The Benjamin Gate

[BrAndreyu]

Does anyone remember this band? It was Adie Camp's band before she got married to Jeremy Camp. They were around in the very early 00s and put out two great albums: 2001's untitled and 2002's Contact

This was back in the era when Christian Music was probably at it's best. I have failed to keep up with Christian music since it became mostly screamo.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

Does anyone remember this band? It was Adie Camp's band before she got married to Jeremy Camp. They were around in the very early 00s and put out two great albums: 2001's untitled and 2002's Contact

This was back in the era when Christian Music was probably at it's best. I have failed to keep up with Christian music since it became mostly screamo.

No but I did run across a pretty cool video that is in the general ball park, I think you would like it on YouTube called "Exposing Christian Contemporary Music: The Seven Deadly Sins". Would link directly to it, but I seem to recall their are a few cuss words used in the video, but it was a pretty cool video. In general, I have always really hated how Christian artists often end up being cheap rip offs of secular ones, and also have not liked the self imposed ghettoization of Christians in America (forming subculture movements because they are afraid of contamination from being in the World).

 

[BrAndreyu]

I have always really hated how Christian artists often end up being cheap rip offs of secular ones,

The good thing about the benjamin gate was that they did not fall into this category at all, neither did one of their contemporaries-- Earthsuit, a band I saw when I went to Acquire the Fire in 2000-2001 during my evangelical phase as I began checking out different expressions of Christianity. Earthsuit broke up after one fantastic album, Kaleidoscope Superior and became a popular secular band called Mutemath but I never really got into Mutemath.

Two other Christian bands that were really good from that era were the Insyderz and OC Supertones, both ska bands that I still listen to throughout the days.

have not liked the self imposed ghettoization of Christians in America (forming subculture movements because they are afraid of contamination from being in the World)

Would you care to elaborate on this or provide an example? I'm not really sure that I understand what you mean, but I'm guessing you're talking about things like when Christian Tshirt companies would spoof logos for popular products or secular artists (one of the best examples I can think of was the Nine Inch Nails/NIN logo altered to say "SIN: the ultimate downward spiral)

 

[Pavel Mosko]

Would you care to elaborate on this or provide an example? I'm not really sure that I understand what you mean, but I'm guessing you're talking about things like when Christian Tshirt companies would spoof logos for popular products or secular artists (one of the best examples I can think of was the Nine Inch Nails/NIN logo altered to say "SIN: the ultimate downward spiral)

It was more something that of the Evangelical World you have Christian versions of pop music, video and computer games, even TV shows. Except for a few hits or break out artists, like the Veggie Tales cartoon series was a surprise success that started to go beyond Christian bookstores into secular ones. And there are some other exemptions like Amy Grant breaking beyond Christian music etc. But by and large Christian bands etc. often tend to be cheap knock offs of other stuff on the market. Like the band, Resurrection Band of the 1980s was a second rate version of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath, but it had really, really Christian lyrics so it could meet with the approval of parents and pastors etc.


But what comes out of this is a kind of Ghetto culture. Where Christians tend to buy the Christian approved music etc. and its like their is a built in captive audience. But the big point is that bands etc. often are able to get by as much on being really Christian in lyrics as they are by their actual talent.


I guess my big objecting to this stuff comes from judgmental attitudes etc. Like listening to unapproved secular music is treated similar how anti-alcohol Christian groups treat drinking in moderation (They are so strict etc. that I'm pretty sure would have accused Jesus of being a wine bibber like the Pharisees). But besides that, I also hate it because I think it actually impairs the ability of Christians to affect the World because we do that often largely through relationships etc. but that kind of thing is impaired because their is a fear of secular stuff causing you to sin etc. that is very similar of the Jews of the New Testament days avoiding gentiles and non-koshur stuff lest they get spiritual cooties.


One pastor I knew made a joke about Christian subculture: "We even have our own mints!"

 

[Pavel Mosko]

 

[BrAndreyu]

But what comes out of this is a kind of Ghetto culture. Where Christians tend to buy the Christian approved music etc. and its like their is a built in captive audience. But the big point is that bands etc. often are able to get by as much on being really Christian in lyrics as they are by their actual talent.

I understand what you mean, and at one point in time I have listened to those bands. They were second-rate clones of whatever was going on in mainstream music at the time. However I do personally hold onto the opinion that the late 90s and early 00s was a good period for Christian music because you had bands like the benjamin gate, Earthsuit (who later became secular band Mutemath), OC Supertones, Insyderz and not to mention all of the underground emo and hardcore christian bands that came around during that time.

I've noticed this ghetto culture tends to happen with things aside from music, like clothing and really any other product that you can imagine. Evangelicals have taken American capitalism, slapped a coat of Jesus-colored paint on it, and created merchandising empires for themselves and their churches. More often than not, these are just tepid copies of whatever is already going on in the secular culture. I think the most obvious example of this were the "parody logo" shirts that a lot of Christian teens and youth pastors wore frequently in the late 90s and early 00s. Think the Pepsi logo, but it's a dove or something, they managed to do it with almost every corporate logo that exists and that always said a lot to me about how evangelicalism wanted to be "in the world but not of the world".

It also betrays a remarkably shallow theology and I think that's a big part of why evangelicalism has largely died out compared to what it used to be in the 80s and 90s.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

Thanks!

I probably need to invest some time to look into these bands via You-tube music videos. I definitely, like that genre of music as far as "Alternative Rock" and some of it fits EMO.


I kind of have an unofficial unconscious music rotation system which is a little crop rotation where I get stuck listening to a certain genre of rock/pop music only to eventually get bored or had my fill of it, or to start craving a specific band from my past and the whole things starts all over. e.g. listening to 90s grunge, to my childhood classic rock bands of the 1970s like Boston and Kansas, to maybe New Wave and Ska stuff of the 80s. to maybe 1960s bands like the Beatles, to Alternative Rock of the 2000s like Audio Slave, Staind, Lincoln Park, and Rammstein So if I could cherry pick the best of Christian music I might have a new iteration of my ever increasing listening catalog....


I have very extreme musical tastes being into ancient church chant for anything spiritual, or maybe having anxiety issues lots of EO music, as well as love the Oriental Divine Liturgies especially the Soorp Badarak. But for other stuff like cleaning the house, staying awake while at the wheel of a car etc. often its alternative rock.

 

[BrAndreyu]

I actually collect vinyl records, so my musical taste is all over the place. Like right now? I'm listening to Joy Division's second (and final) album Closer. I have about 200 LPs and probably 50 or so 7"s. I recently sold some of the albums I had that I don't listen to a lot because I was hard up for money (as usual) but I have all sorts of stuff from most genres: Country (Neko Case), hardcore punk (Agnostic Front, Youth of Today) and old school hip-hop (Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, the Sugarhill Gang) and even some goth (Bauhaus, the Cure) but the majority of what I have is a lot of punk and adjacent genres (post-punk, goth, straight-edge hardcore, etc).

The Christian albums I listed, I wish that I could find on vinyl but most of the stuff is either available on spotify for streaming or is CD only.