Jesus
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not "perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” (John 3:16-17)
Martin Buber
“In the relation to God, unconditional exclusiveness and unconditional inclusiveness are one. For those who enter into the absolute relationship, nothing particular retains any importance—neither things nor beings, neither earth nor heaven—but everything is included in the relationship. For entering into the pure relationship does not involve ignoring everything but seeing everything in the You, not renouncing the world but placing it upon its proper ground. Looking away from the world is no help toward God; staring at the world is no help either; but whoever beholds the world in him stands in his presences…” (from
I and Thou)
C.S. Lewis
“When I attempted a few minutes ago, to describe our spiritual longings, I was omitting one of their most curious characteristics. We usually notice it just as the moment of vision dies away, as the music ends, or as the landscape loses the celestial light… For a few minutes we have had the illusion of belonging to that world. Now we wake to find that it is no such thing. We have been mere spectators. Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted, welcomed, or taken into the dance. We may go when we please, we may stay if we can, no one cares. Now, a scientist may reply that since most of the things we call beautiful are inanimate it is not very surprising that they take no notice of us. That, of course, is true. It is not the physical objects that I am speaking of, but that indescribable Something of which they become for a moment the messengers. And part of the bitterness which mixes with the sweetness of that message is due to the fact that it so seldom seems to be a message intended for us, but rather something we have overheard. By bitterness I mean pain, not resentment. We should hardly dare to ask that any notice be taken of ourselves. But we pine. The sense that in the universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, the bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret.” (from
The Weight of Glory)
Terrence Malick
Badlands (1972)
Days of Heaven (1978)
The Thin Red Line (1998)
The New World (2005)
Martin Heidegger
“Truth is the truth of Being. Beauty does not occur alongside and apart from this truth. When truth sets itself into the work, it appears. Appearance—as this being of truth in the work and as work—is beauty. Thus the beautiful belongs to the advent of truth, truth’s taking of its place. It does not exist merely relative to pleasure and purely as its object.” (from “The Origin of the Work of Art.”)
Saint Paul
“Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (I Corinthians 13:12)
Marshall McLuhan
“All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.” (from
The Medium is the Massage)
Sufjan Stevens
And in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floorboards
For the secrets I have hid
(from “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.”)
F. Scott Fitzgerald
“And as I sat there brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s long dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it, He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.” (from
The Great Gatsby)
Yasujiro Ozu
Tokyo Story (1953)
George Steiner
“All representations, even the most abstract, infer a rendezvous with intelligibility or, at the least, with a strangeness attenuated, qualified by observance and willed form. Apprehension (the meeting with the other) signifies both fear and perception. The continuum between both, the modulation from one to the other, lie at the source of poetry and the arts.” (from
Real Presences)
Paul Tillich
“What is the nature of a being that is able to produce art? Man is finite. He is, as one could say, mixed of being and nonbeing. Once he was not. Now he is and some time he will not be. He is not by himself, but thrown into existence and he will be thrown out of existence and cease to be for himself. He is delivered to the flux of time which runs from the past to the future through the ever-moving point which is called the present. He is aware of the infinite. He is aware that he belongs to it. But he is also aware that he is excluded from it… Out of the anxiety, and the double awareness that we are finite and that we belong to infinity from which we are excluded, the urge arises to express the essential unity of that which we are in symbols which are religious and artistic.” (from
On Art and Architecture)
Dorothy Sayers
“Poets have, indeed, often communicated in their own mode of expression truths identical with the theologians’ truths; but just because of the difference in the modes of expression, we often fail to see the identity of the statements.” (from
The Mind of the Maker)
Over the Rhine
What a beautiful piece of heartache this has all turned out to be.
Lord knows we've learned the hard way all about healthy apathy.
And I use these words pretty loosely.
There's so much more to life than words.
(from “Latter Days”)
Soren Kierkegaard
“He will grant thee a hiding place within Him, and once hidden in Him he will hide thy sins. For He is the friend of sinners... He does not merely stand still, open His arms and say, 'Come hither'; no, he stands there and waits, as the father of the lost son waited, rather He does not stand and wait, he goes forth to seek, as the shepherd sought the lost sheep, as the woman sought the lost coin. He goes--yet no, he has gone, but infinitely farther than any shepherd or any woman, He went, in sooth, the infinitely long way from being God to becoming man, and that way He went in search of sinners.” (from
Training in Christianity)
Richard Linklater
Before Sunrise (1995)
Waking Life (2001)
Before Sunset (2004)
George MacDonald
“In what belongs to the deeper meanings of nature and her mediation between us and God, the appearances of nature are the truths of nature, far deeper than any scientific discoveries in and concerning them. The show of things is that for which God cares most, for their show is the face of far deeper things than they; we see in them, in a distant way, as in a glass darkly, the face of the unseen. It is through their show, not through their analysis, that we enter into their deepest truths. What they say to the childlike soul is the truest thing to be gathered of them.” (from
The Voice of Job)
Emily Dickinson
The Bustle in a House
The Morning after Death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted opon Earth –
The Sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity
John Steinbeck
“In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror.” (from
East of Eden)
Bob Dylan
He woke up, the room was bare
He didn't see her anywhere.
He told himself he didn't care,
pushed the window open wide,
Felt an emptiness inside
to which he just could not relate
Brought on by a simple twist of fate.
(from “Simple Twist of Fate”)
Walker Percy
“What is the malaise? You ask. The malaise is the pain of loss. The world is lost to you, the world and the people in it, and there remains only you and the world and you no more able to be in the world than Banquo’s ghost.” (from
The Moviegoer)
Sofia Coppola
Virgin Suicides (2000)
Lost in Translation (2003)
Marie Antoinette (2006)
Kathleen Norris
“Church is to be participated in and not consumed. The point is not what one gets out of it, but the worship of God; the service takes place both because of and despite the needs, strengths, and frailties of the people present. How else could it be?” (from
Dakota)
Marilynne Robinson
“Whenever I think of Edward, I think of playing catch in a hot street and that wonderful weariness of the arms. I think of leaping after a high throw and that wonderful collaboration of the whole body with itself and that wonderful certainty and amazement when you know the glove is just where it should be. Oh, I will miss the world!” (from
Gilead)
N.T. Wright
“Preaching the gospel means announcing Jesus as Lord of the world; and, unless we are prepared to contradict ourselves with every breath we take, we cannot make that announcement without seeking to bring that lordship to bear over every aspect of the world.” (from
What Saint Paul Really Said).
David Bazan
It's weird to think of all the things
That have not been keeping up with the times
It's ten o' clock the sun is down
Just begun to set the western hills on fire
I hear that you don't change
How do you expect to keep up with the trends
You won't survive the information age
Unless you plan to change the truth to accommodate the brilliance of man
The brilliance of man
(from “Letter From a Concerned Follower”)
G.K. Chesterton
“Gazing at some detail like a bird or a cloud, we can all ignore its awful blue background; we can neglect the sky; and precisely because it bears down upon us with an annihilating force it is felt as nothing. A thing of this kind can only be an impression and a rather subtle impression; but to me it is a very strong impression made by pagan literature and religion. I repeat that in our special sacramental sense there is, of course, the absence of the presence of God. But there is in a very real sense the presence of the absence of God. We feel it in the unfathomable sadness of pagan poetry; for I doubt if there was ever in all the marvelous manhood of antiquity a man who was happy as St. Francis was happy.” (from
The Everlasting Man)
Gus Van Sant
Elephant (2003)
Paranoid Park (2008)
Solomon
"I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with which to occupy themselves. He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one's lifetime; moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor--it is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him. That which is has been already and that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by." (Ecclesiastes 3:10-15).
Jack Kerouac
“What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing?—it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” (from
On the Road)
St. Augustine
"Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee..."
Martin Luther
“Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can and will not retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen."
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
The Son (2002)
The Child (2005)
Any album by Five Iron Frenzy.
Yeah, I was about to bring FIF up too. I don’t know anyone who even thinks about the Insyderz anymore; I know plenty of people who still listen to Five Iron Frenzy from time to time.
Also, nobody’s nostalgic for Project 86′s self-titled album. Their second, Drawing Black Lines, is far superior, and that was the one that got the most radio play, as far as I can remember.
The Waiting should also be on here, though I’m not surprised that they’re not. The most underrated, unjustly neglected band in all of CCM, in my opinion.
I’m with you on The Waiting. A few years back my wife bought me tickets to see The Waiting and Smalltown Poets but the concert was canceled.
Ha! My first thought was also Five Iron Frenzy…amazing.
Carman, anyone!? Addicted To Jesus!?
Kids Praise 5. It’s the one when Psalty and the kids go camping.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane! I have lots of these (some on vinyl!). Still listen to a couple of these artists: ASU, JoC, Switchfoot
Old Bebo Norman or Caedmon’s Call. That CCM folk was big for me. Why hide it…anyone else?
Skillet’s first self-titled album (“Saturn”, anyone?”)
Major echo on Caedmon’s Call and Bebo, though both had the rare capacity to transcend the cheese. Jennifer Knapp’s Kansas is the same–though “Undo Me” made us think for a minute that CCM had found it’s inner Alanis Morrisette–but the album revealed much, much more.
Great as “Take Me to Your Leader” was, “Going Public” was far superior.
I would add Bleach’s album “Clean” to the list–they were the closest CCM thing to Smashing Pumpkins and put on a heck of a show.
Also, I would echo “The Waiting”, both the self-titled disk of infectious, quirky wordplay tunes. They were to 90′s CCM what REM was to early alternative.
Then there were the bands you wish held it together–(Burlap to Cashmere, even the randomness of Church of Rhythm, or Tony Vincent, who’s now a Broadway star)
Hmm…that’s about it for now…although, everyone who grew up with CCM will always know Petra means rock…
If you’re going to throw MWS on there, you might as well include Steven Curtis Chapman, “The Great Adventure,” featuring the dreadfully amazing “Got 2 B Tru,” where S C-squared listens to dcT and decides to rap. And then TobyMac himself comes on the scene to tell him he sucks.
It would take cult-deprogramming people to erase these lyrics from my brain.
FIF indeed!
Wow, memories of youth group conventions & music festivals, early cassettes & cd’s and all of my first concerts just came to mind. Thank you. Excellent list.
Still a fan of Five Iron. I would definitely add Jennifer Knapp to that list.
Definitely Caedmon’s Call, especially that first album.
Add some Chris Rice, Nicole Nordeman, and a local band called Silar’s Bald.
Haha – Is it sad that I’m proud of rejecting most of that music?
I did like Five Iron Frenzy and the W’s. Twas the time for ska.
Also:
Dime Store Prophets – Love is Against the Grain
Hokus Pick Maneuver – Pick it Up
Black Eyed Sceva – 5 years…
Some TOMfest stuff: Joy Electric, 5 O’clock People, and The Violent Burning!
I still listen to Caedmon’s Call. :)
How about Starflyer 59′s Silver and Gold albums?
I agree with Caedmon’s Call’s first album, as well as some of Chris Rice’s album Past the Edges.
And Brett, the first two albums you list are still two of my absolute favorite albums of all time. I found Heart in Motion at Cheapo’s in Minneapolis’ crazy-hip neighborhood Uptown and got ridiculously excited. And for two dollars! My then girlfriend was kind of embarrassed for me.
Ha. Good to hear somebody else reference Hokus Pick. That was a hysterically great band by CCM standards ;)
If you go back and listen to Audio A’s “Bloom”, it’s really a pretty solid album musically, and an ok album lyrically.
And while the 1st Jars album was pretty awesome (was anybody else doing acoustic guitars and drum machines back then?), the 2nd Jars of Clay album will always have a place in my “Masterpiece Albums” list. It’s one step down, imho, from being described as “Beatles-level great”.
Which is why, of course, it never went over ;)
So here’s my question–was CCM back then just as ridiclous as it is now?
“Much Afraid” is my favorite album, period. Glad to see someone else who recognizes the greatness!
Great list, Brett.
I agree that FIF should be included, but would also include Goti Hook’s ridiculous album Banana Man. Loved that as a kid. Also agree with The Waiting being included.
Poor Old Lu- Straight Six.
I still listen to it and love it.
Poor Old Lu!!! Love them!! My list would have to include them, Prayer Chain, The Choir and Plankeye.
I really liked FIF, Ghoti Hook (my first concert) and Starflyer 59.
I also really loved The Hunger by Seven Day Jesus and The Moon Is Down by Further Seems Forever, both of which I still listen too.
And what about Stavesacre? They were great back in the day. Plus pretty much any other Tooth & Nail band.
40 Acres? Hello?
Funny thing is I have an iTunes playlist already created for when I want to get nostalgic
A lot that you listed already, but also some of these:
Seven Day Jesus “The Hunger”
Stavesacre “Speakeasy”
The Prayer Chain “Shawl”
Grammatrain “Lonely House”
Dryve “Thrify Mr. Kickstar”
Common Children “Delicate Fade”
The Choir “Free Flying Soul”
Bloomsday “The Day the Colors Died”
Black Eyed Sceva “5 Years, 50000 Miles Davis”
Waterdeep “Sink or Swim”
I may crank up the playlist again since you just reminded me of it.
Sonicflood Self-titled
Btw, shameless plug: Grant Norswothy, Sonicflood Bassist is speaking at my church, City Church in Anaheim this Sunday at 10:30am. Anyone is welcome, we meet at Chain Reaction near Lincoln and Euclid. Hipsters also welcome–and yes, I have no shame.
how about the late 80′s… Petra – This means war, Whiteheart – Emergency Broadcast, and the “White metal” scene…Stryper, Whitecross, One Bad Pig, Barren Cross, Bloodgood, and Vengeance. 2 great artists I still listen to, the late Rich Mullins and Rez Band
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POD and Sixpence are the only ones I ever listen to. The others I hated when they came out. Ug. What a bad time.
Children’s music:
Amy Grant, Heart in Motion (1991)
Michael W. Smith, Change Your World (1993)
DC Talk, Free at Last (1993)
DC Talk, Jesus Freak (1995)
Audio Adrenaline, Bloom (1996)
Newsboys, Take Me To Your Leader (1996)
Rebecca St. James, God (1996)
Note to everyone: this is awesome. Forgive the shilling, but my book on growing up with Christian rock in the 90s comes out in October, and pretty much every band and record mentioned here is in it.
Kyle: Mercury > Shawl
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A few weeks ago, I took a listen to Jesus Freak for the first time in a long time. I was surprised by how well it held up. Personally speaking, it is the quintessential CCM record of the 90′s and although I abhor the rapping that Toby Mac does (it seriously gives me, what I call, Chills of Embarassment), these guys knew how to put together a record.
PFR!!!
Great list. I was also a big Smalltown Poets fan. I still love the music video for “There Is Only You,” with the cakewalk. Hilarious.
Back in 1994, my youth pastor got his hands on the cd “Songs from the Loft” and we pretty much heard it nonstop at any youth functions at my church in Hendersonville, TN. Featured Amy Grant, Gary Chapman, Ashley Cleveland, Susan Ashton, etc.
Definitely agree with Violet Burning and The Prayer Chain for proto-hipster nostalgia.
Also, with anything from Tooth and Nail, but only from the early to mid 90s.
Further back, I want to specify not just MSW, but especially the “Secret Ambition” music video – particularly when used at a “cool” youth group event to proceed an altar call.
you hit that nail on the head!
Note that my music includes some secular emo as well as a ton of christian rock. Anyway, here is my list of bands:
Aleixa Altered Altered Mission The Appleseed Cast
Armor For Sleep
The Ataris Audio Adrenaline
Ballydowse Believable Picnic Big Dog Small Fence Black Cherry Soda Black Eyed Sceva
Blackball The Blamed
Blaster The Rocket Boy Bleach Blenderhead
Blindside
Blindside Feat. Billy Corgan Blood-Shedd
Bloomsday Bon Voyage Boy+Rocket Brandtson
Brave Saint Saturn Brazil Bride Broomtree
Buck Burlap To Cashmere Caedmon’s Call
Calibretto 13 Chatterbox Chevelle The Choir Christafari
Clash of Symbols
Clash of Symbols Code Of Ethics Coheed & Cambria
Common Children
The Cootees Copeland Counterfit Craig’s Brother Crooked Smile Cross My Heart The Crossing The Crush Dakoda Motor Co.
Damien Jurado Dashboard Confessional
David Bazan dc Talk
Dear Ephesus Delirious?
The Dell Griffiths The Deluxtone Rockets
Dime Store Prophets Dogwood
Driver Eight Dryve EDL Element 101 Embodyment
Emery
Engage Ethereal Scourge Everdown
Every Day Life
Fanmail Finch Fine China
Five Iron Frenzy
Flight 180 Flyleaf Focal Point Focused Fold Zandura
Further Seems Forever
Galactic Cowboys The Get Up Kids
Ghoti Hook
Glisten The Gloria Record Goodnight Star Grammatrain
Guardian Havalina Rail Co. Hawk Nelson Hey Mercedes The Hoi Polloi
Hokus Pick
Holy Soldier Homegrown Honey Hot Rod Circuit
Hot Snakes
House Of Wires The Huntingtons
‘Imisi Impact Insyderz
The Israelites
Jars Of Clay Jebediah Jeremiah’s Grotto Jeremy Enigk Jesse’s Vineyard Jets To Brazil
Jimmy Eat World
Joe Christmas Johnny Respect
Joy Electric
The Juliana Theory
Kerith Ravine Kevin Clay KimThomas,Jim Thomas, Say-So Klank Kosmos Express The Kreepdowns Kutless Lament Lassie Foundation Leaderdogs For The Blind Lifesaver Living Sacrifice Loudflower Luxury Maintain Michael Knott Mind Set Mineral
Model Engine Morella’s Forest Mortal
Mukala
MxPx
Name Taken New End Original Newsboys
Ninety Pound Wuss Niv No Innocent Victim
No Motiv Not For The Crowd The O.C. Supertones
One Eighty One:21
Outer Circle Over The Rhine
Overcome P.O.D.
PAX217 Pedro The Lion
Pete Stewart, Grammatrain
PFR Plankeye
Plumb Point Center Polarboy Poor Old Lu
Pop Unknown
The Prayer Chain The Prodigal Sons Project 86 The Promise Ring
Puller
Pushstart Wagon Rackets And Drapes The Rainy Days Raspberry Jam Rebecca St. James
Relient K
Resolve Rhubarb Rich Young Ruler
Roadside Monument
Rob Walker Roper Rose Blossom Punch Royal Ruby Joe
Rufio Sal Paradise Sappo Sarah Masen Satellite Soul Saves The Day
The Seeds Seldom Seven Day Jesus
SHeeSh
Sherri Youngward Sick Of Change Silage Sixpence None The Richer
Skillet Skratchline Slick Shoes
Smalltown Poets
Smalltown Poets (Villanelle)
So
Soap Box Sometime Sunday
Soulfood 76
Spitfire Split Level Spoken
Spooky Tuesday Spudpuddle Spy Glass Blue Squad Five-O
Starflyer 59
Stavesacre
Steve Taylor Stretch Arm Strong Strongarm Student Rick Sunny Day Real Estate
Switchfoot
Taking Back Sunday Thee Spivies
Third Day This Train
Thousand Foot Krutch Threethirteen Thrice
Throes Thursday
Time Again Tragedy Ann Tripl3fastaction Triple Fast Action Underoath
Up Hold Upside Down Room
The Used Value Pac
Various Artists
Velocipedes Velour 100
Viva Voce W’s The Waiting
Watashi Wa Wyrick Yellowcard
Yum Yum Children Zao 3rd Root 44 Evergiven 90LB.Wuss
Josh–JOE CHRISTMAS!!! Coupleskate, one of my favorite music videos..man some of these bands were way ahead of their time! Sunny Day Real Estate, Pedro the Lion, Further Seems Forever, Ninety Pound Wuss, LIving Sacrifice, Zao (saw them!) Hung out w/ Dogwood and One 21 too, awesome guys! thanks for taking me down memory lane of my high school years!!! Holy Cow I miss all that music!!!!
Grammatrain and Fold Zandura.
Dakota Motor Club
Small Town Poets
The original Third Day album (on Gray Dot records before it was re-released).
The Prayer Chain
Mike Knott
Christafari
Gospel Gangstas
Crux
Guardian
Used to watch Z-TV on satellite and read HM magazine. Good stuff.
This is maybe because I’m a smidge on the young side of Christian hipsterdom, but I always go for Supertones Strike Back over Adventures. And why on earth is there no Rich Mullins on this list?
No Deliriou5? Apparently you didn’t feel the mountains tremble …
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