Questionable Theology in Our Music: “Enemy’s Camp”
By Roger ~ June 14th, 2009. Filed under: Religion.
There are some songs in my church experiences that I will have nothing to do with. Some of these songs you would want to stay away from, too, if you actually stopped to consider the merit of the lyrics compared with Biblical truth. I want to look at one of these songs now and break down the reasons I don’t think it has any merit.
“I went to the enemy’s camp/And I took back what he stole from me…” –Richard Black
First of all, is there an enemy’s camp? Is there a place where you could walk up to that has fallen angels sitting around campfires cooking hotdogs and marshmallows while telling stories of the humans they stole stuff from? Or, maybe the camp has a large pavilion in the middle where Lucifer has a map of the world laid out on a table, with arrows and Xs signifying his next big attack.
I don’t see any support for a fallen angel “camp” in the Bible.
Secondly (and I did rearrange some points so they don’t follow the same order as the song), the enemy didn’t steal anything from you; you let it slip. Be a mature adult and admit the responsibility that belongs to you. Your walk with God is not something that can be stolen. You are the one, and the only one, who has control of it.
Think about your Bible. Was it stolen? No, it’s right there on your nightstand or on your bookshelf collecting dust. Maybe you think your Bible reading time was stolen. Who has control of what you do with your time?
The same point goes for prayer. Prayer is not even a physical item which can be stolen, like your Bible is. As long as you have lips, as long as you have a tongue, and, barring those, as long as you have a mind capable of thought, you can pray to your God. Take the time to do it. It’s more important than a show you might watch, or another book you might read, or a website you might visit, even if the show and the book and the website are all about God.
Lastly, and most importantly, even if there was a camp, you wouldn’t have to go there to get your spirituality back. If you lost your Bible reading discipline, you start where you are, right now, instead of reading this, you pick up your Bible and you start reading. If you’ve let your life of prayer slip, you can start back up right now. These are just a couple examples of things that parishioners will think about when they sing this song. As I said, though, these are things you do not have to storm a theoretical enemy camp for.
This is an important point. Maybe some people haven’t gotten these disciplines back in their life because they don’t dare to go “to the enemy’s camp.” Usually people that storm enemy camps are brave, or specially trained, or have a secret up their sleeve. Maybe you don’t feel like you have what it takes to face the enemy and retrieve the spiritual things you have lost from your life. You don’t have go anywhere. Retrieving your spiritual life starts right where you are right now. You will find this out when you pick up your Bible and start reading it again.
The world has enough fantasy and fiction to sustain it until the end of days. Don’t bring fiction into your spiritual life. Let your songs, your conversation, and, above all, your relationship with God be based in reality and truth.
