Independent Baptists Playing With Fire

Fundamental Baptist churches that are playing around with contemporary worship music have no idea what they are doing.

They can mock the “critics” and label them “extremists”; they can hide behind shallow arguments to justify their actions; they can point to their bigness and success; they can profess their conservativeness and trot out their fundamentalist credentials.

But that doesn’t change the fact that they are playing with fire and multitudes of souls are going to be injured by their folly.

Contemporary worship music represents end-time apostasy as nothing else does. It is “another spirit” and it has transformative power.

We have documented this extensively in the new eBook The Directory of Contemporary Worship Musicians, which is available for free from the Way of Life web site -- www.wayoflife.org.

Denying the power of arsenic doesn’t change the power of arsenic.

Lancaster Baptist Church, Lancaster, California, is one of the prominent IFB churches leading the way in the adaptation of contemporary Christian worship music by toning down the rhythm. This has been a long-standing, wide-ranging practice.

Following are some examples of CCM songs that have been covered by Lancaster and West Coast:

“Hallelujah to the Lamb” by Don Moen (who thinks God is the author of the weird charismatic “laughing revival”)
“In Christ Alone” by Getty/Townend
“Stronger” and “Shout to the Lord” by Zschech/Hillsong (Hillsong performed for Catholic Youth Day and Pope Benedict)
“Word of God Speak” by MercyMe (the “word of God” is a mystical feeling rather than the Bible)
“Majesty, Worship His Majesty” by Jack Hayford (a Pentecostal Kingdom Now anthem; Hayford says God told him not to preach against the Roman Catholic church)
“Great Is the Lord” and “How Majestic Is Your Name” by Michael W. Smith (who has been “slain in the Spirit” and “laughed uncontrollably, “rolling on the floor ... hyperventilating”)
“Faithful Men” by Twila Paris (who works with the Roman Catholic Kathy Troccoli and with ecumenist Robert Webber, who promotes unity between evangelicals and Catholics)
“In Christ Alone” by Michael English (who spent the 1990s and early 2000s committing adultery with another man’s wife, bar hopping, dating a stripper, and undergoing “rehab” for drug addiction)
Songs by Steven Curtis Chapman (the most honored “high energy Christian rocker” of the 1990s who says he doesn’t preach “fire and brimstone” and describes God as “Lord of the Dance”)
Songs by Geron Davis (“Jesus Only” Pentecostal who denies the Trinity)
“I Will Rise” by Chris Tomlin (a member of an emerging church that seeks to build the kingdom in this present world)
Songs by Graham Kendrick (charismatic founder of the radically ecumenical Jesus March that includes Catholics and Mormons)
“Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)” by Chris Tomlin was performed at Lancaster Sunday morning, Oct. 9, 2011
“Not Guilty” by the jazz CCM artist Mandisa was performed at the 2011 Leadership Conference

Rebecca St. James’s contemporary song “Above All Things” (written by Eddie DeGarmo) was covered by West Coast Baptist College on their “For the Faith of the Gospel” CD (2009).

St. James is a hard-rocking contemporary Christian musician who rose to fame in the 1990s. She has sold two million albums and has further influence through movies and books.

She sings of Jesus and God, but her god is the god of The Shack. She is following a deceiving spirit, as are all of the Christian rockers.

The reason why it is so dangerous for Bible-believers to use contemporary Christian music is that it is the music of the one-world church. Contemporary Christian Music is the mystical soundtrack for end-time apostasy. The contemporary musicians are not “merely” committed to doctrinal error, they are following “another spirit.”

St. James says, “I’ve always liked rock music. ... I feel very called and passionate for a rock/pop audience” (“Rebecca Gets Real,” Christianity Today, 2005).

St. James starred as Mary Magdalene in !Hero, the musical rock opera. !Hero depicts Jesus as a cool black man. The Last Supper is a barbecue party and “Jesus” is crucified on a city street sign.

When Pope John Paul II visited the United States in January 1999, St. James was one of the CCM musicians who joined hands with hundreds of thousands of Catholics to welcome him at a Catholic youth rally (CCM Magazine, April 1999, p. 12).

In a 2008 interview St. James recommended The Road Less Travelled by New Ager M. Scott Peck (“Rebecca St. James Goes Back to Work,” Jesusfreakhideout.com, April 22, 2008).

Peck says “God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We are growing toward God. God is the ultimate goal of evolution” (The Road Less Traveled, 1978, p. 270).

It is unconscionable that a Christian would recommend such an author and such a book in any sense whatsoever. Obviously Rebecca St. James doesn’t recognize the demonic spirit of the New Age for the simple but shocking reason that she is unwittingly following the same spirit.

In the same interview, St. James called The Shack “absolutely extraordinary.” She resonated with the false god depicted in The Shack, a god who is female, cool, non-judgmental, does not exercise wrath toward sin, does not send unbelievers to an eternal fiery hell, does not require repentance and the new birth, and puts no obligations on people.

See “The Shack and Other CCM Gods” in the Directory of Contemporary Worship Musicians, which is a free eBook available from the Way of Life web site -- www.wayoflife.org.

Fundamental Baptist churches that are playing around with contemporary worship music have no idea what they are doing. They are playing with fire. Contemporary worship music represents end-time apostasy as nothing else does. It is “another spirit” and it has transformative power.

“Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils” (1 Corinthians 10:21).

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