Did you know that the members of U2 are Christians and that they frequently explore issues of faith in their songs? Shocking, right? I know!

A recent BuzzFeed piece got way too many views with the irritating title “11 Bands You Might Not Realize Are Christian.” Author Matthew Perpetua seems to be trying to “out” people of faith in the music world by making over-reaching assumptions about the members’ beliefs based on lyric snippets and his own editorializations. For Perpetua, it seems the inclusion of any kind of Biblical imagery is reason enough to identify a band as “Christian.” In addition to listing U2 in the No. 1 spot, he includes Black Sabbath, Mumford and Sons, The Avett Brothers, Evanescence, Belle and Sebastian, Lenny Kravitz, Kings of Leon, Sufjan Stevens, The Civil Wars and the incredible Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, who just released an excellent new album, Spectre at the Feast, and successfully rocked Nashville this month.

Back in 2009, I wrote a piece for Christianity Today that suggested that all music was spiritual. Sure, some of it gets used for ignominious purposes, but the thing that makes music so powerful is the spiritual essence of it. It may be good or bad, true or false, but it’s all spiritual. Bono once said that the best music is either written about people running toward or away from God. T-Bone Burnett, who inspired me as a kid, once said that he could either write songs about the light or about what he sees as a result of the light. Glenn Kaiser rocked my world when he used blistering hard rock to simultaneously share the Gospel with the lost and to challenge the found to engage their pilgrimage with intensity and integrity. Reducing this wide spectrum of expressions down to a bucket labeled “Christian” is a way of dismissing it from the general culture on one hand, or uncritically endorsing it to a sub-culture on the other.

There are several specifically “Christian” uses of music, and I am a fan of them all when done properly. Music can be used sacramentally, as in worship. It can be used prophetically, as a challenge to the church or the world to change its ways. It can be used educationally, to help train people to memorize Scriptures or stories that will enhance their understanding of their faith and its implications. Sometimes music is used well in these purposes. Often it is not. It seems to me the lame/great ratio is about the same in the Christian world as it is in the Top 40.

But when songwriters who happen to be Christians participate in the larger cultural discussion with songs that address love, lust, fear, war, politics or the beach, must it be called “Christian music” and be sold in separate stores and played on separate radio stations? The prevailing desire to label and categorize that kind of music seems to be the result of two things: Christians who would rather be spoon-fed “safe” music than engage in critical thought or discernment of their own; and snarky pop-culture critics who were exposed to too many Carman videos as children and want to make sure their cool friends know what some artists secretly believe

I get that there is too much useless music in the world and that some adventurous and open-minded Christians may wish to discover new artists who are particularly thoughtful when it comes to wrangling with the implications of a life lived under the gaze of God. I supposed they might turn to certain articles, like BuzzFeed’s, in that pursuit. But if the discussion is designed to create an alternative to personal discernment and critical thought, or to endorse bad art because it is about Jesus, we have a problem.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.

Phillipians 3:9-11 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Numerous modern critics of the Bible say the resurrection of Yeshua (Jesus) is simply a myth based on pagan stories of "resurrected gods" from around the world, and that the authors of the New Testament borrowed from these myths and incorporated them into the Bible. But the similarity of two stories proves nothing about their origin or truth content. The Jews of Yeshua's time were steeped in Old Testament monotheism which had a well developed tradition of resurrection believed and taught by the Pharisees. Polytheistic pagan ideas would have been abhorrent to men who understood and practiced the Judaism of the apostles and New Testament writers.

But the strongest evidence for the historical truth of Yeshua's bodily resurrection comes from the testimony and lives of its eyewitnesses. Eleven of the twelve apostles suffered violent deaths for simply refusing to renounce their conviction and stop preaching the message that Yeshua was alive, that he was the Son of God and savior of the world. People don't generally give their lives for something which they know to be untrue. But they had seen him, and touched him, and eaten with him after his crucifixion; and they were filled with wonder. And because the apostles lived in the power of the resurrection their message went out to the whole world, not as a pagan myth, but as a deep revelation of life-changing truth and hope, for which they were willing to suffer and even give their lives.

King Solomon wrote: "He (God) has placed eternity in the hearts of men…"; [Ecclesiastes 3:11] The resurrection stories of ancient pagan civilizations point to this deep desire in the hearts of men…to be resurrected and to live forever. Is it such a strange thing to hope that there is a life after death?

We know that the resurrection of Yeshua is true because it has been revealed to us by God Himself, and because of what it has accomplished in our own lives. Our faith is a conviction centered in this one, historical fact, and evidenced by the undeniable effect it has upon us. Resurrection of the dead is not a myth or a fable; and resurrection power from God's Holy Spirit is the very source of our new life. Live in the real power of the resurrection. It will transform everything you are and everything you do…especially knowing that you too, will soon obtain the resurrection from the dead, a glorified body just like the Lord's!

Read more Christian Devotions on: Boldness, Breakthrough, Faith, Holy Spirit, Intimacy, Resurrection, Sacrifice, Spirit Filled