The Bible and Music

In class today we discussed and looked at different children’s music pertaining to the Bible and talked about different qualities it has, such as being upbeat and catchy and lighthearted even when the story it is telling is more somber. One thing we hit on was how a lot of Bible stories contain more violent and not kid- friendly stuff, and how this is left out of the songs. I found this to be quite interesting because we shelter our children from the true nature of many of these stories and that got me to thinking, why? Why aren’t we upfront with our youth about these concepts? Is it because they do not yet understand such concepts? Or is it because we don’t want them to??