Protest Songs - Do They Have A Place In Worship? [Cover: Brian Houston's "We Don't Need Religion"]

http://www.andyrogersmusic.com/protest-songs-do-they-have-a-place-in-worship/ Do protest songs have a place in the life of a worshiping community?

On my recent US trip/tour I did a cover of Brian Houston's "We Don't Need Religion". It's a song that was written against the backdrop of the heady cocktail of politics and religion which has intoxicated our culture here in Northern Ireland for a long time. It voices the cry to be free from all that and has gotten him into trouble as result - some radio stations refused to play it!

According to Wikipedia "A protest song is a song which is associated with a movement for social change". By that definition some songs that the church sings should be protest songs. If we are being 'salt and light' in our sphere of influence then social change would be an expected by-product.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think and I'd love to hear about other great examples of Christian protest songs.

[video]

I see the people in the balconies, in the streets an in their cars
All the party going animals out in the backrooms and the bars saying:
we don't need religion, we don't need religion

I've been a timber jack, I've been a labourer, a shipyard man and a shirker
worked with builders building houses and heard a million McDonald's workers saying:

we don't need religion, we don't need religion
we don't need religion - but we could use the love of God!
Woh, oh oh oh...

I've got false prophets on my TV tellin me this union's doomed
while all the spirit filled believers shake up the floor space in the room saying:
we don't need religion, we don't need religion

Come on you pastors and you preachers, all you priests, nun's and scholars
Come on walk down the road without those robes, crucifixes and orange collars

we don't need religion, we don't need religion
we don't need religion - but we could use the love of God!
Woh, oh oh oh...

Well is it Saturday or is it Sunday, to tell the truth I'm never sure
There's a sabbath in there somewhere, how come we never try Yom Kippur
we don't need religion, we don't need religion

And while we're all so busy fighting using up God's precious time
There's a thousand starving homeless saying buddy can you spare a dime

we don't need religion, we don't need religion
we don't need religion - but we could use the love of God!
Woh, oh oh oh...

Category:

Music

Tags:

• protest songs
• brian houston
• we don't need religion
• worship song

[armuir5]

Sounds good, Andy!

M from SCalif :)

[gronovius]

great Andy, I definitely think we need more protest songs among christians. At the same time we also need to look at ourselves, we often are too comfortable with our nowadays society.

cheers, Erik the Viking :)