I don't live the life of a serial adulterer.

I mean honestly, music is meant to connect with people, and how can I connect with what I don’t know, what I choose not to know? The culture at large is living a life of free-sex and perversion, and it makes sense their music would be about those things. For me, listening to that music isn’t so much an immoral thing for me to do—it’s just stupid. And it makes me grieve to see the world acting so stupidly.

Smart music is the kind that allows me to connect at a deeper level of my humanity. It's higher. It's more powerful and true. It rings true with a deeper reality of life. It sets me free to experience emotional truth about things I am prone to forget. It helps me make sense of my life, not drag me down into some funk where my animal passions are enflamed and the only way out is perversion.

I say this because it shocks me how many people listen to raunchy music and also have very confused emotional lives. They are torn between the life they know they must live and the one their culture (and music) tells them they are to live.

At the root, their problem is they are acting like a stupid person. They are pursuing a life of depth and aliveness while celebrating stupidity.

All I’m trying to say is, being Christian doesn’t mean you “can’t” listen to pop music and still be faithful; it just means you should be becoming such a deeper and more pure example of humanity that it doesn’t even ring true to you anymore. We are being raised from death to life, and true life isn’t going to go back to the death and be fascinated by it.

I live the life of a faithful follower of Christ, and what that means is I’m free to experience much deeper emotions and experiences that only come from properly using my body and mind as my Maker intended. So yes, I restrict myself, but that discipline is what brings me freedom. It's just smart.