“So how will you know, as a Christian, what music you should listen to and what you should not?”
Father Rob Galea shared some profound thoughts while on break at Bat Veritas Youth Gathering in Perth, Australia. He broke down the things that Christians should consider when seeking new music: lyrics, motive, and mood.
Lyrics are the most overt part of a song and are the easiest to identify as good or bad. Of songs that glorify material things, Fr. Galea says, “Lyrics matter. You can listen to this music, but if you dwell on it, it will affect you whether you believe it or not.”
The motive for songs can often be the hardest part to decipher, since artists don’t always give reasons for their works. The mood is the projected emotion of a song. Fr. Galea shared his own experience with the mood of music:
I remember whenever I had a fight or an argument I would run to my room, as a teenager, and listen to sort of heavy or “death” metal. Now, whether or that is a good or bad genre is less the point than what it was flooding my soul with. I was angry and I used to leave my room with more aggression, not calm or peace, but a lot more anger than I started out with.
Of course, as Fr. Rob concludes, you will get what you put in. If you feed your mind junk music you will get junk in return, but if you listen to uplifting music you may just find your mood is improved.
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And today we celebrate...