CHAPTER 4



 				THE HAGGAI PRINCIPLE



	In Haggai, Chapter 2 verse 11, we read, "Thus says the Lord of Hosts, 

Ask now the priests for a ruling: 'If a man carries holy meat in the fold of his 

garment, and touches bread with this fold, or cooked food, wine, oil, or any

other food will it become holy?'  And the priests answered and said 'No'".

Then Haggai said, "If one who is unclean from a corpse touches any of these,

will the latter become unclean?"  And the priests answered and said, "It will

become unclean".

	What we can conclude from this passage is that something that is holy or 

pure, cannot sanctify something unpure, but conversely, something that is 

unpure can taint the pure.  Granted, this is an old testament passage, but I

believe that logic will bear witness that the application of this scripture to 

Christian rock music has a great deal of validity.  What many Christian 

musicians do is take, for a simple example, a pure lyric, and graft it into some 

rock music that they may personally like, because they think the music will 

"relate", and really, the music has no context to the lyric.  What this produces 

is a mutant form of music, combining pure with unpure elements, and if 

the HAGGAI PRINCIPLE holds any water, the unpure elements taint the whole song.  

An extreme example of this for the sake of illustration, would be say, grafting 

the words, "Jesus, oh the gentle shepherd, Jesus gives me peace" onto say, a 

"Bo-Diddly" beat, or perhaps a hard rock riff.  Most such combinations would not 

likely convey this spirit of those lyrics, but would produce an uneasy feeling 

in most spiritually discerning listeners.  This is a major part of the reason 

that many people walk away from a Christian rock concert with that feeling that 

they didn't "bear witness", but think that they must be off in their judgment, 

because "after all, these guys are Christians, and people got saved, 

and they shared Jesus, so I must be wrong in feeling this way about the 

concert".  Contrary to the HAGGAI PRINCIPLE, they are assuming that just because 

the band is Christian, that that validates everything they do.  Not necessarily 

so!  Some Christian musicians are completely ignorant of any sense of commission 

from God.  They have never put any serious prayer into finding God's direction 

and purposes for their ministry, and are involved in what I call the "ministry 

of assumption".-----"Well, I was a musician in the world, so I assume that's 

what God has for me as a Christian".  They blindly step into a ministry that is 

really more a career, and don't have a clue about what God really wants to do 

with their life and talent.  Then they begin to write their songs in the same 

atmosphere of ignorance, and these half-pure songs are the result that leave you 

feeling uneasy about their concerts.  That is because the pure elements do not 

sanctify the unpure, and really the whole song ends up tainted.  Granted, there 

is no way to come up with a formula for producing pure music, as there 

are so many subjective variables involved in how the music would be 

received by listeners. i.e. musical taste, musical background, generation gap, 

etc.. But ----- I do believe that if rock musicians would spend more time in 

their prayer closets than they do in rehearsals, performances etc., God would 

give them the combinations of music, rhythm, lyrics, etc. that would implement 

the purposes of God most effectively while offending only the hard core few.  

There will always be those who believe that any electrified instrument, and 

drums, loud volume, etc. could never be used by God, and as long as they hold 

that opinion, they will never agree with any rock music.  But most 

people have had enough exposure to rock that if a rock presentation was 

truly anointed, they would receive it.  Sadly, the anointing is what's truly 

missing from most contemporary music of today.





(c)1998 Chuck Girard Ministries