It is one of the small tragedies in the American church, that there is something called “Christian music.” My personal bias is that the word “Christian” is just about worthless as an adjective in the first place. It has been usurped by marketers who use it to penetrate the religious market with all kinds of silly junk- but that’s another rant for another day.

Christian is a noun; first and always.

Because there exists this entity known as Christian music, however, many people are missing the spiritual treasures to be found in many other pieces of music. R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” is one of those treasures. It is even better the tenth time one watches it, than it was the first- I know, I just did, again. Here:

See what I mean?