“Reborn” by Stryper

Song: “Reborn”

Artist: Stryper

Album: Reborn (2001)

Track: 2

The first track of this album is a call for the lost to “open your eyes,” but it doesn’t give a lot of information as to what they are opening their eyes to.  “Reborn” in an important track to follow that song, because it is here that we get down to it – a call to faith.  And not just generic faith, but faith in a specific Man.

If you believe . . .

One thing we must note right away is what this call is to.  Without saying so, the narrator is clearly Jesus in this song, and the focus is fully on Him.  The constant refrain is that, if you believe, you will be freed. 

“Open Your Eyes” by Stryper

Song: “Open Your Eyes”

Artist: Stryper

Album: Reborn (2001)

Track: 1

I didn’t start listening to hard rock until I was in High School, and so I unfortunately missed a great deal of Stryper’s popular years.  I’ve had to catch them mostly in hindsight, and I’ve really liked the stuff I’ve heard.  This one is a frequent go-to album for me, especially when driving.  From the first track, it just starts going and really doesn’t let up very much.

And after all this time, I still don’t recognize much of the lyrics, oddly enough.  I guess I hadn’t paid that close attention before.  Of course, this was well after the time in my life when I only had a few CDs, and I played those until I knew every note.  There’s good and bad with having a lot of music on the iPod.  The bad is that I don’t know the music as well as I did the stuff from earlier in life. 

This Present Darkness (1986) Part 2: Prayer and Power

This Present Darkness

By Frank Peretti

Crossway Books

As with part 1, I should note that I am reviewing the recently free audiobook from Christian Audio (which is no longer free, but was at the time), not the print text.  The audiobook is heavily abridged, so there are undoubtedly subtleties in the text that didn’t make it to the recording.  But since it’s been years, perhaps a decade or more, since I read the book, I will refrain from reviewing the full text.

Prayer and Power

One major theme of this book is the power of prayer.  Throughout the book, the angels are encouraging the saints to gather in prayer, and are in fact waiting to act until they have more prayer support.

Honestly, the book is a good reminder of the power of prayer.  The Reformed worshipper is tempted to over-emphasize God’s sovereignty and under-emphasize God’s use of means to accomplish His will.  This is not a weakness in the theology itself, but the practice of it.  Almost all Christians will lean toward one ditch or the other on this one.  On extremes, some charismatics think their prayers to be the deciding factor in all (or most) things, while Hyper-Calvinists might not think they matter at all. 

“Word 2 the Father” by DC Talk

Song: “Word 2 the Father”

Artist: DC Talk

Album: Free at Last (1992)

Track: 16

Ah, yes , here we are at the end of our examination of DC Talk’s Free at Last album.  On the whole, it honestly did a little better than I thought it would in a theological review, but my expectations were rather low.

But then again, we haven’t reviewed this song yet, and it’s so bad it might tank the entire album. 

“I Don’t Want It” by DC Talk

Song: “I Don’t Want It”

Artist: DC Talk

Album: Free at Last (1992)

Track: 14

I was about 15 years old when this disc came out, and I’m not sure I’d ever heard a Christian band talk about sex as openly as they did in this tune.  As just an indication of how “explicit” this song was, we were listening to the album in the car once, and my mom actually changed the track because they were so blunt in their lyrics.  Well, compared to some of the stuff “Christian” bands are saying these days, this is pretty tame, and I differ with my mother’s reaction.  I don’t think the boys crossed a line here.  This was a message that needed to be heard, and it inspired a lot of us who were right at that age where sex was becoming a very big temptation.  Their willingness to talk frankly about it was a very good thing.