Korn Continued from page 2 on him and taunt him, calling him homosexual. Though Jonathan is not gay, his nick-name became HIV because the rumors about him were so pervasive. In yet another song, Jonathan explores the hidden evils of pornography by singing old nursery rhymes. On the outside the nursery rhymes seem normal enough, but once you look at history behind them, you see that they tell stories of tragedy. In the same way, many people consider pornography to be benign, but it perverts and distorts the minds of the people who view it. Such is the case with pornography and how it contributed to his neighbor’s desire to molest Jonathan. Now I am well aware that many people would not find this type of music appealing in the least. Most people don’t want to hear songs about molestation, being taunted or the evils of pornography. I remember playing a few Korn songs for some of my friends at Oxford and their first response was, “Why would anyone ever want to listen to music like this?” I have learned over time that most people are drawn to music that elicits feelings of happiness. I am prone to listen to music that reflects my pain, my sorrow, my inner struggles with evil in the world and Korn did that for me unlike any other band. So you can imagine my dismay when I became a Christian and I was told that Korn could no longer be a part of my life. You see, as Christians we are expected to live our lives so as “to please God”1 and the Christians with whom I associated said that Korn was not pleasing to God. I couldn’t argue with them because Korn’s lyrics were often filled with rage and hate, but those lyrics spoke to me and sustained me through a really tough time in my life, and now I’m just supposed to give all that up? We read in the scriptures that there is a debate among Christians in the early church that is still very relevant in our day and time: as Christians, are we supposed to remove ourselves from the world to grow in our faith or are we to embrace the world and transform it? Those who argue that we should remove ourselves from the world have good reasons for their beliefs. I’m sure you’ve noticed that it’s hard to be a good Christian in the world. We are tempted by so many things that distract us from serving God in our day to 1
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day lives. So rather than deal with all the distractions, many Christians try to create sequestered communities where they can raise their families apart from the evils of the world.
. . . as Christians, are we supposed to remove ourselves from the world to grow in our faith or are we to embrace the world and transform it?
In the early church, there were whole communities who detached from society so that they could focus more readily on living out the commands of the gospel. In our modern world, Mormons are the best known for this and do a very good job of keeping their families from intermingling with those outside the Mormon community. A Mormon parent would never have to worry about preventing their children from hearing a Korn album because the Mormon music stores they frequent would never carry it. Your child can’t be corrupted by lyrics to which they have never been exposed. So when we sequester ourselves from the evils of the world, we gain a sense of security that our families can avoid many of the societal ills that plague our communities.
But with any gain, there is always loss. The counterpoint to this line of thinking is that God did not intend for us to live our lives apart from the world, but rather to be enmeshed within it. We see in the gospels that Jesus did not go off on his own, but rather spent a great deal of time with people who could very well have corrupted his faith — prostitutes, lepers, Gentiles, tax collectors. All these people represented some form of societal ill and Jesus was not afraid to be a part of their lives. Indeed, Jesus’ presence was transformative to their corruption and brought hope to their despair. When we sequester ourselves into communities, we might avoid temptation, but we also lose our ability to bring healing to a broken world. The Mormon solution to this problem is to invite others to leave the world and join their community: “Come, be part of us.” This is why every Mormon spends two years evangelizing and finding converts. Their hope is that once everyone believes, then the entire world will become like their very small sequestered community and, thus, everyone will be safe. This, however, is unrealistic. The world will always be bigger See Community on page 5
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