So, the big news in Evangelical circles is that they sang Shout to the Lord on American Idol this past week. The only bit I saw was the YouTube video where they replaced the very first "Jesus" with "Shepherd," so at least part of what I say here is hearsay.
That (hear)said, Chewymom posted a blurb here about it. In the comments she says that apparently they edited out the "Jesus" on Wednesday night and put it back in on Thursday.
I was in on a couple discussions debating the changing of the words, and have since found out that there's all sorts of debate about those performances...the word change, AI's using the song at all, and all sorts of things I wouldn't even think would be debatable about singing a song on a TV show. Some say triumph, others travesty.
My two cents: I thought it was great, but I'm not running around proclaiming personal victory over it or anything. Replacing the "Jesus" with "Shepherd" doesn't bother me because Jesus is often referred to as a (The) Shepherd, and it did nothing to alter the very obvious intent of the song. I guess there's some legal thing about it, but that's between AI and Hillsongs. Everyone dressed in white--perhaps a little cliche...but it still looked cool.
To be fair I'm a little biased because I'm pretty touchy about even the slightest aroma of legalism...so this one struck a nerve. Adding to this was my recent perusal of a site explaining in great detail why pretty much all Christian music was actually satanic (long story). One of the big arguments was that a song isn't really Christian if it doesn't specifically say "Jesus" in it. Right off that strikes me as a massively weak argument, since some of the most enduring hymns and songs don't mention Jesus (Amazing Grace, anyone?).
All that's to say someone in Chewymom's comment thread posted this link, which I think gives some really good "inside" info and sheds some perspective on the whole thing. It helped me to relax, anyway, which is saying something...
So I wonder what these same people who argue that a song isn't really Christian unless it says "Jesus" do with something like the book of Esther. Using their logic, it must not really be considered part of the Bible then since it does not explicitly have God, Lord, etc. stated in it.
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