Directory of Contemporary Worship Musicians - Way of Life Literature

“[We don’t go to church a lot.] A lot of people think that’sactually a part of Christianity. It can be, if it helps you grow inthe Lord … But, if you look through the Bible, so many men,take John the Baptist for example, he never darkened the doorsof a church in his life. Let’s put it this way — religion is manreaching up to God with sincerity, and most of the time failing.Christianity is God reaching down to man” (Robert Sweet,Hard Rock Video, pp. 55, cited by Wilson Ewin, e Pied Piperof the Pentecostal Movement, 1986, p. 58).“You won’t pick up this record (Against the Law) and hearanything that says ‘God’ or ‘Christ.’ at was intentionallydone. We were tired of people coming back with excuses,saying, ‘Sorry we can’t play this.’ MTV’s got to play this and theradio’s got to play it or it doesn’t serve the purpose” (RobertSweet, Stryper, interview, CCM Magazine, August 1990, p. 10).“I was basically the same guy as far as the way I look now. But,I hadn’t really given my life to God ... [Being a Christian]doesn’t necessarily mean that you become this type of religiousperson and you change the way you look, etc. You can do thatif you want, but it is not a priority” (Robert Sweet, RobertSweet’s Story, Stryper fan club promotional material).“If a kid turns on the television and sees Jimmy Swaggart, he’sgoing to change the channel—if he happens to go to church,chances are he’ll start to get bored and want to leave—a lot ofChristians are stuck in traditional ways” (Oz Fox, cited byLenny Seidel, Face the Music, p. 70).“We listen to just about everybody. From Whitney Houston toJudas Priest. We like music in general. If we closed our mindsto one particular way or one particular thing in music wewouldn’t be artists. We wouldn’t be able to write the kind ofmusic we write. Of course, we’re rooted and grounded so itdoesn’t hurt us. Somebody who can’t handle themselves,listening to that kind of music might make them want to goout and booze and party and whatever” (Oz Fox, Youth!,January 1987, p. 11).Of course, that is precisely what Stryper ended up doing!343