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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JULY 5, 1985
PAGE 13
come," the English group Frankie Goes to Hollywood wails on "Re
lax," now the fourth-best-selling record in British history, a
lofty position that being banned by the BBC did much to ensure.
On the album "Defenders of the Faith," the group Judas Priest
sings "Eat Me Alive," which deals with a girl being forced to
commit oral sex at gunpoint. In "Ten Seconds to Love," Motley
Crue croons about intercourse on an elevator.
In concert,
W.A.S.P.'s lead singer, Blackie Lawless, has appeared on stage
wearing a codpiece [ a flap over the fly] with a buzz-saw blade
between his thighs. During "The Torture Never Stops," Lawless
pretends to pummel a woman dressed in a G-string and black hood,
and, as fake blood cascades from the hood, he attacks her with
the blade.
Aristotle said music has the power to form character. The Bach
B-minor Mass can be a link with the eternal. But while music can
ennoble and inspire, it can also degrade. Some drug programs
forbid teen-age patients to attend rock concerts or even to sport
the T shirts of rock groups. Some schools where smoking and
drinking are prohibited have added rock music to the list of
taboos••••
Dr. Joseph Novello, director of a drug program in Washington,
says one of the questions he asks his teen-age patients is what
kind of music they listen to. Whether it's satanic, sexual or
drug-oriented--it tells him something about the child's state of
mind. In like manner, he says, parents have an obligation to be
aware of their children's musical tastes and "if you take excep
tion to the words, don't allow them to listen."
Surprisingly, the majority of parents I've spoken to have ex
pressed partial or total ignorance of the music their children
are dancing to, doing homework to, falling asleep to. Most claim
they don't listen to rock or can't understand the words if they
do. They also admit that they don't want to add another item to
the laundry list of things they already monitor--movies, books,
magazines, parties, friends, homework.
Are the parents of our young people also ignorant, almost willingly so, of
what their children may be listening to?
The Soft West
Finally, we present two paragraphs from a book I purchased while in San
Francisco for the U.N. review conference. Titled THE GERMAN WARS, it deals
primarily with the 1914-1945 period. However, in the last chapter, the
author, D.J. Goodspeed, reflects on what has happened to Western society in
the four decades since the end of the last global conflict.
In the "liberal" societies of the West the eunuchs are inheriting
the earth. This can be seen in a new and excessive tenderness
toward criminals, in the abolition of capital punishment, in the
reJection of all forms of discipline, and in a softness that de
nounces the validity of all objective standards and the renuncia
tion of all sanctions•••• Nor is it surprising that the softness