How does the music of Contemporary Christian Rock Artists/Bands aid in galvanising the faith of their listeners and give reasons why these artists choose Rock Music?.
It is undeniable that music is a gift from God. Music has the unique ability to evoke strong feelings and emotions in its listeners. Over recent years many Christians have integrated various elements and sub-categories of rock music to create genre titled Christian Rock. Christian Rock is a rapidly increasing market in Australia with many bands/artists migrating into this area and also secular acts incorporating Christian ideals in their music. These Australian, Christian artists have an extraordinary effect on their listeners because of the emotional nature and content of their songs. To try and understand this effect we need to identify why these artists choose Rock Music as a way of enhancing peoples faith and the ways in which they do it.
Christian Rock started in America to try to spread the word of God, and promote Salvation through this radical media. Christian Rock quickly found its way in Australia. Now, Christian Rock has, become a new and potential growing area of Rock music raking in millions of dollars and followers. Australian seems to be blessed with a profusion of Christian Bands and Artists such as Naked Heart, Empty Tomb, Atoned, Mortification, Elmo's Fire, just to name a few. While they may play different flavours of Rock Music, fundamentally they have a common goal, which is to educate people about the way and life of Jesus Christ and to place trust and faith in God. These certainly draw in a lot of fans, especially the younger generation, which they believe is a good thing because their music can help to keep them out of the bad things in life and help to focus on their relationship with God. For others, it is a part of who they are and is a form self-expression, as Andrew from a Victorian band called Antiskeptic says, " I guess we chose rock music because it is the music that we listen to.
