Driving in to work today, the radio dj asked a question: Does a lack of a Christian label on a song make it less godly?

Unfortunately, I drove out of range of the station and had to turn off the static so I never did hear the answer. But I pondered it while I drove. And my answer is No.

In highschool, my senior thesis was on rock music and its value within the church. In case you don’t know, I spent my senior year as a day student at an American Christian boarding school in West Africa that had a very strict music policy. I had been written up twice for having ‘illegal’ cassette tapes at the school. To be fair, the rule was ten cassettes and I did smuggle in a bag with over fifty. Twice.

One of my tapes that was banned was a Steve Vai cassette which probably had a total of about twenty words on the whole tape. As I wrote my paper, I used my research to attempt to convince my teachers that you can’t just ban a whole genre of music. You have to look at each song and make individual decisions. But that takes time.

Today, as I reflected on the question, I focused on the word ‘label.’ 

In the education field, the controversy of using labels comes up a lot. But I don’t see labels as defining children. I see them as defining the range of treatments that might benefit children. By assigning a child a label, I now know which particular researched-based bag of tricks will have the greatest chance of helping that child. Nothing in education is ever one-size-fits-all, but at least the label can help me narrow down what might and what won’t help.

I think labels in music will work similarly. Some songs defy labels. Others can wear multiple labels. The label won’t tell me if I’ll like a song or not. But they can certainly help me decide which song I feel like listening to in the moment. And putting the label ‘Christian’ on a song doesn’t make it any godlier than a song without that label. Just like with my students, it’s the content that matters. Not the label.

God can use any song to speak to your heart. He’s used many to speak to mine. He doesn’t need a Christian label on His tools. He’s used (I’ll use the less traditional word here) donkeys before. He can use anything.

What are your thoughts on the question?