by Stan Mitchell

You have probably heard that great comedy team of George Burns and Gracie Allen where a thug points a gun at them and says:

"Your money or your wife!"

What follows is an agonizing pause. Finally the crook presses for a response:

"Well? Which one?"

"Don't rush me," the raspy-voiced Burns yells, "I'm thinking about it!"

What makes the skit funny is that this is supposed to be a false dilemma. Burns doesn't want to give up either his life or his wife!

The other week I heard someone say it again. "I would rather my kids listen to Christian Contemporary music than some of the other stuff that's out there. Their lyrics are so ungodly. Surely it's better to listen to Christian sentiments, even if they use instrumental music?" This is a false dilemma. There is no question that much of the Country/Rap/Rock music we hear on the airwaves these days is brutal, sex-saturated and ungodly. I don't want their smut and resentments polluting our children's thinking.

But I have been confronted too many times by young people, in all sincerity, asking why we cannot bring a guitar, band, or piano into church because "We listen to Contemporary Christian music, and we like it!" It's not their fault; it is we who sent the wrong signal. Two wrongs do not make a right, even when the one wrong is clearly worse than the other.

But the fact remains that the same scripture that instructs us to sing "songs, hymns and spiritual songs" (Colossians 3:16) is as silent as a church mouse on the instrument. As a wholesome alternative, phone a Christian University and ask for tapes or CD's of a good a cappella Chorus. You won't be sorry.

"Now these things, brethren, I have transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that you may learn in us not to think beyond what is written" (1 Corinthians 4:6).