Believer - Gabriel

I’m almost certain Ian no longer claims to follow Christ.

As far as Believer goes, I think Kurt is the skeptic. Joey Daub hasn’t said anything to cause me to believe he left the faith. He probably just sits back and goes along for the ride. 

For some reason a lot of people want to keep their personal beliefs private. They usually site hypocrisy as a reason they don’t affiliate with labels.

Pethead wrote:I’m almost certain Ian no longer claims to follow Christ.

I think so too. But I’m not 100% sure…

He’s played the “privacy” card in interviews.

Yeah the last Seventh Angel album (and their side projects) were not explicitly Christian in any way.  That tells you something must have changed.

Then, we saw Detritus go in a "Woke Christianity" direction on their latest album.

Has Detritus gone woke? Never noticed that from what I’ve heard and lyrics for Myths aren’t available except for one song, which doesn’t appear woke

Woke Christianity is a very sad state of affairs. It’s like they keep the Christian tag but disregard the Bible’s teachings. Or should I say, they “cherry pick” what they like and disregard the rest.

TZ75 wrote:As far as Believer goes, I think Kurt is the skeptic. Joey Daub hasn’t said anything to cause me to believe he left the faith. He probably just sits back and goes along for the ride. 

For some reason a lot of people want to keep their personal beliefs private. They usually site hypocrisy as a reason they don’t affiliate with labels.

Ironic seeing that mindset in America, one of the least hostile countries in the world to Christianity, while meanwhile people in countries where being a Christian means you are in danger of brutal murder aren’t afraid to share their faith. And “hypocrisy” isn’t an excuse. If someone is afraid of being seen as a hypocrite, they can abandon whatever behavior is seen as hypocritical for Christians rather than abandoning public expression of faith

I think a lot of it has to do with the prevailing cultural zeitgeist which says religion is strictly a personal philosophy one follows, completely divorced from objective truth

TZ75 wrote:Woke Christianity is a very sad state of affairs. It’s like they keep the Christian tag but disregard the Bible’s teachings. Or should I say, they “cherry pick” what they like and disregard the rest.

Sadly, others swing the pendulum too far the other direction and claim anything politically “conservative” is biblical Christianity. We can see this tendency in something like the Christian Nationalist movement.

Neither “side” preaches the gospel.

seth wrote:

TZ75 wrote:As far as Believer goes, I think Kurt is the skeptic. Joey Daub hasn’t said anything to cause me to believe he left the faith. He probably just sits back and goes along for the ride. 

For some reason a lot of people want to keep their personal beliefs private. They usually site hypocrisy as a reason they don’t affiliate with labels.

Ironic seeing that mindset in America, one of the least hostile countries in the world to Christianity, while meanwhile people in countries where being a Christian means you are in danger of brutal murder aren’t afraid to share their faith. And “hypocrisy” isn’t an excuse. If someone is afraid of being seen as a hypocrite, they can abandon whatever behavior is seen as hypocritical for Christians rather than abandoning public expression of faith

I don’t want to upset or disrespect any of our members from the UK on this board, but it’s very clear that the UK and Europe in general has become very hostile towards Christianity. If there is any openly Christian views, it’s the woke variety. 

The United States is in a spiritual war with the same darkness that took over Europe. At least there has been some pushback! 

God bless the believers in countries that persecute them for practicing their faith. They are living what the early church experienced.

seth wrote:Has Detritus gone woke? Never noticed that from what I’ve heard and lyrics for Myths aren’t available except for one song, which doesn’t appear woke

Found the lyrics for the whole album, I think I know what you are referring to. I’m not sure if they’re being “woke” and affirming homosexuality, I got the impression they’re implying it shouldn’t be seen as “unforgivable” and that homosexuals, like any other sinners, can repent and come to Christ for forgiveness. The line “if God hates f*gs then He hates us all” is actually a good point

Pethead wrote:

TZ75 wrote:Woke Christianity is a very sad state of affairs. It’s like they keep the Christian tag but disregard the Bible’s teachings. Or should I say, they “cherry pick” what they like and disregard the rest.

Sadly, others swing the pendulum too far the other direction and claim anything politically “conservative” is biblical Christianity. We can see this tendency in something like the Christian Nationalist movement.

Neither “side” preaches the gospel.

It is undeniable that one “side” of the political/culture war is more friendly to Biblical Christianity than the other. However I agree that some people see Christianity as a “corollary” to their conservative political views, rather than the other way around (as it should be)

One can be friendly to Christianity and still be on the road to hell. Often times the closer something seems to the truth the more dangerous it actually is.

Pethead wrote:One can be friendly to Christianity and still be on the road to hell. Often times the closer something seems to the truth the more dangerous it actually is.

True

That being said, one side is definitely more hostile to Christianity and that’s reason enough not to vote that way.

seth wrote:

seth wrote:Has Detritus gone woke? Never noticed that from what I’ve heard and lyrics for Myths aren’t available except for one song, which doesn’t appear woke

Found the lyrics for the whole album, I think I know what you are referring to. I’m not sure if they’re being “woke” and affirming homosexuality, I got the impression they’re implying it shouldn’t be seen as “unforgivable” and that homosexuals, like any other sinners, can repent and come to Christ for forgiveness. The line “if God hates f*gs then He hates us all” is actually a good point

All sin is abominable to God. We can’t condemn a gay person and then commit our so-called lesser sins. 

We need to view all sin as bad. A gay person can admit that they are a sinner. The problem with any habitual sin is that the people sometimes don’t acknowledge the sin. That’s the problem with the militant homosexual lifestyle. They do not think it’s wrong and even hate or choose not to believe in God because it hinders their desires. 

The Bible condemns all sin.

Pethead wrote:That being said, one side is definitely more hostile to Christianity and that’s reason enough not to vote that 

And that would be the far-left.

Indeed.

seth wrote:I know Seventh Angel moved away from Christian lyrics, I’m not sure if the members still consider themselves to be Christians or not though. One of them featured with Adorned Graves on the latest album, which is overtly Christian.
Deliverance also has moved away from Christian lyrics, sad to see since their lyrics were great in early years.

I don't mind the change in D's lyrics that much, but I do think if their going to have album covers like the one on The Subversive Kind or album titles like As Above - So Below they should do a little more to confirm what side they're on lol.

StevenCressler wrote:

seth wrote:I know Seventh Angel moved away from Christian lyrics, I’m not sure if the members still consider themselves to be Christians or not though. One of them featured with Adorned Graves on the latest album, which is overtly Christian.
Deliverance also has moved away from Christian lyrics, sad to see since their lyrics were great in early years.

I don't mind the change in D's lyrics that much, but I do think if their going to have album covers like the one on The Subversive Kind or album titles like As Above - So Below they should do a little more to confirm what side they're on lol.

I think Jimmy may have moved away from the faith in his personal life as well, some stuff he has said in interviews recently seem to indicate this

He seems to at least have moved away from a solid, biblical faith as evidenced by an interview that was posted around these parts a few months ago.

The dude from Detritus came here to the forums and affirmed they still in the faith iirc.

Everybody being wishy washy about it and not clearly affirms his faith is useless for the work of God imo.

Of course, they can pursue their careers if they please but their works will be thrown in the fire (1. Cor. 3.13-15).

It is not on us to judge whether they are saved or not, let the angels do that job (Mt 13,24-30 and 39).

Bummer for those who got lukewarm tho. Still, their old stuff can and will bring dudes to God as He can even use non believers as His tools, think of Bileam, Nebukadnezar, Kyrus etc.

Pethead wrote:He seems to at least have moved away from a solid, biblical faith as evidenced by an interview that was posted around these parts a few months ago.

That sucks. Hopefully he can get back to what he had before, as the first three albums had some of the most striaght-forward salvation and spiritual warfare-based lyrics I've heard in metal.

TZ75 wrote:
but it’s very clear that the UK and Europe in general has become very hostile towards Christianity. If there is any openly Christian views, it’s the woke variety. 

In Finland the leader of the Christian Democrats party, Päivi Räsänen, got "hate speech" charges for quoting the Bible. She criticized her church for sponsoring the Pride event and quoted the Bible to back it up. She initially got sued for that but then the police started investigating her old 2004 writings concerning homosexuality too and she was interrogated by the police.

She won the case but the prosecutor has appealed the verdict.

Here's more about it:
Free Speech On Trial: Päivi Räsänen - ADF International

I think a lot of Gabriel can still be interpreted from a religious point of view. Straight from the title, Gabriel, to lines like "seven years of shame" and "melted tongues appear" etc (the Aramaic Bible has a translation that goes "and their tongue shall melt in their mouths").

Stoned seems to be an anti-drug song in the style of Stop the Madness. "Fly high and grind away / Light dies and they invade" I think means you are open to demons when you are high on drugs.

The lyrics to Redshift feel a bit like the lyrics to Singularity on Dimensions. Redshift is phenomena that is used to calculate the beginning of everything, the moment of singularity. The song Singularity basically warns that what began from a singularity will end up in a singularity. Everyone will end up in a state of infinity. "A darwinist, a humanist, a hedonist, a legalist", everyone will confront it eventually. The song seems to say, at least in part, that redshift is evidence of creation ("to reveal creative stress") and there's one blatantly obvious biblical reference too with "The first becomes last".

The song The Need for Conflict could basically be about any evildoer out there, from a school shooter to a politician or a hypocritical preacher. But there are just enough words here and there to put a religious edge to it and have the song also be about Satan.

Focused Lethality could very well be about an endtime angelic battle. "Crush the false strength" could mean the false power of the Antichrist, angels and believers being the "crazy ones" and the "hated" - and there's the clear biblical reference to the "Crown of life" too. Gabriel being the name of the album it wouldn't be a surprise if the lyrics for this song would've been inspired by the Book of Revelation.

The only direct mention of God is in Nonsense Mediated Decay (the title is a scientific term Nonsense Mediated mRNA Decay that I understand nothing about). First a kid mentions "the face of God" and then a man describes an "alien incident" he experienced, ending it with "Kind of like I was touched by the hand of God." When Gabriel came the UFO enthusiasts were still more on the side of aliens being biological creatures from other planets. In the recent years more and more of the same people have changed their views into aliens really being extradimensional beings instead of extraterrestrial, more like angels and demons. However, the "lyrics" of this song weren't written by Believer members but the guy who speaks on it. Anyway, it's part of the album.

Nonsense Mediated Decay, by the way, has an AMAZING beginning! It's such a great hook that it really irritates and bothers me that it lasts for like 20-30 seconds and then it never comes back again. I can only imagine what a whole song based on that small part would be like. It's one of the best music pieces I've ever heard and they use it only for a short moment.


So, with Gabriel we have enough bits here and there to at least interpret the Bible into it.
When it comes to Transhuman, however, there's nothing like that.
The only thing that could have a connection to the Bible is the "it's 4:44" line in Entanglement, and even that is a HUGE stretch as it's most likely just a reference to time with no other meaning (especially as another song already mentions time being 3am). Interestingly though when I googled that I found this written 9 years after the album: The revelation of the number 444 and what does this mean in these last days? By Apostle Jeshurum
The writer woke up 4:44 and wrote what it might biblically mean if you see that time. It sort of makes Transhuman's lyrics a bit more interesting if you add that to it, but obviously there's no actual connection.


In an interview Kurt said they have written the lyrics together. Someone wrote one verse, someone else another, and together they figured out phrasings etc. So that might explain why there are Biblical lines here and there in Gabriel, where the rest of the song might not feel biblical at all.

Anyway, Gabriel is a fantastic album, and Transhuman has a few very good songs too. But Transhuman is clearly the biggest departure both musically and lyrically.