“A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” (Galatians 5:9)
The June 5th concert scheduled for the Atlanta Motor Speedway next weekend offers a lot more than the rock and roll music to which we think our kids are listening. The truth is several of the groups for the daylong event don’t play “Rock and Roll”. They play a genre of music known as “Shock Rock”. Here’s a sample from a group called Offspring. Your teenage children or grandchildren know who they are:
“…Beheaded, watch you spurt like a garden hose
Beheaded, bloody mess all over my clothes
Watch my girlfriend come to the door
Chop off her head, she falls to the floor
Now watching my baby’s jugular blow
Really makes my motor go
…Find another victim for my machine
Put him in a home-made guillotine
Blade falls, gonna need a gasket
Watch your head plop in a wicker basket.”
“So what!” someone asked me the other day. “Are there any studies that link music to violence?”
The best way I know how to answer that question is to quote Madeline Levine, author of the 1996 book, Viewing Violence, who confirmed that over 3000 studies on media violence have been conducted over the last 45 years, 1000 of which examined its effect on young people. “How many times can you find the same answer to the same question?” she asked, noting that researchers barely bother to study it anymore.
Interestingly, the music industry is beginning to sound a little like the tobacco industry sounded when it claimed there was no link between cancer and smoking. I still shake my head in disbelief when I think about what Recording Industry Association of America President Hilary Rosen recently said before a Senate Committee on Media Violence: “While we approve of any forum focusing on serious and real problems faced by today’s young people, we passionately believe that most of the attacks on the lyrics of the 1990s should be categorized with those of the alarmed parents of the 1950s teenagers in love with Elvis.”
Yeah, right Ms. Rosen. I guess that’s why over a ten-year period from 1985 to 1995, when the teenage population was shrinking, teenage arrests jumped nearly 160% while aggravated assaults committed by teenagers almost doubled. And you failed to notice that studies coming out of the University of Florida, the University of Tennessee, and the University of California all agree that there is a correlation between the “Shock Rock” our kids are listening to and the acts of violence that they are beginning to play out in our schools. It’s understandable why a professor in adolescent psychiatry involved with one of these studies concluded, “The message…is that there is a higher power in control of the world and that power is violence, often violence presided over by Satan.”
There are many who will say, “Listen, you’re talking about the exception and not the rule. The vast majority of these kids aren’t listening to the lyrics. They just like the beat. And besides, there aren’t many bands around like the ones you’re talking about.”
Again, that’s not what the research suggests. In fact, one of the studies out of the University of Tennessee reported that their findings “seem to dispel the notion advanced by the recording industry that teenagers are only interested in the sound of music, don’t know the lyrics, and listen strictly for fun. And if you think that these groups are few and far between consider what Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas observed: “Teenagers consider musicians as heroes far more than athletes and rate music ahead of religion and books as factors that greatly influence their generation. Between the 7th and 12th grades, young people spend nearly as much time listening to popular music as they spend in school over 12 years. The average teen listens to music 4 hours a day…13 bands are named after male genitals, 6 after female genitals, 4 after sperm, 8 after abortion, and one after a vaginal infection.”
So what can you do? For starters, sit down and talk with your child. Find out what music he or she is listening to. Listen to the lyrics. If you learn what I did, put your foot down. It may be their home, but it’s your house, so proudly proclaim, “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)
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