“Mean What You Say” by Sent By Ravens (Trigger Warning: discussion of a hate group and disturbing language), Sunday, November 20, 2022

 

Many Christians and former Christians were crestfallen by the marriage of politics and religion, particularly displayed from the 2016 election of Donald Trump. How could religious leaders we looked up to, who taught us about the fruits of the spirit, now say that Trump was appointed by God? Back in 2012, though, a band from Hartsville, South Carolina, began to see inconsistencies between what the Bible said and what was preached.

YOU BETTER MEAN WHAT YOU SAY. Sent By Ravens released two records with Tooth & Nail Records before going on an indefinite hiatus. Unlike many Tooth & Nail acts, Sent By Ravens was a Christian Rock band that dealt with Christian themes directly. The band's debut record, Our Graceful Words, produced by Aaron Sprinkle, challenged listeners on spiritual themes on songs like "New Fire" and "Beautiful List." Other songs on the record like "Trailers vs. Tornadoes" and "Stone Soup" displayed a post-hardcore sound.  But the vision for Christian Rock that Sent By Ravens shared with listeners unfortunately failed, and that could be because of their potentially divisive sophomore record, Mean What You Say. By divisive, I mean that Mean What You Say was uncomfortable for two groups of Christian music listeners. While bands like Anberlin and Underoath had made a career on mostly relationship-based songs, other bands like Kutless and Seventh Day Slumber took an opposite trajectory into worship music. There were other bands like Sent By Ravens who sang about spiritual subjects, but much of the Christian Rock audience was either moving away from Christianity or deeper into Christianity and further away from rock. The sincere lyrics of the band felt awkward to the soon-to-be deconstructionists, and the questions the band raised made the future MAGA Christians double down in their politically conservative agenda. 

I DON'T HAVE TO KILL WITH MY HANDS. "Mean What You Say" is the title track from Sent By Ravens' sophomore record. The song and others on the album addresses the hateful messages that some vocal Christian individuals and groups spread to disparage fellow believers and non-believers. The song was specifically inspired by the hatred spewed by Westboro Baptist Church. Church members can be seen on TV getting attention for their causes in the most abrasive way possible with provocative signs. The church's central message is in their URL(not shared for the purpose of decency): "God hates fags." The church is obsessed with homosexuality, protesting at funerals of famous people no matter the deceased's actual sexual orientation, making outrageous claims that the deceased was gay or furthered the "gay agenda." In addition to the religious group's unyielding homophobia, the church members also demonstrate extreme anti-semitism, islamophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia. Many Christians and non-believers alike label the church as a hate group, and there have been many lawsuits against the church and its founder, Fred Phelps, Sr., even a Supreme Court case against the church's founder. When I was going to a religious high school, my Bible teacher condemned Westboro Baptist church and joked about them being crazy fanatics. But the messages about homosexuality weren't that much different at Bible class. Maybe it was less obsessive, but I felt deep down, the far right is what the "moderate fundamentalists" really wanted. Maybe Westboro Baptist church was speaking to something they found instinctively true. Today's song challenges listeners to "mean what they say." But this message causes Christians either to become more loving and affirming or more hateful and intolerant of others. 

Read the lyrics on Genius.