Doxologist ContentMetal Bible Sesh: Gleaning Study Tips from Slayer
The issue of what aspects of culture a Christian should or shouldn’t participate in is a central preoccupation of the collective evangelical mind. On one hand we see the effects of evil and depravity embodied in the culture around us, but on the other hand, through God’s common grace, we’re able to see beauty and value in culture as well. Scripture tells us “Do not love the world or the things in the world” (1 John 2:15), but we also see in Acts 17 that Paul reaches out to the people of Athens by engaging them through their own culturally idolatrous presuppositions. Paul truly strove to be “all things to all people that by all means (he) might save some.” (1 Cor 9:22)
A couple years ago I had an experience that drove this dilemma home for me. My wife and I had recently moved from Washington, DC to Seattle. In DC, we were in an environment of knowing almost no Christians but when we moved to Seattle and started attending Mars Hill, we found ourselves in a new environment where just about everyone we knew were Christians. As a relatively new believer myself, I’d never been in such an encouraging environment and Mars Hill Church was, and continues to be, a wonderful place for me to grow in my faith. But sometimes I missed the many opportunities I had back in DC to share the gospel with people who didn’t believe.
Around that time some good old friends of mine from DC, a band called Darkest Hour, were making a record (subsequently called “Undoing Ruin”) up in Vancouver BC and invited me to come up and hang out for a day. It ended up being a great day all around. For those guys, and my good friend Mike in particular, I think it was a refreshing time after long days surrounded by the same people in a mostly dark studio recording heavy metal for weeks on end. I have known Mike since 1997 when our bands toured together, long before I was a Christian, and I pray for him regularly. I am always looking for a way to present the gospel in a new way to those guys, in a way that maybe they haven’t heard before, and I pray that God gives them the ears to hear it.
While we were hanging out in the studio listening to the playback from some of their new recordings I saw a copy of Slayer’s God Hates Us All (which was released interestingly enough on 9/11/01*) among various other CDs in the studio. For those unaware of who Slayer is or what they’re about, they are one of the quintessential metal bands of the last two decades, taking some of the style of the bands that preceded them, making it faster, heavier, and more brutal (especially with 1987’s Reign in Blood) and thus redefined the metal genre in general (while simultaneously pioneering thrash.) Needless to say with a title like God Hates Us All, Slayer are no friends of Christ or his followers. I find the image, art, and lyrical content of Slayer to be more comical than threatening, especially now that the members are in their 40’s and are pretty much doing exactly the same thing they were doing for the same angst-ridden demographic as they did twenty years ago. I also realize that for some this imagery can lead down dark paths. I have listened to Slayer records on occasion and personally have not felt conviction or evil thoughts, and usually it is no more than with passing curiosity that I would listen to them at all.
As I leafed through the CD booklet of Got Hates Us All members of Darkest Hour, two recording engineers and I struck up a conversation. We discussed the musical merits of the band and whether or not they had peaked already and were just re-hashing the same stuff over and over. Then someone pointed out that throughout the liner notes there were what looked to be passages from the Bible with sections blacked out. I looked and recognized the passages as being from the book of Job. They asked if there was any significance as to why they chose to black out certain parts, and I said something to the effect of, “No, they are just trying to be controversial.”When they asked why this particular book of the Bible was used for the layout of this particular record I suddenly found myself explaining the book of Job to a small audience of metal dudes. I said a little prayer in my head and explained how it was a very tough book because Job suffered very much, and it was God’s test to show the true depth of Job’s faith. 
I told them how the book of Job shows that even through times that seem impossibly hard and painful, God is never far and that He loves us, and that there is always some purpose behind what is happening.even when we don’t see it. I told them that the reason Slayer called their record God Hates Us All is because they didn’t have a living relationship with the true God and misunderstood that same suffering as meaningless and cruel. I had just recently read the first chapter of the book of James and God put that verse on my heart and my lips, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”The reaction was not one I had expected. I remember one of the engineers looking very seriously at me with an understanding nod. I have no idea if anything came of it at all, but that moment was exactly the kind of thing I had been praying for, and I realized that my knowledge of scripture and knowing a bit about Slayer had helped make it possible. That in no way means that every Christian needs to or should go out and listen to Slayer. For some it might cause them to have evil thoughts, or become depressed, or stumble in some other ways.and I respect that. When I became a Christian there were many things I realized I would be better off not engaging in, but it also made me realize there were a lot of things I had maybe shut out just because I felt lazy and didn’t want to deal with it. Just because something is difficult to understand and maybe not appealing to my aesthetic sensibilities doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try to find out at least what it’s about.
We live in a big, big world filled with lots of different cultures that I will never fully understand. But being receptive and not having a mind-set that precludes the existence of those cultures or immediately dismissing things as “bad” goes a long way. Most importantly though, as people of The Word, being immersed in scripture, knowing it well, and always being prepared to give an answer for the hope that lies within goes a lot further. (1 Peter 3:15)
*(Slayer’s most recent tour for their latest release Christ Illusion started on 6/6/06. What dorks.)
Oddly enough, apparently Tom Araya (Slayers bass/vocals guy) is Catholic. Not sure how he manuevers around Slayer’s thematics while maintaining his Catholic-ness. Also, in ‘89 Slayer brought shock-evangelist-demon-caster-outer Bob Larson on tour for a Spin magazine feature. I never read the article but remember seeing the Spin cover on the shelves.
Araya on his Catholisism: http://www.westword.com/2004-07-22/music/slay-ride/1
http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/2006/07/09/1675185.html
http://www.markprindle.com/araya-i.htm
…and Kerry King once had an interview published in Cornerstone Magazine. That places it back a few years, when Chris was still young enough to go chasing down rock-stars, generally, at their hotels on their ways through the windy city of Chi-town.
Thanks for sharing your witnessing experience… I pray that God will water the seed you planted in the two engineer’s hearts and that God will draw them to Himself and ultimately save all the band members.
Keep up the good work of being prepared and willing to share your faith. It’s an inspiration to see how God opens doors and if we are ready and willing to walk through them amazing things can happen!
before u write a disgusting article such as this, i recommend doing some serious research.
1. tom araya(bassist/vocalist) is a catholic.
2. kerry king(guitarist0, jeff hanneman(guitarist), and ex-drummer paul bostaph who played drums in this album are all atheists.
3. in the interview with tom araya in the movie/documentary METAL: A HEADBANGER’S JOURNEY, araya was asked about his and his band’s connection with satanism and denied any connection. araya was then asked about god hates us all and he replied: “god doesn’t hate us, but its a great title. im sure it would piss a lot of people off”.
4. in a recent metal hammer magazine issue, kerry king said he doesnt belive neither in God nor in the devil. he just writes those kind of lyrics to create a more brutal image of themselves.
if you are not into the metal scene, maybe it is very easy to be fooled by these titles.
what you should check out though are the norwegian black metal bands. have a good look at those and slayer will look like kittens.
Daniel, Read the other comments. We’re aware that Araya professes his Catholicism. And as far as the extreme metal scene, it’s already been covered on this blog. Read “Beyond Good and Evil? Thelogical Ramblings About Your Favorite Music” here:
http://voxpopnetwork.com/doxologist/category/cultural-commentary/page/2/
while i like slayers music and am not a christian (hold on hear me out) I do find this article to be very well written and for the most part i completely agree. i actually thought that (musically) god hates us all was a bad album except for the song desciple, but even as an agnostic i found the lyrics to be unsettlingly sacreligious. I do not believe in god the most way christians do, but i do appriciate spirituality. I think that someone being spiritual this day and age is refreshing, but it has to be in moderation.
For example, I really dont like the commercialization of atheism, as well as how bands think that you should try to convert people into atheists and shove things in their face. I think that subtlety is a characteristic which needs to come back in modern music. I think that if someone believes in god and you dont you should not try to take them from their beliefs. I hate to sound cliche, but this is america and many people died and die for the right to believe the way you want.
I also really appriciated the authors knowledge of the subject musically, because i saw he was not biased. I also noticed that unlike some “christians” prominent in media, that it was not written with anger and spite and i actually noticed a calm demeanor in the tone. This ws very impressive, because while on one side we have pushy rude ignorant atheists, there are those angry christians who worship out of fear. These are the people who bomb abortion clinics and condemn other sects of christianity. Honeslty i feel sorry for how twisted their perspective is but mostly i am saddened bacause some people then believe that all christians are like that and i have a very good friend who is christian and is the opposite.
No i am an agnostic, and i play in a historical thrash band, but i appriciate this article very much and want to applaud the author. also i apologize for the spelling errors i wrote this very quickly and did not feel like correcting them sorry
also i quickly wanted to say to matt johnson that reign in blood (the album) is better than all that crappy black metal which i find lame. slayer has the punk thrash attitude that they will never have and they are just lame goth guys. also if anyone would like to check out my band here is the link. Note the song Christian massacre is not about massacering christians but is about a historical event in which christians were massacered. In fact we in the band are all spiritual, but lack any profound religious ties . sorry if you are offended
Thanks for the comments Santiago. Its good to get some other perspectives on this. And I agree that there is a whole lot of mediocre black metal out there and generally I don’t like most of it.