“Who are You God
For You are turning out to be
So much different than I imagined
And where are you God
Cuz I am finding life to be
So much harder than I had planned
Know that I am afraid
To ask these questions
But You know they are there
And if you know my heart
The way that I believe you do
You know that I believe in You
Still I have these questions”
- From Questions by Steven Curtis Chapman
This Psalm-like song from Steven Curtis Chapman goes some way to fill the huge empty void in Contemporary Christian Music; lament, questioning and catharsis. For me Christian music since the mid eighties has been too sanitised, too squeaky clean, to theologically simplistic (I’ll hold off a stronger opinion!!!!). When Steven Curtis Chapman experienced the tragic death of his daughter he went back to his music as a way to wrestle with God, to mourn, to hope, to question and to find answers. The album Beauty Will Rise gave those songs to the rest of us as a gift to help with our own dark nights of the soul. I believe music to be a huge resource in catharsis and we need more of the Biblical honesty that Curtis Chapman recorded on Beauty Will Rise.
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