I don’t understand why people tag secular musicians to be sinners and gospel musicians as Christians. The only difference between the two – the former’s lyrics is without the ‘God’ word (non-religious) and the latter has the ‘God’ word in the song. Gospel means truth and a secular musician singing ‘drugs are bad for you’ is singing the truth just as a gospel singer saying ‘God is good’ is also singing the truth.

Now, does the secular musician whose lyric does not mention God a sinner? Does all secular music contain profane words? There are many secular songs that have catchy melodies, thoughtful insights, and positive messages. There are many secular songs with no mention of God that still uphold good values such as honesty, purity, and integrity. Singing a gospel song does not automatically makes one a Christian neither does singing secular make one a sinner.

Every song has its purpose. Some secular musicians use their songs to preach about HIV, teenage pregnancy and a whole lot of social vices. Let’s think Miriam Makeba, Doris Day, Paapa Yankson, and a whole lot of musicians whose messages do/may not contain the ‘God word’, but their songs are very uplifting. T

here are some gospel singers who love everything ‘ungodly’ and absolutely the most un-Jesus-like people you could ever meet. Likewise, some who don’t even sing about Jesus or never mention Jesus once in their lyrics, are humble, Bible-believing, family men/women who are faithful believers in Christ. When a gospel singer is embroiled in a scandal, he/she is a disgrace to Christianity, and the comment that follows: ‘It is secular musicians who should be behaving that way’.

Are secular musicians devils, sinners and idolaters? If a secular musician (the sinner) sings gospel, God has touched/called him/her. So while the person was singing the song without the God word, he/she had not been touched? Sad thought of life.

A Christian is a follower of Christ. Just because the content of a song is Biblical doesn’t mean it was necessarily written and/or performed by a Christian. Majority if not all Gospel musicians are merely doing the gospel for the money. They don’t factor drawing people to/worshipping God into the business plan. It has nothing to do with the faith of the person singing that song. Anybody can join the gospel trail. It is a matter of grabbing the bible, pick two verses, add instrumentals – then bingo, he/she is the latest gospel singer in town. The question is does the person believe in God – NO, a Christian – NO. It is just a matter of checking your geographical location. If everything the country does is associated to God, go gospel; if they don’t believe in God – you go secular.

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of Christians who condemn all secular music but then have no problem watching ‘secular’ TV. It’s like going to the pick-n-mix sweet stall, pick the sweets we like, condemn what we don’t. Some Christians declare their preferred style of music to be the only “biblical” one and declare all other forms of music to be unwholesome, ungodly, or even satanic. It is the content of the lyrics that should be the bone of contention but not the person singing/performing. Some Christians even think listening to a song without the ‘God’ word means they are going to hell.

The Bible nowhere condemns any particular style of music. Can the lyrics in a secular song be true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy? If so, then there is nothing wrong with a Christian listening to a secular song of that nature.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any particular style of music. It is the lyrics that determine whether a song is “acceptable” for a Christian to listen to. We should stop being Pharisees (self-righteous people) when it comes to nominating hell goers and heaven goers. On judgement day, the people we may meet in heaven will even tempt us to sue God!