00:00Why Evangelical Singers Have a Duty to Sing Secular Music
00:03Many of the biggest pop music stars are evangelicals, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley,
00:10Donna Summer, Whitney Houston, Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, Avril Lavigne, Snoop Dogg,
00:16Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, just to name a few. Yet many people in the church still believe that
00:22evangelical artists should avoid secular music. In this video, I explain why that idea is an
00:29unforgivable mistake. First, God created human beings as multidimensional and placed them in
00:35the world. The spheres of secular life are God's creations and glorify Him. Catholicism views the
00:42contemplative life, set apart from the world and devoted entirely to the service of God,
00:47as superior to worldly life. But reformers like Luther and Calvin rehabilitated secular vocations,
00:53affirming that they glorify God just as much as specifically religious callings.
00:58Evangelical artists need to engage every dimension of human life in their art,
01:02because evangelical believers are not angels. Sexuality, romantic love, fun, desires, pleasures,
01:10these are all part of their lives and should find artistic expression. To deny such experiences
01:16is to mutilate human nature and dishonor God. Now that we understand there are no forbidden themes for
01:22the evangelical artist, we must ask how this art should be produced. Should it be moralistic or
01:28realistic? Art should not be a rulebook for proper behavior or a manual of moral theology. In Catholic
01:34doctrine, the faithful in a state of grace are intrinsically righteous and lose their salvation
01:39with every mortal sin, whether in actions, desires, or words. In Catholicism, human moral cooperation
01:47is decisive for salvation. This makes Catholic religiosity highly restrictive for artistic
01:53freedom. But evangelical doctrine says something quite different. According to Luther, all saved
02:00believers are simultaneously righteous and sinners. Evangelicals are saved freely and undeservedly,
02:07by faith in Christ alone and by his merits. It is the deliberate rejection of faith,
02:12not isolated sins, that jeopardizes salvation. All of this means, for our discussion, that evangelicals
02:20live morally complex lives, and that such complexity should be expressed in art. Immorality and sin are
02:27realities in the lives of believers. Pretending otherwise amounts to falsification and self-deception.
02:33In short, evangelicals have artistic license, and also the duty to use it to portray the psychological
02:40and moral richness of human experience.
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