The original poster and his writing puts focus on certain aspects of (members) of bands and they're lyrics. I wish to make a certain difference between a) time and place; b) the proposed use of the music or the lyrics of the song; and c) the artist/band/group. The way the OP judges is somewhat too harsh in my opinion and doesn't do justice to all aspects involved.
To start with the aspect of time, specialy hindsight. Saying things in hindsight is always easy. Nevertheless I do want to make a clear distinction to music that I find acceptable and music that I don't find acceptable. And it might could be that what I find acceptable now, I will not find acceptable later on, and vice versa.
To show what time can do, I want to show the (for this purpose) lyrics of a popular Dutch song, back in 1987.
Dutch lyrics, if you want to put them in a translate machine yourself:
Ik sta op, nog niet wakker.
Ik wankel door het huis als 'n stakker.
Maar ondanks alles haal ik m'n doel, op het gevoel.
Ja, ik ben een gebruiker.
Het pure spul, dus zonder de suiker.
Ik giet het zwarte goud in een kop, leef weer op.
En de markt wordt stabieler,
de grote winkels werken als dealer.
Een Angolees of Braziliaan levert het aan.
Het bevat caffeine,
ik loop erop als was 't benzine.
Espresso, super, beide loodvrij, dus doet U mij:
Een kopje koffie.
Translated lyrics (with the intentional meaning)
I get up, not yet awake, so
I walk around my home like a zombie.
But regardless I get to my shot, just routine.
Yes, I am a user.
The pure stuff, so without sugar.
I put the black gold in, and I get happy.
And the market (for the stuff) gets more stable,
the big stores work as dealer.
A guy from Angola or Brazil delivers.
It has caffeine,
I run on it like gasoline.
Espresso, super, unleaded, so give me:
A cup of coffee.
To be clear: this song was not about using drugs and promoting anything like that; it only sings about the collective hunger for coffee. But it uses references to being an addict; and actualy makes people aware that you can be an coffee-addict.
By the way: these Dutch lyrics weren't the original lyrics. The original song was made by Brazilian, called Roberto Carlos. He made this song -Verde e amarelo- about the pride to wear the football (excuse me: soccer) shirt for the Brazilian national team.
The Dutch song above used to be no problem at all back in the days. Nowadays it's only been played on radio stations with a target audience age 35 and older, because of the explicit lyrics. You would say: why is coffee explicit? That has to do with a recent, dangerous, form of XTC that was or still is available in the EDM-scene, branded: k0ffie (c0ffee). The song from 1987 has no pretention at all to refer to this form of XTC.
My point is: the meaning of lyrics of a song can become different because of time. Because of new inventions, because of a new presidents, because landmarks have been replaced by other landmarks, because ... you name it. This is not just true for secular (if it would be fair to call it that way) music, but true for all kind of lyrics.
Not just the meaning of lyrics can change; even the music of a song can get a different meaning. Most notoriously all kind of 'devilish' chords, as can be found tritones, best examples are the augmented 4th or deminished 5th (depending on your look on life). While it is nothing less or nothing more than an very common interval between two notes. These days, that interval is no longer a problem. Mostly because we have found out that the theory behind it is inconsitent and makes no sense at all. Let me show you that with an example.
Because I don't want angry supporters of neither Hillsong or Jesus Culture (which are both -in legal entity- church cooperations) blaming me for all kind of things because I said they are using augmented 4th in many of their songs, I'm going to use another church cooperation that says it has strong ties with the Bible.
The Roman Catholic Church (despite what you may think on them) finds 'The West Side Story', the musical, a great inspirational musical based on christian love. I don't know where they got that from. But for many years it has claimed the augmented 4th-chord is not to be used, because it was devilish. In the West Side Story there is a song called Maria. I think most people will know that song. It has atleast 10 times (if not, more) an augmented 4th-chord in it.
To understand what a song means, you not only have to know meaning of the words in it and maybe (in some cases) understand the musical theory behind some different notes and chords, you also have to be aware in the time, and therefor, mindset, it was made.
Does that justifies clearly false doctrine in 'christian' (if there is such) music? No. Teaching false doctrine against scripture will be consistently wrong, regardless of time.
The artist/band/group preforming is always a mixture of emotions, feelings and opinions about many things. Amongst those are also the way one looks towards God and Jesus as their personal savior. Those opinions can change. A person that once might could be called a christian (I do not want to judge on that, I leave that up to God) might now call himself/herself an atheist.
Let take for example something that has not happened yet, but just for the purpose of illustration. Matt Redman, for this example, now suddenly says he is an atheist. Matt Redman is also the writer of the song 10,000 reasons / Bless the Lord oh my soul.
Does the situation (again, in this example - not saying he is) that Matt Redman claims to be an atheist change the general meanings of the lyrics of the song? No. It wouldn't. It would, according to me, still be a great song for christians to sing.
Now, again for the purpose of illustration, let say Matt Redman did an interview with Rock 'n Roll Magazine in which he announces that he was not a christian at all, but just implanted this song into the christian world and it was actualy ment to worship someone else than God.
Does that changes the situation? Yes. It would. If you would be aware of such statement then you would be aware of the evil roots it clearly has.
Same goes for the music. For example. There are some works of classical music, specialy composed for 'masonic' purposes, therefor to worship the great builder (whoever that might be). That is clearly in contradiction with scripture.
If you want to say something about the 'christianess', and therefor also theology behind, a song, you must be aware of this aspect aswell. You cannot say: because he is like this now, or back than, all the music of this person is bad.
To conclude:
- be aware on your judgement (Mat. 7 verse 2)
- don't be too quick with saying: if a is bad, than b will be to
- if you find that most of the music of one artist/band/group ain't good, then it's probably wise to ignore that from that point onwards
- maybe a better standard would be: is the song not anti-christian, then it is okay [like the coffeesong mentioned above, unless you realy think it is ment to be to make us all coffee addicts (which I don't it does)]
