WHO SHOULD SING GOSPEL MUSIC?

There’s always a ‘strange’ reaction from the populace when a renowned secular artist releases a song that carries a biblical message. In some cases, the fellow gains more fans especially from the lukewarm ‘saint-group’ and even some of the ‘staunch brew.’ For the Luke-warm, it’s normally a gate pass to formally declare their support to the artiste. However, we know that they have always been fans, at least, behind the scenes. For the staunch one, it could be for the very hope that the artiste is moving towards salvation. This, if you can relate, is the very feeling that has surrounded the Kenyan Gospel industry in the recent past, when Sauti Sol released their song “Kuliko Jana” and when Nyashinski came out with the celebrated “Mungu Pekee.” If someone brought to you the lyrics of the above songs without the names of the composers, and assuming you have not heard anything about them, would you tell that they were sang by secular artistes?

Well, someone is about to say, “Yes, I got the Discernment Spirit.” That’s alright, whether or not you know the artiste, take the same lyrics, put on a beam balance with some of the lines we get from some of the fulltime gospel musicians. I bet you won’t really need to stress the Holy Spirit to show you the right lyrics to embrace. Let’s get back to the big question: Who should sing gospel music? Perhaps we should define the term ‘gospel.’ There are just thousands of people who have defined this word whether in school, church or even in the devil’s camp. However, for the sake of this post, I will just state the simple meaning. The word gospel refers to “Good News” and in the Christian circles, it’s the good news about Jesus Christ, the man who died on an old rugged cross for the sin of humanity. This portion of the holy scriptures can help amplify the message better:

 Luke: 4:18-19: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

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I tend to think that any song that should be classified as gospel needs to meet the above criteria as set by the master of Good News Himself. In this sense then, does it matter who does it? In some instance, days after Jesus had died, Paul, a murderer who would later become one of the important pioneers of the church, noted that he did not care whether or not those who preached the gospel did it out of malice or not. The main agenda is to see the message moving. Years before the coming of Jesus, his great grandfather would cry out thus: Psalms 150:6: Let everything that hath breath praise the LORD. This statement validates not only human beings but any other thing that has life to talk about the goodness of the creator, acknowledging the wonderful works of the maker.

The only danger of relying on the secular artistes in relaying the gospel is that doing so puts the Christian at a vulnerable situation to fall into heresy. So, it is important to scrutinize the lyrics before fully endorsing them. This, I should add, requires a deeper understanding of scripture since the composer may not be aware of the errors they make. Perhaps a simple advice I could tell secular artists is to always consult their Christian friends whenever they want to write a gospel song.

The problem with this again is that many a Christian are too shallow to be relied upon for such a task; otherwise we would not be having some shameful songs on our Television sets, on top of the charts, composed by ‘Born Again’ fellows. Wonder how this comes about? Check who their mentors are! God is not limited, if He used Nebuchadnezzar, changed Paul’s heart, he could send a gospel tune to anyone. Let the shallow Christian continue with gymnastics, He said he will even use rocks.
By now I know there's someone who feels that I'm just trying to justify secular artists. Yet the same person doesn't feel Christmas is complete without the church putting O Holy Night on the carols list. Follow this link to read the story behind this acclaimed hymn: The History of O Holy Night

 The writer is the founder of Dowe Music & Arts 

 and one of the worship leaders

 at Mavuno Church, Nakuru