The Gospel of Rock
November 12, 2008 2:43 pm Blogs
So the cover story of Rolling Stone this week is about the band AC/DC and it titled, “The Gospel of Rock & Roll.” The article basically is about how awesome AC/DC is, how they’ve been cranking it out for 35 years and how everyone should go buy their latest album, “Black Ice.” What interested me most about the article was the use of the word “gospel” and the use of it as an adjective. What does that mean and why is it significant?
First, where the word “gospel” comes from, its etymology. The English word “gospel” is an English Anglo-Saxon word, meaning the earliest it could have been used is during the 11th century. The first English Bible was not printed until 1535, so it had to have been developed sometime during that 500 year period. That’s a long gap, but what is evident is that by the time the Bible was translated into English the word “gospel” had become a common word. What happened during that time gap is quite interesting.
Apparently, a speech was called a spell if a person gave a “good speech” which had a certain kind of effect on the people listening…most likely penitence, jubilee, or being mesmerized. What appears to be so is that this is what often happened when preachers or priests would share about Jesus from the Bible. Now the period between approximately 500 to 1500 AD is known often called the “Dark Ages” because of it’s lack of Christian activity, so most likely the word originated during the fifteenth century under the forerunners of the reformation…men such as John Wycliffe and Jan Hus.
Okay, so what was normally called a good speech began to be referred to as a god-speech or god-spell when the speaker was talking about Jesus from the Bible. Saying god-spell was either apparently too much work or just freaked people out…so they eventually just shortened it to the word, “gospel.” This still happens all the time today, this shortening of words or phrases. Think of the word, giterdon, short for “get her done.” Or ya’ll, you all. Thus, by the time an English Bible was made, the translators, whenever they saw the one Greek word “good-news,” they just translated it gospel because that is what everyone had been saying for awhile.
The interesting thing about it is that the word gospel, in all its old uses (including the original Greek and Hebrew words which still get translated as “gospel”), is that the gospel was always an oral message. It has a resident adjective in it but the word gospel is a noun, a certain type of oral speech or presentation which has a certain type of content, namely about who Jesus is and what he has done.
Now, it is no secret that the content of the gospel is under fierce opposition by many today…whether it be the relativists, demythologists, modern monarchians, christo-humanists, universalists, annhilationists, or new perspectivists (and if you don’t know what those are that’s okay, you can find look up definitions on our doctrine page). So in reaction, some are fighting for the word “gospel” to only pertain to the objective historical facts of the gospel rather than the effects of the gospel in the human person.
Others have taken a different view, noting how it touches and effects every area of life. From the exegetical level with a Vosonian Christotelic hermeneutic (http://www.bsmi.org/vos.htm) to the personal sanctification level with a Keller-Powlison like application. People are talking about the gospel of creation, the flood, and the exile. Christians are now talking about “gospeling” one another, and the gospel of sex, food, friendship, joy, and church, which can be either good or bad. Apparently anything can be a gospel now. Maybe it can? What are we to think of this?
Here’s the thing. We as Christians are supposed to test everything (1 Thess 5:21). There are going to be a ton of false gospels out there. Things which claim to be good news, which claim to provide us with a satisfying worldview…but they will all fall short. Maybe it is good to call them gospels to get us to think about the messages being presented to us? Gospels versus The Gospel. Maybe thinking about everything in terms of what it has to do with Jesus or not by using the language of “gospel” is not so bad?
Is it okay that Rolling Stone is stealing our “Christian” word and using it as an adjective? We can’t stop them and sure, why not? People have been complaining about Christians using “Christianese” for awhile now. But apparently not everything we say is missing the mark. The funny thing is the word gospel used to describe the effect of the message of Christ and saying it was good, and now essentially using the word “gospel” is being used to describe anything that is good or that people like.
So then, what is the gospel of rock? I dunno. Maybe it’s that one can find redemption through creating music, listening and enjoying music, or maybe that music is inherently good. Well, if music can redeem us, I think that’s a false gospel…but if I’m saying Jesus can redeem me and make me right with my creator, then through him, through The Gospel I am freed and enabled to enjoy music to the fullest.
I think we need to begin to train our minds to think about the gospel in everything. What is being communicated by a movie, a television show, a song lyric? What is it promising, how does it fail, how can it succeed, what does it have to do with who Jesus is and what he has done for his people and for the future of the world? What is it’s gospel and how does that relate to The Gospel?
How can we share The Gospel fresh so that it has that spellbinding effect on people once again? I long for that. Maybe this is one way to help us go deep with people…seeing how everyone is believing and trusting in a gospel. The question is if it is the right one or if it is one that can truly live up to its promises.
- Pastor Duane