Saturday Song: Daniel Amos, "My Room"

What a shame it is that we North American Christians are so intimidated about sharing the gospel. In many countries, being a follower of Christ means persecution or death. The worst thing that happens here is losing one's job or friendships.

A Christian rock band named Daniel Amos recognized this cowardice in all of us, including myself, and wrote a song about it.

Listen to the song here.

This seems counterintuitive but we ought to rejoice when we're verbally or physically abused for our faithfulness. The followers of Christ felt it was an honour to suffer for his sake. Acts 5:41 KJV) records what happened to these faithful saints. "And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name."

We also read this in James 1:2 and 3 (BBE). "Let it be all joy to you, my brothers, when you undergo tests of every sort; Because you have the knowledge that the testing of your faith gives you the power of going on in hope;"

God isn't mean to let us suffer for Christ. Look at what Scripture says in James 1:4 (KJV). "But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."

We also have the records of all the faithful to remind us of how they persevered in the face of horrific persecution. The author of Hebrews outlined how the faithful sought a heavenly city and the Messiah. Hebrews 12:1 (KJV) reminds us, "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,"

Furthermore, our present persecution will turn to great joy later. Look at what 1 Peter 4:13 (KJV) points out. "But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy."

How wonderful it is that whatever we suffer now will be infinitely compensated when Christ returns. Let's all cling to this wonderful hope.

On Monday, I'll post about what John meant by fathers, young men, and children. Some people might be confused by those verses in his letter to the faithful.

Saturday Song: Daniel Amos, "Cloak and Dagger"

I can't recall how I met my friend Paul. What I remember well is him introducing me to the music of a Christian band from Los Angeles called Daniel Amos. I also saw the band play live at a church in Edmonton, Alberta. To my delight, they were a real rock band whose aim was to glorify the Lord.

One of their fine songs is "Cloak and Dagger." Listen to it here.

During 1984, I was also introduced by a shortwave listener's club to the shadowy world of spy number radio stations. On certain frequencies,  spy agencies would broadcast groups of numbers which were red off by the sampled voice of a woman. Some stations used a male voice but I never heard those.

Spy's in the field would be given a decoder, such as a pad of paper with numbers printed on each page,  to convert the numbers into instructions which they would follow. These codes would only be used once and then discarded so as to protect the message sent out.

I wrote all this to explain that we also are in a covert war, not with a military force but a spiritual one. We have our instructions in Scripture. And though the world can read them, the messages are obscure due to sinners' lack of the Holy Spirit teaching them.

Even so, we have double agents posing as believers. Paul warned in 1 Timothy 4:1 (KJV) that, "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;"

We're also warned in 2 Peter 2:1 (KJV), "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction."

And I know some women won't like this verse but Paul does have a point. In 2 Timothy 3:6 (KJV), he wrote about these traitors and double dealers, "For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,"

I hope you liked what I wrote and this song. Please comment if you feel led to do so.

By the way, I'll be posting on Monday about what the Quran and the Bible say about our duty to governments. And if you're not careful, you might even learn something. :-)

IT'S LIKE FINDING A LONG-LOST FRIEND

Have you ever heard a band and desperately wanted their music, yet no store stocked their albums? That's how I felt back in 1984 when a friend introduced me to a Los Angeles group called Daniel Amos. This Christian band didn't play the usual insipid music which my fellow church members offered me but real rock.

Back when I was a teenager, rock music was considered to be from the pit of hell. Some concerned Christians even warned me that the beat attracted demons and I might become possessed. How refreshing it was therefore when I discovered Larry Norman's music at the Edmonton Public Library in 1978. He wrote and sang genuine rock songs, not like the usual novelty attempts made by other bands to ride the religious pop gravy train. Larry was a committed Christian who put his complete trust in Jesus Christ.

Six years after that discovery, a preacher's son named Paul Morris introduced me to two wonderful Daniel Amos records. Not only did he play their Horrendous Disc and ¡Alarma! albums but he invited me to their concert while they were in Edmonton. I felt absolutely blown away at how fantastic the group's music was.

Though Paul made me a cassette copy of both albums, I still wished I owned the vinyl versions. Whenever I was at a Christian record store, I would enquire about Daniel Amos and get only blank stares from the clerks. As the years passed, my hope of finding even a used copy of Horrendous Disc or ¡Alarma! faded.

Only lately was I able to find the CD version of ¡Alarma! on Amazon and purchase it. To my delight, there was a second disc in the CD package containing unreleased tracks as well as alternate takes of the songs. Now I'm enjoying those memories of the summer of 1984 which the tunes bring to mind.

Since I know how to find even obscure artists on Amazon, I'm eager to buy all those albums which I taped or were given to me on cassette by friends. I've already bought many albums of German rock bands from the seventies and I hope to fill my shelves with many more memory-evoking recordings.

My love of obscure rock music and groups, considered wrongly as satanic, permeates my three memoirs. The first two are available from the Bruce Atchison's books page. How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity is stocked by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell's Books, and Virtual Bookworm Publishers.

"Why should the Devil have all the good music?"

Today's christian teens have access to a wide choice of God-honouring music. Thirty-five years ago, this genre was in its infancy. LPs by a handful of Christian rockers were often found only in a few specialty record shops. Apart from Sweathog and Ocean, the latter being a pop group, I heard no Christian acts on the local rock station. Through the Edmonton Public Library's record collection and a friend I met through the Full Gospel Fellowship International, I discovered that there were artists and groups who really rocked for the rock. Here are just a few of these pioneers.

Larry Norman, who passed away in February of 2008, has a website where his CDs are available for purchase. The stock keeps changing as his organization has limited editions of his albums pressed or burned to CD-R. Even so, Larry's music was ground-breaking and unique. He often received criticism from older Christians for his songs due to the popular belief that the beat was a Satanic influence on teens.

Resurrection Band, also known as Rez Band and Rez, started out as part of a larger band called Charity in 1972. When the Jesus People community in Milwaukee split into four groups, the members moved to Chicago. As rock music was thought of as the Devil's tool by many Christian record companies, they had difficulty finding one that would sign them. They released two independent cassettes of hard rock before being signed to Star Song Records four years later. After going through stylistic and personnel changes, they broke up in 2000. The Resurrection Band site is inaccessible to screen readers but it has pictures of the group and audio of the band's music.

Stryper burst onto the music scene in the mid-eighties as a "white metal" overtly Christian band. Dressed in yellow and black, they often tossed Bibles into the audience during concerts. The group broke up in 1992, reforming and touring in 2003. Two years later, they recorded the album called Reborn and in 2009, they released Murder By Pride. Stryper, at the time of this writing, is still performing and touring. Samples of the two newest album tracks can be heard at the Stryper site. Information and photos of the band are also there.

Daniel Amos Band, also called D.A. or Da, formed in southern California, playing acoustic guitar music at coffee houses during 1974. They released their self-titled album two years later. Their 1977 LP, Shotgun Angel, showed the band's shift from country to rock stylings. The band went on to record rock albums such as Horrendous Disc and ¡Alarma! until some of the members started a side project called The Swirling Eddies in the late eighties. Daniel Amos came together again in the nineties for several more albums and concerts. Their music is still available at the Daniel Amos site.

In my upcoming memoir, How I Was Razed, I tell of how the cult church elders criticized me for the music I loved and how a handful of Christian rock records strengthened my faith. I also mentioned my passion for secular rock music in my Deliverance From Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School) memoir. More information about it can be found at the Inscribe writers group page.