UPDATE: Coincidental timing, I guess, but Scott Hill at Fide-O just posted on this topic in reference to Lee Nash, a Christian vocalist of Six Pence None the Richer fame.

I stay up on Monday nights just late enough to watch Jay Leno show headlines from newspapers, magazines, yellow pages or just about anything else. They’re usually hilarious. But, tonight’s show was a rerun from a couple of weeks ago and it was a non-Monday show, so no headlines. I stayed up and watched the entire show, though, because the musical act (which always comes at the end) was the Christian band MercyMe. I wanted to see how theologcially deep they would go on a national television show. They didn’t. They performed their self-described “infectious song of surrender” “So Long Self”, which is kind of a conversation with one’s self. With lines like “I’ve found another one” (I guess they might spell that “One”) and “Don’t take this wrong but you were wrong for me”, the song almost passes as a testimony to the power of God. Almost.

I’m not purposely trying to call out MercyMe. I like their sound; as entertainers, they’re good. But that’s all they are: entertainers who happen to be Christians (at least I hope they are; you can’t really tell from their website bios with lots of talk about growing up in church or in Christian families but no real talk of their own conversions). And I wish them success in their endeavors. They do provide an alternative to the really bad stuff that passes as music these days. My encouragement is to Christians, though: don’t let this type of music be the only theology you get or even a large portion of it. If you do, you’ll end up like the lyrics: shallow and not well-grounded.