Enjoying Religious Themed Music Without Attachment To The Religion

[StillLooking]

I just found out I can enjoy my favorite song, Gabriel's Oboe, from the movie The Mission just for the sake of the beautiful song. When I made myself think about the movie, I could also find myself appreciate the beauty of the movie and the story itself without feeling the awesomeness of god. I still have a tender spot for the RCC's Jesuit order but it is because of my upbringing.

 

This is the song I am talking about. Enjoy the mesmerizing song without feeling the higher power, ok? 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WJhax7Jmxs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAoT2ktM2H0

[rerics]

I feel the same way about some of the music from the band Big Star, which was a very influential band in the 70's and enjoys cult status today.  Founding member Chris Bell embraced Christianity and peppered a couple of their songs with references that could be interpreted as Christian oriented.  The wording however was just vague enough that non-religious people could find their own secular interpretations as well.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juH20iD8mCg

[Ellinas]

Quite partial to a bit of Gregorian Chant myself.

 

Handel's Messiah is worth a listen.

 

You might have gathered I'm a touch old fashioned.

[EternalEquinox]

Quite partial to a bit of Gregorian Chant myself.

 

Handel's Messiah is worth a listen.

 

You might have gathered I'm a touch old fashioned.

That makes two of us Ellinas! I love Gregorian chants but I've never heard Handel's Messiah. 

[Stamps1962]

I am partial to choir music as performed in Episcopal or Anglican churches. I find it uplifting. You don't have to believe in anything to enjoy it, enjoy it for what is is, musically. 

[sdelsolray]

I majored in music performance as an undergraduate.  Fortunately, I listened to thousands of hours of sacred and secular Western music written over about eight centuries, as well as a decent amount of sacred and secular music from non-Western origins.

 

Beautiful, inspiring and meaningful music can come from just about anywhere, from a variety of cultures, time frames or composers and will often transcend original purpose labels such as sacred, secular, popular or esoteric.

[StillLooking]

Handel's Messiah is a must listened music! There are a bunch of it on youtube.

 

I still feel very peaceful whenever I hear a version of the "As the deer panteth for the water..." (Psalm?) since that was how I felt whenever we sang it during the mass.

 

I also like Gregorian chants. I was interested in meditation / taize during my catholic years.

[DragonTheDruid]

I find I'm the same way with several of the songs and movies I watch that are xian themed, like Prince of Egypt, the animated one. I love a couple of the songs from there, and there are also some other Disney movies and whatnot that have xian themes in them that I can ignore and still appreciate the movie and the songs. 

The song you posted a link to is very beautiful, I am enjoying it a lot! =)

[SilentLoner]

A lot of xtian singers have great voices.

[Leo]

IMHO the best recording of Handel's Messiah bar none is Christopher Hogwood with the Academy of St. Martin In the Fields, the Vienna Boys' Choir, and all the instrumentation done on period instruments.

Handel's Messiah was considered a profane work when it was first produced. Pentecostals today still consider it such. At least some of them do.

I can't say much for modern Christian music. I love a lot of different things, from metal to industrial to some of the indie, even, if it's not too repetitive. But I'll take Suicidal tendencies or Metallica over any Christian band any day.

There was a Rich Mullens CD that someone had in FL back in the early 2000s that had some pretty nice hammered dulcimer work on it. But other than that I don't remember it too well.

The problem with hymns is they sound either like funeral dirges, or faux, wish-they-were-military-marches. As to the latter, they cannot compete with John Phillip Souza and the like.

But most Christian Christmas music is pretty nice. Especially the more traditional / classical stuff, the stuff your Pentecostals will never allow except by accident, but my parents weren't Pentecostals so weren't constricted by that.

The one exception RE: what I said of Christmas music. The arrangement "Away in a Manger" that most people are familiar with. Now that is music to torture people by. The original arrangement to that sounds very renaissance, but the version most people are familiar with? A good sound track to drawing and quartering. Sort of like "trust and Obey".