Talk:Christian punk

message: This article is obviously written from the perspective of a "Christian punk" fan and needs to be edited for NPOV.  [ +t, +c ] 23:26, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
Christian punk is an oxymoron in that it contrasts with the establishment of religion compared to the anarchistic or anti-establishment attitude of punk.  As such, it should be specified not as its own genre but instead fit into a typical Christian Rock category.  Despite how the bands' music sounds, they merely reflect the fashion and sound of a particular genre; however, they do not include the ideology that embraces punk rock--namely that of an anti-establishment attitude.
:Anarchism and Christianity are not mutually exclusive. Read up on the history of either and you will learn that. Also, how is religion an establishment? Religion is not an organization (i.e. an establishment). The Church is, but the Church is not a religion, let alone religion. At any rate, a punk can believe whatever he or she wants. Who really cares? Not a punk. ;) Ecto 20:09, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: I'll offer to edit this to make it more NPOV if time allows.   Although I'm Christian I think I have a good feel for the punk ethos and can write about different views of punk's [non]-compatibility with Chrisitanity.
Also, the original selection of example bands is not IMO the best, representing present-day pop-punk.   Without meaning to start a revert/flame war, let me just say that there are several Xtian bands more representative of what I would consider "authentic" punk or hardcore punk, e.g. The Crucified, Ninety Pound Wuss, Crux, even some older MxPx (although they eventually went the pop-punk route).   In other words, I just think this article needs work all around.
Also should include Tooth & Nail Records although that article has very little history right now.
- PhilipR 14:56, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV etc. 

message: OK, I just did a brain dump out on the main page.   A little bit's in complete sentences; the rest is just a bunch of names, links, etc.   Ordinarily I wouldn't be so bold, and instead would suggest my sweeping changes here in Talk, but 
#No one else has shown this article much love in the last couple of weeks.
#IMO the preexisting article left substantial holes in the topic.   A rambling brain dump may not be much of an improvement, but at least it may inspire others to fill in the gaps.
However, I don't want to delete others' work lightly, so I've tried to merge it in the skeleton where appropriate and move it to the bottom otherwise.  Of course I yield to the community's judgement in whether I'm improving or ruining the article.   -- PhilipR 01:31, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Skeleton on the main page 

message: This was moved from the article page and is presented here to facilitate any discussion of possibly re-incorporating this content in the article in one way or another.
Christians are often thought of as kind, perfect, law-abiding people, although some, especially teenagers, are not. Most teenagers are somewhat rebellious and different, and Christian teens do not differ most of the time.
     
     
There are all sorts of Christian music, not just gospel, like many people think. Many bands that have gone to the mainstream music, consider themselves Christian bands. Many people are surprised to hear that their favorite punk bands are Christian-based. 
Christian punk is an oxymoron since it goes against the anti establishment do what you want attitude that embodies punk rock. Simply by calling Switchfoot, Relient K even a sub genre of punk rock proves it is not. Switchfoot is a praise/ worship band and Relient K heralds back to days of barbershop quartets, updated with electric guitars. FM Static is, if you must fit it into a secular genre is pop punk, MTV's current genre of the decade.
:And you are a conformist. As someone has already said: "Anarchism and Christianity are not mutually exclusive. Read up on the history of either and you will learn that. Also, how is religion an establishment? Religion is not an organization (i.e. an establishment). The Church is, but the Church is not a religion, let alone religion. At any rate, a punk can believe whatever he or she wants. Who really cares? Not a punk. ;) Ecto 20:09, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Previous content 

message: I removed this claim:
:The obscurity of Christian punk's origins is hardly surprising, given punk's very identity as a very marginal genre throughout the 1980's.
The 1980s was the decade of the Dead Kennedys, The Clash, Bad Religion, The Ramones, Crass, etc., and is generally (with the late 1970s) considered the period of its greatest strength; hardly a "marginal genre". --Delirium 08:45, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)
::Point taken.   It was just a first draft, and "marginal" probably wasn't clear enough to say what I was trying to say.   Sure, the bands you mention would have to be considered part of the golden age of punk, and were extremely influential in music circles.   Sadly, their influence on broader mainstream culture (at least in the US) was more indirect in comparison with the pop punk (or for that matter any other pop music) of today.   I'm probably biased by having grown up totally ignorant of punk in the 1980's then discovered the music that was going on then after the fact, so my recollection was far different from what that of, say, a music critic in London or Los Angeles, or for that matter an adolescent in the UK, might have been.
::In other words, mentally I was differentiating between the "greatest strength" you mention which is 100% correct from a critical perspective, and the pop-culture-"kids everywhere thinking they're into punk because they listen to pop-punk on the radio" influence we see nowadays.  But I didn't really make that clear, and it may well be a dubious point.
::At any rate, thanks for the rewrite.   Cheers, PhilipR 12:31, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It probably depends partly on where you are and how old you are I suppose.  My parents were never into punk, but they had heard of it, as had pretty much everyone in their generation.  I mean, the Sex Pistols, The Clash, and The Ramones were all pretty mainstream...  --Delirium 16:19, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)
QUESTION: Have you guys tried to interview christian punk bands from the early 80's and ask them how the scene started? Don't confuse the Orange County pseudo-new wave-pop scene (Undercover, Alter Boys, etc.) as punk rock, please.
I'm fairly certain by 80s, the original statement meant 1984-1989. And for the record, the "impact" and "importance" of punk in the early 80s, especially the west-coast stuff, is greatly exaggerated when observed retrospectively. 149.43.x.x 18:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Punk marginal in the 1980s?!? 

message: Are we keeping these lists together or separate? We used to have two band lists, one for punk one for poppunk. Someone then incorrectly changed the "poppunk" heading to "punk" (so now there were two titles with "punk". Eventually, bands in this second punk section (formerly poppunk section) were moved to the first (main) punk section. Since poppunk and punk are pretty different, I suggest making pop punk a category again. EdGl 06:58, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Punk/Pop-Punk 

message: Why is Christian punk (similarly, Christian metal, Christian hardcore/metalcore) listed as a subgenre of punk (or whatever)? There is no musical difference between the two, only sometimes a difference lyrical content. See Music genre. There's no reason that I see to consider any of these things as musically distinct from the typical genre into which they fall. The distinction is drawn along social/cultural lines, not musical ones.  149.43.x.x 21:17, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Straight from the article Music genre: "a music genre (or subgenre) is defined by the techniques, the styles, the context and the themes (content, spirit)." The Christian themes in Christian punk, according to the definition in music genre, make it a subgenre of punk rock. (Although another reason for "Christian" subgenres are so that Christians who can only listen to Christian music can identify Christian bands.) EdGl | (talk) 21:27, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But my point is that it isn't an offshoot of punk music. The ways in which it agrees, it is no different. In this sense, it is the same genre, not a subgenre. The ways in which it differs are perhaps in "theme" - but that can't possibly make it a subgenre of punk, because this is not a line that speciates it as a part of punk music, but a line that separates it from the genre entirely. Is my point clearer now? 149.43.x.x 22:17, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I see what you're saying. Believe me, even Christians debate whether there should be such thing as "Christian" music, saying that "Christian" is neither a subgenre nor a genre of music. It's all very sketchy and hard to explain. Sorry :-) —EdGl 22:36, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, anarcho-punk and nazi punk are differentiated from other types of punk largely by lyrical content as opposed to musical differences, but they are often recognized as being subgenres. Really I think it has a lot to do with the differences between the cultures. The Ungovernable Force 07:45, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Precisely, 149's point about musical genre versus, I suppose, lyrical genre is well-taken, but not really observed elsewhere in the musical spectrum.   Technically you could consider punk the genre and Christian the lyrical category or something and I wouldn't complain, since outside of the lyrics it's absurd to refer to music as Christian, anarchist, or Nazi.   But at some point we're splitting hairs, not to mention that plenty of genres such as goth rock are going to be a good mix of both.   I really don't see the point in pushing this distinction. - PhilipR 04:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: These colons are scaring me... Not exactly PhilipR. "Emo," for instance, can take a wide variety of musical forms, however, it is technically the lyrics that make the music "Emo." IronCrow 03:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, that's a misconception. Emo is an offshoot/subgenre of post-hardcore, and 90% of bands popularly labeled as 'emo' actually aren't. Given how difficult some punk bands' lyrics are to make out, the idea that lyrics can change the genre is laughable. Anyway, I've opened up a discussion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Christian_music/Structure#More_about_genres , I really think this needs to be setteled143.92.1.33 (talk) 02:00, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: "Genre"?

message: "see their audience as the general public" -- This sounds like a POV clause intended to privilege a certain subset of Christian punk music -- that music intended for a not-primarily-Xtian audience -- over another subset.   I don't have much use for CCM, and personally I hate the fact that so much of it is just a marketing segment.   But I can't in good conscience see any reason why a band playing three-chord music that's vaguely punk in their presentation/ethos/whatever should be excluded from the scope of this article just because their audience is mostly Christians.   I do think it's an important distinction that should figure early in the article, but I find the present way of handling it a bit clumsy and probably not NPOV.   I grant this is a slippery slope that's going to lead to all kinds of assorted issues, e.g. "Is pop-punk really punk?" that have probably been dealt with.  But AFAIK Wikipedia should keep out of the business of arbitrating what "real punk" is.   Thoughts? - PhilipR 05:02, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would personally remove that phrase from the article. Not only is it a POV concern, it's also probably just plain untrue in at least some cases. Every band is different, so painting with a big brush over every single Christian punk band is not cool. —EdGl 00:36, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, technically, it is kind of true. Punk bands (Christian or not) tend to see that their music is for the general public, however, otehrs want their music to be within "punk circles," you could call it, etc, and so forth. But I see what you guys are saying. Saying that all of these bands see their audience as the general public is kind of like a steroetype... can't find a better word. I do see, however, that it's not really a non-NPOV issue more than it is just wrong information. IronCrow 03:34, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "see their audience as the general public"? 

message: Seems to me that requiring a citation for just about every sentence is a little overboard. (Almost like the work of someone biased against this particular genre). Compare, if you will, this page with Skate Punk, where many similar claims are made, but no further evidence is required. DumberDrummer 18:23, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you want to tear apart Skate Punk, feel free. There are, perhaps, one or two "citation needed" tags that are unnecessary. On the other hand, they highlight statements that are non-factual, biased, or totally unsupported. For example, take the whopper: "In this view, 'real' Christian punk is not targeted at a Christian audience at all" - as if that has any basis. I'm not on any "side" of whatever conflict you think there is, with whatever biased-against-this-genre forces you might believe there are, but many of those are warranted, and I think the scrutiny this article faces is well-deserved and does the article, wikipedia, and you no disservice. If you don't like how they make the article, remove the statements that are clearly unreasonably unsupported, or I could do it myself (now that I read some of it, I think I might have to, some of it is pretty bad). 149.43.x.x 20:57, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For the record, the "whopper" was in part the result of me using weasel words to soften an earlier extremely POV revision that was very normative about what Christian punk was and wasn't.   ("Although this is an improvement, since it no longer states the opinion as fact, it remains uninformative....")   I certainly agree that the article's claims should be specified and substantiated, though.  It's also obvious to me, after reading his or her user page, that User:The Crying Orc was seeking to vandalize the article.   It looks as though that he or she might have a history of bad-faith edits, although I couldn't really tell from the talk page.   Cheers, PhilipR 06:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

text: PS: It feels kind of futile to attempt to use Google to find substantiating articles by typing in some rational search terms, only to find that almost every search returns Wikipedia and several knock-offs as its first several results? :) - PhilipR 07:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are all those "Citation Necessary" marks really necessary?

message: ::Strictly speaking punk refers to very specific form of three-chord rock.   However, its association with underground culture has led to certain bands being associated Christian punk scene by some observers (examples) despite a musical style more precisely described as hardcore, rapcore, emo, whatever.
:::I would like to say that I wholeheartedly disagree with your assertion (and am put off by it, to be frank). Using the term "strictly speaking" to reduce a culture (or arguably a sub-culture) into some meaningless and easily co-opted musical style is hardly appropriate. And for the record, hardcore, emo (which you probably don't really define correctly), etc are each a subgenre of punk music (on the whole), since punk music is defined as the music of a certain subculture and its offshoots, and is only characterized by "three-chord rock" -- a characterization which itself is inadequate, since that isn't always charcteristic of punk, which has roots in may places rock music does not (e.g. ska); punk isn't an offshoot of rock, regardless of what one might have heard. Yes this point strikes at the foundation of what defines a culture and its components (specifically, music), and is easily dismissed, but is no less supported than a baseless assertion that "punk refers to three-chord rock" (or something else, like "rap refers to talking over a drum machine with a lot of kick drum in it"). It's not "associated" with punk culture (underground culture is too vague, mind you), it is a part of it. That's what music is, it is a cultural phenomenon which manifests differently in different cultures and subcultures.149.43.x.x 17:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you're overanalyzing something I just scribbled down to map out how we might plan the article.  I'm just saying that some people might define "Christian punk" in a very strict way and other people might define it in a less strict way, and that one of the criteria on which they might do so is on adherence to a musical style.   I'm not proposing that this be the actual wording in the final article or anything -- it's just a brainstorm of one way (among many) in which some people will argue "That's not really punk."   That's all, but sorry to not make that clearer.  - PhilipR 19:08, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Musical genre 

message: How many times can a form of the word "explicit" be used in a paragraph? The opening paragraph definitely needs to be tweaked. I would even disagree with the definition in the first sentence; not all Christian punk bands have explicitly Christian lyrics. In fact, most Christian punk bands do not have very overtly Christian lyrics at all. —EdGl 00:52, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, have at it.  How do you define Christian punk? - PhilipR 02:26, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

text: PhilipR makes a good point. How do you define it? And why is your definition better than the one presented? Why is it the case that "not all Chrisitan punk bands have explicitly Christian lyrics"? I'm not saying your definition is less supported than the one that is in the article right now, but it's much broader and I am far less comfortable with such a broad definition being the presumed/unsupported definition for this subject. 149.43.x.x 15:08, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Or to possibly make progress if we're at an impasse, what are a couple of examples of Christian punk bands that don't have explicitly Christian lyrics?   Why do you classify them as Christian punk bands?   We could certainly have a much broader definition -- "Christian punk is punk music performed by Christians" -- but that opens up a whole host of other questions.   Does the worldview of the performers change the finished product of the music?   If not, then literally any punk music would sound exactly the same as Christian punk.   It seems to me that any broader definition beyond the present one literally reduces the term to nonsense, but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.   Cheers, PhilipR 22:46, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Explicitly Explicit 

message: One Bad Pig is probably a band worth mentioning in the early history of Christian punk; they were signed to a pretty major Christian label (Myrrh Records) and were the subject of some controversy, as highlighted by their first demo in 1986, A Christian Banned, and their section in the Christian Rock: Blessing or Blasphemy? tract. --Idont Havaname (Talk) 00:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Scaterd Few, for instance, also has a place here. Manf of the "Christian musictype" articles are in need of major improvements. My philosophy is to bide my time until the major articles (bands) are fleshed-out, then one can have enough information to write a proper broad-based genre article. Currently I'm focusing on Christian ska bands. Theres a rel. few of those, they're mostly recent (1995+), and I was listening to them in their own time, unlike most Christian punk bands.  Dan, the CowMan 01:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I won't claim to have read your new 'Christian ska' from beginning to end. But I like the look of it. It has probably set a great example to follow... Thanks, and appreciation. Feline Hymnic (talk) 20:48, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[One Bad Pig]] 

message: I found that this article was quite biased toward Christian pop-punk bands, drawing most of its illustrations from Krystal Meyers and Relient K, whose punk status is quite dubious when compared next to old school punk acts.  I'm trying to flesh out the article's section on "Christian and punk?" with mentions of old-school Christian punk bands' stances on organized religion and politics. --Idont Havaname (Talk) 01:00, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see more of a bias than I do a lack of information. Old School Christian punk bands are probably less known (I never knew about Scaterd Few until I read this article, I know, I know, slap me for it). But I kind of agree with what you are saying. I'll see what I can do. By the way... there should be a Christian Punk Wikiproject... IronCrow 02:37, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: ^I'd join that in a heartbeat (christian punk wikiproject). →EdGl 14:52, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If anyone's still reading this thread of discussion, start one!   Actually it should probably be a subproject of either Christian music or Punk music, or even both if that's possible.   And yeah, I agree that it's implicitly biased toward newer bands because that's what people who are motivated to edit it happen to know more about. - PhilipR (talk) 22:00, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The question is, would we have enough editors willing to participate? I'm not up for starting it—i'm in the middle of school—but like I said I'd definitely join and heavily participate; I already do heavily edit Christian punk-related articles. If one is created, I think it should be a sub-project of Christian music as opposed to the Punk music WikiProject, mainly because WP:WP Xtian music already has sub-projects and WP:WP Punk music doesn't. If not started by end May/beg. June, I'll probably start it myself. One has to propose this on WP:WP Xtian music before starting it, I should point out. ~EdGl (talk) 00:18, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

text: Being part of the Christian music would be a bad idea. Christian Punk is much like Christian Metal, as it doesn't have a wide acceptance in many "Christian music" sources and some bands consider themselves "Christian punk bands" and not or not just "Christian music." Not only that, but the Christian music Wikiproject doesn't show inerest in in actually editing bands of this type. There's also the bit that Christian Punk is much an ideology as it is a genre, so  although it fits Christian Music, it does so to a limit. ¤IrønCrøw¤ (Speak to Me) 00:56, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bias toward pop-punk 

message: Don't you think Flatfoot 56 is less Punk, and more christcore? Same goes for demon hunter.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shadow Titan (talk • contribs) 20:21, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: IDK about Demon Hunter, but Flatfoot is by no means hardcore. ~EdGl (talk) 20:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flatfoot 56 

message: I removed Cornerstone Festival from the History section because it didn't fit/I didn't know how it fit in with the paragraph it was in. It seems to be an important music festival for Christian punk, so I think it should be mentioned somewhere... ideas? ~EdGl ★ 19:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Understandable. Cornerstone is more about Christian music in general, not about the Christian Punk scene. 64.234.0.101 (talk) 02:07, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. After being there it is about christian music in general. However it felt like one of the few places that so many christain punk bands get to see each other and swap ideas. --Guerillero | My Talk 02:54, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cornerstone Festival 

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message: "Positive Punk" currently redirects here, which is clearly wrong. That term is more straight edge. CAVincent (talk) 02:36, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Positive Punk" redirect