March 22, 2025

Christianity vs 80’s Pop Song

Christianity vs 80’s Pop Song

The story of how christianity stole a classic 80’s song from me.

The story of how christianity stole a classic 80’s song from me.

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Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is

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the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central. Good evening everyone.

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It is Saturday, March the twenty second, twenty twenty five.

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It is currently nine thirty six pm Central Time, and

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I am coming to you live from the Theology Central

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studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, this evening,

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I'm going to try to tell you a very important story,

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one that means a lot to me, but one that

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may offend many Christians. You may not like this story,

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but the story is accurate. The story is true. It's

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my own personal story, my own personal experience. And hope

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that you will come along with me and you will

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give it much thought and consideration, because I'm going to

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really challenge the way Christians approach certain aspects of culture.

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All right, So I need you to close your eyes,

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and we're gonna go back. We're gonna go back in

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time to a specific place, a specific location, and a

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specific event or events. And I hope it means as

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much to you as it does to me. I don't

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think it will, but hopefully the lessons will resonate with you.

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So are you closing your eyes? Close your eyes. Imagine

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Are you imagining? Your imagination is going? Start listening. Can

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you hear the sound of a fan clicking in the

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corner of the room. Can you hear the sound of

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the fan? The windows are open. A dry West Texas

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wind carries in the smell of dust and mesquite. A

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boy thirteen years of age lays on his bed. He's

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got a pair of headphones clamped over his ears, plugged

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into a stereo system. It's summer nineteen eighty one, Buffalo Gap, Texes.

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I'm alone in my room. The heat is rising off

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the floorboards. Sky outside as wide and black as forever.

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I take the arm of the turntable and I lower

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it down on the vinyl, and for the next four

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minutes and ten seconds, nothing else in the world exists.

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I don't know it yet, but what I am hearing

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will become one of the most iconic songs in music history.

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It will play under stadium lights, it will echo across

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movie endings. It will be belted out in bars and

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bedrooms for decades. But right now, it's just mine. It

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doesn't belong to anyone else. It's just mine. The needle

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lowers onto the LP and I hear the sound of

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the piano. It's unmistakable. It's the opening of Don't Stop

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Believing by Journey. At that moment, I'm not thinking about charts.

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I'm not thinking about cultural impact. I'm not thinking about God.

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I'm not thinking thinking about Sin. I'm not thinking about theology.

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I'm thinking about her, about him, about the small town

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girl and the city boy, and about that midnight train.

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I'm not in Buffalo Gap anymore. I'm not even in

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my house anymore. I see her, I see him, In fact,

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I become him. I imagine the train. I'm inside the story.

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Nothing else in my life exists, no problems, no difficulties,

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no anxieties, no worries. I'm literally in the story. And

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it's that story I want to tell you of that song,

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Don't Stop Believing by Journey, Because as I listened to

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that song on that summer of nineteen eighty one, I

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did what I constantly did. I took a notebook and

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I wrote down how I envisioned the story. Because every

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time I would listen to music, I would be lost

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in the story. What is this song saying? What is

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it telling me? And I would I would almost write

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entire narratives out. Here's the story that was inspired by

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journeys Don't Stop Believing. She stood on the platform alone,

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the yellow lights of the station turning her breath into smoke.

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Her suitcase was old and soft around the edges, like

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her plans. Raised in a town with one diner and

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one gas station and way too many ghosts. She packed

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up what she could as she left a note on

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the kitchen table, don't wait. She didn't know where the

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train was going, just that it was going somewhere anywhere.

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He boarded two cars down. South Detroit was behind him,

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all rust and memory. He chased, noise and neon, tried

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to find meaning in late night gigs and faces that

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never stayed. He didn't have much now, just a guitar case,

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a denim jacket that smelled like the bar he played

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in last night, and a growing suspicion that maybe the

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best parts of his life had already happened and slipped

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by unnoticed. They didn't know each other, not yet, but

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they sat alone, each by a window, staring into the

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same dark passing blur of trees and towns, each wondering

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if tonight might be different, each silently hoping for something, anything,

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to make the ache a little less. The train hummed on,

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the car rocked gently. People talked in murmurs or stared

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at phones that had stopped meaning anything. A man strummed

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a get tire near the back. The notes floated like smoke, fragile,

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fading quickly. She looked up when the music hit a

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certain chord. He turned when he caught her eye in

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the reflection. Just a glance, not a moment yet, but

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the world shifted just a little. Some people meet and

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fill it instantly. Others brushed past a hundred times and

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never see it. Most just passed through each other's stories

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like background noise. The night wore on. Someone opened sheeap wine.

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Someone else sprayed perfume that lingered long after they walked away.

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Laughter rose and fell like waves, and in a room

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full of strangers, loneliness flickered but didn't disappear. She thought

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about turning back. He thought about getting off at the

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next stop. Neither did. The train rolled on. Some will win,

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the guitar man saying softly, and some will lose. And

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still they held on to a memory, to a maybe,

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to that sliver of something that had once felt like joy.

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Don't stop believing. The rhythm seemed to say, don't let

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go just yet, and so they didn't. That's the story

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of Don't Stop Believing. By Journey, That's the kind of

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story I wrote down. Now I had to do a

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little work on that, added a little more modern touch

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with people looking at their phones. But that's the story.

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That's the story I was lost in. Two people on

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a train, both empty, lonely, needing, longing for something. That's

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where I was on that summer night in nineteen eighty one.

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I wasn't in Buffalo Gap. I was on this train

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going somewhere looking for something more than loneliness and emptiness.

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It was beautiful, it was powerful. It was what I

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love about music. But now it's a small, dim bedroom.

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Posters on the wall, some had already been torn down.

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Across now hangs where a led Zeppelin poster used to be.

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Two teenage boys sit cross legged on the carpet, surrounded

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by stacks of cassettes and vinyl. There's a small trash

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can nearby. A Bible sits on the nightstand. Outside it's

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brutally hot. Inside it's quiet and heavy with purpose. A

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few years later, I'm in my best friend's bedroom in Tuscola, Texas.

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We're now Christians. We're on fire for God, or well,

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we've been told that we're supposed to be on fire

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for God. We've just come back from a youth revival

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where the preacher said the devil lives in every riff

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of a guitar, every snare hit, every lyric that doesn't

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explicitly praise Jesus is from the devil. He said that

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if we really loved God, we would prove it by purging,

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by burning, by growing away from the world. And so

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we sit on the floor going through our music collection

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like they are a crime scene. My friend holds up

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a a an album Van Halen, Well, that's gone. That's

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way too much sex. Yeah, we gotta get rid of

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Van Halen ac DC. Well, they got a song literally

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called Highway to Hell. We might as well toss that

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one first. Yeah, man, gotta be radical for Christ. We laugh,

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but it's a little uneasy. We don't want to lose

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these songs. These albums are more than music. They're pieces

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of our lives, their memories and analog. There are identity,

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there are escape, there are stories, there are youth, there

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are life. Then I see it Escape the album by Journey.

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It's almost like I could see Steve Perry staring back

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at me from the cover Frozen in Time, still singing

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something that once felt eternal. I know the first track

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on the album by heart, not just the words. I

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know the mood, I know the movement, I know the ache.

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Just a small town girl living in a lonely world.

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She took the midnight train going anywhere. I know it,

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I know it, I know it by heart. For a moment,

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the room falls away, a flicker of nineteen eighty one returns,

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Buffalo Gap, summer night, the wind blowing in the dust,

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and the smell of mesquite headphones. That moment of wonder,

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that moment of escape. I try to make a case

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for it. I try to save it. I mean, come on,

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it's not even about sex. It's not even about drugs.

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It's just about people who are lonely. Lonely people. They're

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trying to find something real. They're searching, they're hoping. It's beautiful, right. Yeah,

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But listen, this is what my friend says to me.

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Listen the singers in a smokey room. It's the smell

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of wine and cheap perfume, that's a bar man, that's sin,

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that's alcohol, that's temptation, And just like that, it's condemned,

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not because of what it says, but because of what

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they say it says. Christianity, as I had been taught

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at that moment, didn't care about the story, didn't care

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about the ache, didn't care about the longing. All it

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cared about was scanning lyrics for red flags. Smoke, it's gone,

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wine gone, a woman who took a midnight train, too

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independent to free, It's gotta go. They taught us to

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stop feeling and start filtering. We had to start ignoring

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meaning and hunt for a fence. And somewhere in that room,

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under the weight of guilt and zill, I felt something

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slipped from my fingers, something personal, something sacred. The song

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had been mine, and in one afternoon, Christianity took it.

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There's a way certain expressions Christianity teach you to think,

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or maybe I should say, there's a way certain expressions

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if Christianity teach you not to think. It's not always loud,

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it's not always obvious. It's usually wrapped in good intentions

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and the language of purity, holiness. But underneath it there's

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something I believe is deeply damaging. You're taught that meaning

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doesn't really matter. What matters is content, keywords, forbidden, imagery, tone.

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Instead of being trained to interpret, to analyze, to engage

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with a story or a song, you're trained to scan

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for danger, like a spiritual tsa agent with a checklist

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in your head. Smoke, alcohol, kissing, doubt, ambiguity, reject, burn it,

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avoid it. It literally kills something inside of you. It

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robs you of the ability to wrestle with art. It

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robs you of the ability to explore emotion. It robs

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you of the ability to sit in the tension of

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a lyric and ask, what is this really saying? Instead

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of cultivating discernment, it demands censorship. Instead of promoting wisdom,

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it teaches fear. Instead of forming interpreters of truth, it

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form censors of language. You don't learn to understand the world,

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You learn to label it. And so one day you

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find yourself holding the LP of you know, the Escape

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album by Journey in your hands, and instead of hearing

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the heartbeat beneath the music, you hear nothing but red flags.

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It robs it from you, It steals it from you,

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It rips it out of your hands. But let me

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tell you what the song Don't Stop Believing actually says.

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Let's really explore this song that Christianity stole from me,

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that labeled it. Now, I understand most Christianity would not

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condemn Don't Stop Believing. Especially in twenty twenty five, it

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would be considered tame. Nobody would have a problem with it.

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Now some would because it's secular. They would still condemn it.

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But look, I'm very aware that it's twenty twenty five.

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I understand things have changed. But in nineteen eighties when

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Christianity was up in arms about rock and roll and

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we need labels put on music and you shouldn't be

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able to buy the music, and him TV is evil

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and we're all going to be destroyed. And Satan is

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in every rift, Satan is in every lyric, Satan is

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on every album cover. It's it's kind of I mean,

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we went through this much later, years later with all

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every artist was Illuminati. Beyonce is Illuminati, Toby Mack formerly

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of DC Talk Illuminati, everybody's Illuminati. Everything is this and

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we've even seen it, even recent year's Taylor Swift, she's

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a Satanist. I mean christian there's still a form of

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Christianity that still does this madness right, that still does this.

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But even Christianity that may not go that far to say,

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don't stop believing by Journey is bad. Even the Christianity

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that doesn't, they still don't teach you how to actually

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engage art, how to process it, how to think, how

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to interpret. You're just taught to, oh, look, look, look, look,

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look glok, look look it's got this. It's got that.

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It's bad. So so even though it made this may

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be an extreme example, it's still there. But when you

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take the time to literally listen to don't stop Believing

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by Journey, there's something more to it. Because it's not

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about alcohol. It's not about smoky rooms or bar scenes.

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You see don't stop believing by Journey. It's about something

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so deeply human, so raw that if Christianity had taught

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me to listen instead of filter, I might have seen

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myself in it long before I ever saw a cross.

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And I will go so far to say I saw

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myself in that song way before I saw across, way

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before Christianity even came along. In fact, I had already

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lost myself in the song. You see The song begins

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with a girl, just a small town girl living in

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a lonely world. She's anonymous, she could be anyone. She

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takes a midnight train going anywhere. That's not sin, that's longing,

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that's escape, that's the ache for something more than what

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she's known. And then there's him, just a city boy,

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born and raised in South Detroit. He's a mirror of her.

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Maybe he's a little more jaded, maybe he's a little more,

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a little rougher around the edges. But they're on the

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same train, going the same nowhere or maybe the same somewhere.

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That's the beauty. It's undefined, it's potential. They're both searching,

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and that's the real story. They don't know each other.

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They're just strangers riding through darkness. And the train becomes

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more than transportation, becomes a symbol for life itself, for movement,

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for longing, for hope in the face of emptiness. Then

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we are in the smoky Room, not a den of sin,

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but a place where lonely people gather. A singer, the

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smell of wine, cheap perfume. It's not glamorous, it's not evil.

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It's human people trying to find connection. For a night,

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a smile, a song, and then we have the course.

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Don't stop believing, hold on to that feeling. It's not

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about God, it's not about rebellion. It's about the one

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thing we all need to stay alive. Hope, Hope that

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love is actually possible, Hope that there's a connection out

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there somewhere, Hope that that ache we carry my one

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day actually find relief. And yes, right in the middle

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of that beauty, the song tells the truth. Some will win,

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some will lose. Some were born to sing the blues.

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That's life. Doesn't promise a happy ending, doesn't wrap things

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up with just a bow. It just says, don't let go,

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don't stop hoping, keep riding the train. But some are

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going to win, and some are going to lose, and

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some are born to seeing the blues. Now I go

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from all of that story of the past to where

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I sit tonight. I sit here in Abilene, Texas, about

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ten minutes away from where the story took place. I'm

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about right from this very room I'm sitting in. I'm

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probably about ten to twelve minutes away from the very

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house that has the very bedroom that I was laying

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on that bed that summer nineteen eighty one, hearing Don't

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Stop Believing for the first time. The album just came

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out that sun. I heard it like the I think

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that I got the album like the week it was released,

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maybe even the day of, and I was listening to

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it late at night because I love listening to music

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late at night because it's like it's a portal that

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opens up, that just helps you escape. So I'm not

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that far. And then I'm about about maybe twelve minutes

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away from the very house where I sat there with

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my friend going through a music collection. I'm about twelve

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minutes away from the very church that I set in

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being told rock and roll is evil and all of

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that stuff. But here I sit in this room. Now.

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Right to my right, there's my Yamaha amp, there's my

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music streamer, there's my very nice headphones. And just a

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couple of hours ago, as I was listening to music,

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going through different things, typically I listened to new music,

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I found my hearing that opening piano Don't Stop Believing

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by Journey, and I was taken back to all of this.

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You know what, that song never lied to me. It

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never pretended the world was easy or clean. It just

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told the truth. It told it with honesty, it told

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it with poetry, it told it with heart. But Christianity,

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at least the version I was handed, taught me to

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look at that truth and call it evil, to hear

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the ache of the human soul and call it fleshly,

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to hear longing and call it lust, to hear smoke

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and wine and say sin while without ever asking what

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are these people actually searching for? And the song was

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stolen from me, not by the world, but by a

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religion and that fears nuance. But you know what, I've

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taken it back, and I don't stop believing anymore, not

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in religion, but in stories, in music, maybe in that

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small town girl and that city boy, and the night

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they that still holds one hundred thousand strangers waiting to

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be known. Now, it's just a song to most of you.

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If it comes on and you're, you know, somewhere and

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they're doing karaoke, you may even jump up and start

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singing the chorus, and don't stop believing. Just a song.

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If it's playing in the grocery store, you may sing along.

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If it's on the you know, the oldies radio station,

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you may sing along. If you hear it at a

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football stadium, you may all start singing along. That probably

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has no real meaning to you at all, because I

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think there's only few people who really understand the power

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of music. I think that's a minority of people who

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really understand what it is. But it shows you Christianities

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and just that's that's how Christianity tries to train young people.

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Just look at the list and don't do this. Don't

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do not how to engage, not how to process, not

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how to think. Just fear guilt, shame. Now I know

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Christianity would come along and say two lonely people searching, well,

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instead of searching for another person, they should be searching

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for God. God. They should find their contentment and God. Yeah.

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Usually the people who say that have a wife or

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a husband and a family, and they got relatives, and

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they have they have they've got everything. But they'll say

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you should only focus on God. Yeah, it's easy to

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always say that, right, It's easy to say you should

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only focus on God because all you need is God

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when you have everything else. Well, if all you need

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is God, get rid of everything else and just live

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your life alone one night, two nights alone, alone, alone,

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I bet you that longing, that that hoping that needs

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I bet you, I bet you it will be there

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and what and Christianity will try to give you some

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kind of happy ending. Journey didn't give me a happy ending.

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Some will when it acknowledges. Some are going to find

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the other person, live happily ever after, right off into

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the sunset. Some are going to lose. Some are just

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meant to seeing the blues. It's just a pop sop,

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but within contained within the lyrics, it's this beautiful, powerful story.

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Now we could even take it. I look at the

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story from a more philosophical level. There's even a deeper

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level we could even go. If you just take the boy,

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the girl and the boy and you know, tell their story.

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You can look at it on that level. But there's

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a deeper level philosophical about longing and loneliness and emptiness

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and meaning and identity and purpose. There there's more to

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it and holding on hope. Right. We could, we could,

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We could get into a whole discussion about that. But

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Christianity does have a tendency to take and to destroy

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and to censor and to filter. I'm going to just

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go back and repeat something that was said earlier. I'm

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gonna read it all all right, because I have it

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all written down. You see, there's a certain expression of

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Christianity that teaches you well. It teaches you not to think.

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It's not always loud or obvious. It's usually wrapped in

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good intentions and the language of purity and holiness, but

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underneath it there's something deeply damaging. You're taught that meaning

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doesn't really matter. What matters is content, keywords, forbidden, imagery, tone.

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Instead of being trained to interpret, to analyze, to engage

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with a story or a song, you're trained to scan

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for danger like you're a spiritual tsa agent with a

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checklist in your head. Smoke, alcohol, kissing, doubt, ambiguity, reject it,

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burn it, avoid it. It kills something inside of you.

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You have the ability to wrestle with art, to explore emotion,

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to sit in the tension of a lyric and ask

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what is this really saying? Instead of cultivating discernment, it

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demands censorship instead of promoting wisdom. It teaches fear. Instead

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of forming interpreters of truth, it forms censors of language.

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You don't learn to understand the world, You'll learn to

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label it, and one day you find yourself holding the

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album Escape by Journey, and instead of hearing the heart

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beat beneath the music, you hear nothing but red flags,

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but fear but paranoia, and you miss out the entire

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story and you can't and you miss out relating to

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a story that many people. Maybe not right now in

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your life, but maybe at some point in the past,

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maybe some point in the future, maybe there's people around

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you who very much can relate to it and it

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means something to them. But we want to just shut

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it down and say, no, you can't do this, you

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can't watch that, you can't listen to that, and we

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want to take it away and ignore maybe that there

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is a deeper emotional connection than we understand. Two people

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searching for that, no longer wanting to be lonely and empty,

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wanting that connection. I mean, come on, that's a universal story.

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That's the story of how Christianity stole an eighties pop song.

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That's the story of Christianity versus art. That's the story

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of Christianity versus music. Thanks for listening, everyone, Have a

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great night. God bless