Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?

Larry Norman made this question semi-famous with his 1972 song from the album Only Visiting This Planet. As one of the pioneers of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), his tune became an anthem for this growing movement. The formal label

known as CCM would gain traction in later years, but this song described what its forerunners in "Jesus Music" or "Christian Rock" all held in common: a desire to create alternative Christian entertainment by using popular music forms.

Of course it is commonplace now for Christian music to use the same instruments, rhythms, and melodies as secular acts. Nowadays we are actually more likely to find CCM inside the church than outside it. CCM gave birth to CWM (Contemporary Worship Music), and these newer songs are meant to be played in your Sunday morning service -- not in a theater or school gym on Saturday night. Although lots of churches still worship with choirs, organs, and hymnals, hardly anyone bats an eye at seeing guitars and drums in a sanctuary.

Larry Norman's side clearly won the worship wars, but his influence wasn't limited to the American church. There are also connections between the CCM genre and the birth of the missionary movement known as ethnodoxology. Scott Aniol and some colleagues from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary recently published an article in the journal Artistic Theologian called "Worship from the Nations." The bulk of the article is an historical overview of the people and organizations that birthed ethnodoxology as a mission strategy. As a participant in this movement myself, I have to say that its account is thorough and comprehensive. But Aniol's article misses this key link: the pioneers of ethnodoxology all came of age in the time of early CCM. It seems pretty clear to me that "Why should the devil have all the good music?" and "Music is not a universal language" are cousins in the family-tree of ideas, if not siblings. I can even remember taking a course from the late Tom Avery with Norman's song title listed as a tenet of this philosophy about music and mission.

The irony is that as CCM has become the status quo for Christian music, it is actually making the work of ethnodoxology more difficult. CCM/CWM is now a behemoth that rides global media channels to overtake many locally-grown forms of expression. Songs from Hillsong and Chris Tomlin are now played in churches of virtually every nation. A small congregation in a regional capital in Indonesia is much more likely to copy one of these songs from Youtube than they are to adapt a "pagan" tribal tune from their ancestors. Ethnodoxologists rarely have to persuade people not to use the "devil's music" from their own societies -- instead they have to make a case for not simply mimicking the tunes from Norman's descendants.

Note for history geeks: Contrary to the common myth, Martin Luther probably never said this phrase. It seems to have originated instead with English evangelist Rowland Hill, who asked, "Why should the devil have all the best tunes?"

I will let you listen and decide for yourself: Was Larry Norman's signature song actually taking anything back from the devil -- in other words, is this really "good music"?