Hey Jelly Roll?

 

Hey Jelly Roll, FFDP?

 

Ok let’s be clear right up front, I am not randomly picking on Jelly Roll or Five Finger Death Punch. They are just the two I have experience with and yes, I do listen to them.  I’ve been listening to FFDP since they first were on MySpace. Yup, I said it My. Space.  I’ve seen them in concert and I was due to see Jelly Roll, but can’t (story for another day.)  Yep, it’s true, I don’t always listen to Christian music although it is so easy to because of the wide spread scope of music genres these days. There is no longer a one size fits all Christian music scene. With groups like Richlin, Demon Hunter, and Rivers & Robots, you can go from coffee house to bringing down the house in a click!  Still, I step out of that zone because frankly I enjoy Jelly Roll’s sound and the heavy music of FFDP, sometimes, until I don’t.  

I was recently reading an article about Jelly Roll acknowledging a veteran in the audience of a concert. Not only did he recognize him, but gave a lifetime pass for any future Jelly Roll concerts! Super cool, despite me wondering how many other veterans in the crowd were thinking, “Well <expletive> Shoulda worn my hat tonight!”  Still, super cool!

FFDP makes entire videos highlighting serious causes like veteran homelessness, mental health needs, and suicide. This shows me a real and deep level of respect for other people.  I think, “Wow, what a power houses these guys could be for Jesus!”  I’m not saying ditch the label and go full on Christian music, but is it possible you are doing more harm than good, because in both cases they misuse the name of God.  I don’t mean in a 3^rd commandment sort of way. I mean speaking for God in a way God would never speak.   Get your facts straight guys, because people are listening!  You could be hurting the very people you want to be helping.

This stuff matters, it really does. Like I said, people are listening and they need hope not hopelessness!  Music touches people deeply and I find it irresponsible to propagate misinformation which creates hopelessness. Hopelessness is a killer.  Think I’m making this up? Have you heard the term deaths of despair? Not depths but deaths! A National Library of Medicine article states,

The term deaths of despair comes from Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton, who set out to understand what accounted for falling U.S. life expectancies. They learned that the fastest rising death rates among Americans were from drug overdoses, suicide, and alcoholic liver disease. Deaths from these causes have increased between 56% and 387%, depending on the age cohort, over the past two decades, averaging 70,000 per year.

 

You could argue that music is just a form of entertainment and not a message, but music affects our limbic system. It literally makes that part of our brain’s network react! That’s why music can amp you up or calm you down or put you to sleep or make you cry. Music is a message! Here’s an example:  Third Day wrote a song called I Need a Miracle.  They wrote it because they met a family after a concert whose son intended on committing suicide and went to the woods, but his radio was stuck on a Third Day song called Cry Out to Jesus. The man couldn’t go through with his plans and went home to live! Cry Out to Jesus was written about a family that lost a son. Tragedy happens, but Third Day saved a son by writing hope into a tragedy of a lost son.

I want to love FFDP’s song Wrong Side of Heaven, but I can’t it because of a huge error! I’m not addressing the whole female role of God, but the falsehood is that God is ashamed of us. The notion that God would ever be ashamed of us for doing what is right is the most hopeless message you could deliver in a song dedicated to veterans that desperately need hope!! You can’t just roll the organizations willing to help in the end credits of your video! They need to hear hope from you! Your words need to speak life! The radio doesn’t scroll silent credits!

Ask Mission 22 to fact check about the 22 veterans that commit suicide every day. I’m a Desert Storm Army veteran.  That part of the song cuts me every time I hear it and I can’t unhear it. Fellow soldiers, we were put in some unthinkably ugly places by a devil that prowls the earth but we did it. Don’t be ashamed of that and don’t let anyone project their shame of not answering the call on us! 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  Think of how we said, “Stay alert, stay alive!” and we stood up for right against that roaring killer. Ephesians 6:12 says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Again, never forget that we answered that call.  We may have done things we didn’t want to, didn’t mean to, and can’t forget, but that could never EVER make God ashamed!

FFDP my brothers in arms need light and hope not a lie saying the Almighty Creator of their very being is ashamed of them! Mark 8:38 says, “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” That means in this broken world if your sole aka 1 purpose is to deny God’s soul purpose on your life and live in the most debauched way possible then you have turned your back to Jesus and His gift of eternal life. People that willingly gave up security, comfort, freedom, family, and home to fight for others – flat out NO WAY – no shame there. Note the incredible amount of warriors that are in the Old Testament!

FFDP rocks the world with a suicide prevention song, Coming Down and the video is chilling, but when the lyrics cry, “Does anyone hear my final prayers?” the question goes unanswered. YES! Jesus heard every prayer. 1 John 5:14 answers this question! “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” Does a lack of an answer to the question leave people believing the answer was no! My heart breaks that people are gravitating to this song in crisis, but not given the only real and true solution. JESUS! He actually answered this question himself in John 14:6, “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.’”

FFDP’s song Wash It All Away asks:

I'm wasting here

Can anyone

Wash it all away?

I'm waiting here

For anyone

To wash it all away

Wash it all away!

Well, duh! Yeah, Jesus!  Acts 22:16 gives my favorite answer to this, “And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.” If I am riding with my husband, we never make it through this song, because I can’t stop answering, “Yes, Jesus! You need Jesus!” and he hits skip. Sorry not sorry, babe.

I could go on, but I don’t want Jelly Roll to feel neglected in my unsolicited advice. Jelly Roll has Son of a Sinner. He says,

Might pop a pill and smoke and maybe drink

Talk to God and tell Him what I think

At first He's gonna hate me

But eventually He'll save me

So let’s break this down. God isn’t your first choice to fix things. You’ll turn to him after pills and smokes and drinks don’t work. Well, at least he admits none of that crap is useful, but the part that makes my head explode is that Jelly Roll says God will hate me but eventually save me! Pass me my John 3:16 sign, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Don’t get me wrong, God hates sin! It keeps you from living your best life, and He hates it because the best life is what He wants for you because He loves you so incomprehensibly much! Romans 8:38-39 says, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So, then Jelly Roll you go on to break my heart again with Save Me!  Dude, the pills, the drinking, the smoking, didn’t work before why keep returning?  You know the quote by Werner Erhard, “'Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” Side note: Albert Einstein is wrongly tagged for saying this. See what a little fact checking can do?? I’m also here to tell you no one is damaged beyond repair. Seriously, a thief was hanging on the cross right next to Jesus they were dying together and Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise” in Luke 23:43. Let’s sit down sometime and talk about the artist formally known as Saul, but we know him as Paul today. (If you’re curious about this transformation check out Acts 9!)  Lastly, the title alone says it all – Save Me – ok Jesus will! Titus 3:5 says, “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.” You don’t have to come to Him in perfect working order to be saved! Just ask!! Pray this!

Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior.

I hope you prayed that prayer if you haven’t before especially you Jelly Roll! Is it in the name of a record label and the belief you need to keep people miserable to sell? Like the news, if it bleeds if it leads? I don’t know, but it makes my heart hurt for people spiraling into hopelessness. These are just two big names, big labels that I know from personal experience that are perpetuating using the name of God in a way that belittles our Creator and inaccurately portrays His Mighty Power. In a world where people are obsessing over clean living, what goes into your mind is as important as what is fed through the mouth! I’m guilty, I’ve supported their music.  If I boycotted them, zero people would notice. Correction, my husband would notice. I honestly don’t have a good solution other than to say, “Hey Jelly Roll, FFDP! Fact check your lyrics! PLEASE! I’ll help you!” I’ll continue to be praying on this for sure! God can move mountains, one day if I pray hard enough Jelly Roll and FFDP just might be winning Dove awards!