cords and the melancholy sound of a violin.

As can be seen in the opening verse, Heath’s idea for the song came while sitting at an airport.

“Every once in awhile I feel like God gives me this perspective where I look on people, for maybe thirty-seconds, maybe a minute, where I can look around and just see ordinary people and see them with compassionate eyes, rather then judgmental eyes” (You-Tube video, “A Brandon Heath After School Special”).

Heath said his hope for believers is that, as they grow to know Christ more, those periods of seeing people differently will increase.

“Give Me Your Eyes” is a catchy song with a powerful message—no wonder it’s made it to the top.

The band Avenged Sevenfold (A7X) came onto the scene in 1999 straight out of high school. Shortly after forming, they recorded their first album, and they’ve been a huge success ever since. They’ve toured in England, Japan, Indonesia, and all throughout the USA on the most recent Taste of Chaos tour, where they played with such bands as Bullet For My Valentine, Atreyu, Blessthefall and Idiot Pilot.

The bands’ most recent release is their self-titled album which has songs that made top 5 charts in both the USA and England, and were actually awarded “Album of the Year” at the Kerrang! Awards in the UK. This band has multiple derivatives from the Bible throughout many of their lyrics, as well as the band name itself. As quoted from Wikipedia,

The band's name is a reference to the Book of Genesis in the Bible - specifically Genesis 4:24, where Cain is sentenced to live in exile for murdering his brother. God marked him so that none would kill him on account of his sin; the man who dared to kill Cain would suffer "vengeance seven times over" (KJV). The abbreviation for Avenged Sevenfold came from Zacky Vengeance as A7X, in which the 'A' stands for 'Avenged', the '7' stands for 'seven', and the 'X' stands for 'fold' because of the X forming a "folding" formation and "sevenfold" is 7 multiplied (represented by 'X' in mathematical terms).

The band also has such songs as Chapter Four, which relates to the fourth chapter of Genesis where the Story of Cain and Abel is found; as well as Beast and the Harlot, which refers to the book of Revelation where Babylon is being judged; and also Wicked End, where multiple references are made to Adam and Eve and the sin in the Garden of Eden, the lyrics being, “dust the apple off, savor each bite, and deep inside you know Adam was right.” Although the band also claims no religious ties, and stresses that they are not trying to “shove any politics or beliefs down anyones throats”.

This band seems rather post-modernistic as portrayed by many of their songs, particularly Crossroads, in which a man is forced to make a decision about which way to go in a fork in the road. This is an analogy to life; to the right he sees a church and is initially drawn to that side, but then he sees a “watering hole” (bar) to the left. Essentially he is forced to form his worldview by taking either the religious road, or the secular road. In the end he decides to make his own path down the middle. Knowing that both sides are judgmental and flawed, he seeks to find his own truth. This is ultimately a very post-modern approach.