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July 3, 1999 - Death Metal (also known as Black or Goth Metal, Shock Rock, or Grindcore) which arose in the 1990s in the United States and Europe, and has spread to Japan and other parts of the world, focuses on "a lyrical glorification of all things morbid and decaying" (Michael Moynihan, Lords of Chaos: The Blood Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground, 1998, p. 29). It is exercising a vast influence upon young people today, through recordings, concerts, and the Internet. "Between 1989-1993 Death Metal had become immensely popular worldwide, with bands drawing crowds in the thousands on an average night" (Ibid., p. 31). Black Metal "songs" exhibit a fascination with violence and death in general, murder, torture, rape, dismemberment, and mayhem. Death Metal groups have names like Venom, Extreme Noise Terror, Napalm Death, Unleashed, Darkthrone, Vicious Circle, Carcass, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Dismember, Deicide, Entombed, Cradle of Filth, Necropolis, and Obituary. Tampa, Florida, has been a center for some of the most popular Death Metal groups, including Morbid Angel and Deicide. Another center for Death Metal is Scandinavia, particularly Sweden and Norway. Some of the groups also praise Nazism and celebrate pagan gods. All exhibit an anti-Christian philosophy. Lead singer for the Swedish band Unleashed, Johnny Hedlund, makes "fervent declarations on the necessity of destroying the Christian religion" (Lords of Chaos, p. 30). Deicide has songs about the joy of killing Jesus. Lead singer Glen Benton, who branded an inverted cross on his forehead, named his son Daemon (”master of the supernatural”). Deicide’s bass player, Eric Hoffman, says, “Death metal is Satanic. We relay our music all into Satanism.” Varg Vikernes of the Death Metal group Burzum worships Odin, the Viking god of war and death, “the enemy of the Christian God.”
THE ROOTS OF DEATH METAL ARE TRACED THROUGH ‘70S ROCK BACK TO THE BLUES
Death Metal is more violent and anti-Christian than previous forms of rock, but only in intensity. Death Metal is more violent and anti-Christian than previous forms of rock, but only in intensity. The seeds of Death Metal can be traced to the thrash metal groups of the 1980s, such as Slayer, Metallica, Venom, and Anthrax; and to heavy metal groups of the 1970s, such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, which destroyed equipment, praised Satan, and promoted the grossest type of hedonism. This theme goes even farther back, to the Blues of the early part of this century. The most famous Bluesmen were immoral, violent, and some, such as Robert Johnson, even allegedly sold their souls to the Devil for fortune and fame. Three of Johnson’s songs were titled "Crossroads Blues" (a reference to selling one’s soul to the Devil at a crossroads at midnight), "Me and the Devil Blues," and "Hellhound on My Trail." Johnson lived a carousing, violent, and immoral life and died at age 27 when he was poisoned by a jealous husband.
Rock music has always been associated with an anti-Christian attitude, an immoral lifestyle, and violence. The first rock concert in 1952 (called a Moon Dog Ball), which was organized by disc jockey Alan Freed, resulted in a riot that sent mobs of young people rampaging through the streets of Cleveland, Ohio. Riots, beatings, and stabbings occurred at other Freed concerts. Following a riot in Boston in 1958, rock concerts were banned in several cities and Freed was kicked out of the concert business. Freed, called by Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock "the original Pied Piper of rock & roll," allegedly was the first to apply the term "rock and roll" to the new Blues-based music. He died in 1965 at age 42, penniless and drunken. Freed well epitomizes the wretched history of rock & roll.
Rock and its most direct predecessors—the Blues, Ragtime, Jazz, and Boogie Woogie—have shared a philosophy of hedonism—whatever feels good is right, do your own thing, if it feels good do it. That is also the basic philosophy of Satanism. Famous early 20th-century Satanist Aleister Crowley (1847-1947) has had a large influence upon modern rock music. Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin scored soundtracks for films about Crowley. Images of Crowley’s Satanist religion were woven throughout the albums of Led Zeppelin. The Satanist’s photo appeared on the Beatles’ Sargent Pepper album cover. Ozzy Osbourne wrote a song entitled "Mr. Crowley." David Bowie referred to Crowley in his song "Quicksand." Graham Bond thought he was Crowley’s illegitimate son. Crowley’s philosophy was "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." Anton LaVey (1930-1997), founder of the Church of Satan (1966) and author of the Satanic Bible (1969), also exercised a large influence upon rock music. He taught that men are like gods and that they are not bound by "the chains of Christian morality." Those statements reflect the philosophy of rock & roll. Even 1950s rock, which was "innocent" in contrast to later forms of rock, glorified sexual lust outside of marriage, which the Bible plainly condemns.
Michael Moynihan researched the violence and occultism of Death Metal for his 1998 book Lords of Chaos. Moynihan, who, to my knowledge, makes no claim to Christianity and who writes sympathetically to rock music, traces a direct connection between the Blues, ’70s rock, and Death Metal.
"Bathory’s [a Swedish Death Metal group] bizarre bloodline of demonic inheritance—and that of Black Metal itself—can be traced straight back through Venom, Mercyful Fate, and other darker-themed Metal bands of the early ‘80s, to the Heavy doom-ridden sounds of Black Sabbath and the mystical Hard Rock of Led Zeppelin, to their bluesy antecedents the Rolling Stones, and all the way to a poor black guitarist from the American South who may have sold his soul to Satan in a lone act of desperation. An unlikely Black Metal pedigree, but there it stands, helped along the way by countless others who poured their own creative juices into an evolving witches’ brew" (Moynihan, Lords of Chaos, p. 22).
Black Metal is simply pushing the envelope of wickedness and blasphemy that has always been present in rock music. Even the Beatles, who were Sunday School boys by comparison to many Death Metal groups, were viciously anti-Christian and blasphemous and thus did their part to pave the way for Death Metal. The Beatles’ press officer, Derek Taylor, testified: "They’re [the Beatles] completely anti-Christ. I mean, I am anti-Christ as well, but they’re so anti-Christ they shock me which isn’t an easy thing" (Saturday Evening Post, August 6, 1964). In 1970, Paul McCartney stated, "We probably seem to be anti-religious ... none of us believes in God" (Hit Parader, January 1970, p. 15). In 1966, John Lennon created a furor by claiming: "Christianity will go. We’re more popular than Jesus now" (Newsweek, March 21, 1966). Though he claimed that he was misunderstood and gave a half-hearted apology, it is obvious what the head Beatle thought about Christianity. In his book A Spaniard in the Works, which was published by Simon and Schuster, Lennon portrayed Jesus Christ as Jesus El Pifico, a "garlic eating, stinking little yellow, greasy facist bastard Catholic Spaniard." In his hugely popular song "Imagine," Lennon mused: "Imagine there’s no heaven … No hell below us, above us only sky. … no religion too/ You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one/ I hope some day you’ll join us, and the world will live as one." That is a blasphemous denial of Almighty God and His Holy Word. The description of other blasphemous rock & rollers from the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s would fill a large book.
THE VIOLENCE AND BLASPHEMY OF DEATH METAL
The Norwegian group Mayhem, which was formed in 1984, is considered the father of Black Metal in Europe. The founder of Mayhem, Oystein Aarseth (1967-1993) (who originally called himself "Destructor" but changed later to "Euronymous," allegedly meaning "the prince of death"), was stabbed to death in 1993. He was murdered by another Death Metal rocker, Varg Vikernes, of the group Burzum. Aarseth was 26 years old. Other band members were called "Necro Butcher," "Dead," and "Hellhammer." One of the trademarks of Mayhem and other Norwegian Black Metal groups is the wearing of "corpsepaint," which is black and white makeup designed to create a morbid appearance. Aarseth operated an occultic bookstore/record shop in Oslo that was very influential upon young people. It was called "Helvete," which is the Norse word for Hell. The vocalist for Mayhem, Per Yngve Ohlin (whose alias was "Dead"), blew his brains out (literally) in April 1991 with a shotgun. His body was found by Oystein Aarseth. Before the police arrived, Aarseth took pictures of Ohlin’s shattered body and collected pieces of his brain and skull. Describing the death of his fellow band member, Aarseth replied with complete lack of concern, "Yeah, Dead killed himself." Aarseth made necklaces with the skull pieces and cooked some of the brain and "ate it so he could claim himself to be a cannibal" (Michael Moynihan, Lords of Chaos, p. 59). Ohlin had once stabbed Aarseth with a knife. Ohlin also hated cats and tried to cut them with knives. Ohlin, who saw himself "as a creature from another world," had an obsession with snuff films that depict real deaths by horrible torture.
Death Metal in Scandinavia has been connected with the burning of many churches. Since 1992 there have been at least 45 to 60 church fires, near-fires, and attempted arson attacks in Norway alone. Roughly a third have a documented connection to the Black Metal scene (Lords of Chaos, p. 79). In every case that has been solved, the Kripos (Norwegian national investigation department) found that the arsonists were Black Metal "Satanists." A fire fighter was killed while battling one of the blazes. Black Metal rocker Varg Vikernes (1973- ), who is strongly suspected of setting the first fire in 1992, of an ancient church building in Fantoft, Norway, is in prison for 21 years for the murder of Oystein Aarseth and for setting other church fires. There were roughly a dozen church fires in Germany from late 1993 to early 1997. Most have a proven link to Black Metal and Satanism.
Death Metalist drummer Bard Eithun of the group Emperor is in prison for brutally murdering a homosexual with a knife for no reason other than the lust of killing. That was in August 1992. He stabbed the man 37 times. A fellow band member of the Death Metal group Emperor said Eithun had been fascinated with serial killers for a long time. The day after the murder, Eithun participated in a church burning.
The members of the German Death Metal group Absurd, composed of three high school students (Hendrik Mobus, Sebastian Schauscheill, and Andreas K.), murdered a 15-year-old classmate in April 1993. The group also called themselves "Children of Satan." Band leader Hendrik Mobus stated in an interview that we are at "the dawn of the New Aeon, when Christendom will perish and a neo-heathen state will arise" (Lords of Chaos, p. 260).
A member of the Swedish Death Metal band band Dissection was imprisoned for desecrating 250 graves.
In 1992 at a Halloween celebration attended by members of the Swedish Death Metal groups Dissection and Abruptum, an elderly man was stabbed repeatedly in the neck by an 18-year-old who had been instructed to prove that he could kill without compunction (Lords of Chaos, p. 268). Another member of Dissection, Jon Nodtveidt, was charged in 1997 with another Satanist in connection with assaulting people.
Members of British Death Metal band Necropolis assaulted churches and cemeteries in 1994.
A member of the French Death Metal band Funeral, Anthony Mignoni (who uses the pseudonym "Hades"), says he created the group "to spread my ideas based on the destruction of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions, and on the purity and supremacy of the true Aryan race" (Lords of Chaos, p. 275). He was convicted of desecrating a grave in 1996. He and three others exhumed the body of Yvonne Foin, who had been dead 20 years, and placed a cross in the cadaver’s heart area. Another youth police believe to be associated with Mignoni, David Oberdorf, murdered a priest by stabbing him 33 times with a dagger. He then carved on the body after the man was dead. He had confronted the priest with the words, "I am possessed by the demon—I must annihilate men of religion!" Investigators found a collection of death metal CDs in the teen’s room, and neighbors testified that they had heard "gnawing music, hard and stressful" blaring from his room.
Violence has been committed by young people intimately connected with the music of the popular Tampa, Florida, Death Metal group Deicide. In January 1993, two 15-year-old boys mulilated a neighbor’s dog, Princess. They later told police that their fascination with Deicide led them to commit the atrocity. In April 1994, a female employee of a convenience store was brutally murdered and another woman nearly murdered in Eugene, Oregon, by teenagers. The families of the dead woman sued, claiming the youth were heavily influenced by the music of Deicide and Cannibal Corpse. The killer told police, "I did it in essence of Glen Benton and Chris Barnes [lead singer of Cannibal Corpse]." The youths had allegedly been listening to Deicide music in a church parking lot shortly before the bloodbath (Lords of Chaos, p. 290). The cases were settled out of court, with the record labels paying substantial sums while "expressly not admitting guilt" (Ibid.).
In July 1995, three teenagers in California, who were members of a Death Metal band called Hatred and who were "fanatical Slayer fans," murdered 15-year-old Elyse Pahler as a Satanic sacrifice. The three were Royce Casey, Jacob Delashmutt, and Joseph Fiorella. As Pahler prayed to God and called out for her mother, they stabbed her at least 12 times and left her to bleed to death. They chose Pahler because "her blond hair and blue eyes and virginity made her a perfect sacrifice to the devil" (Scripps-McClatchy Western Service, San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune, Feb. 21, 1997). When the chief investigator asked one of the teens why they committed such a deed, he replied that "it was to receive power from the devil to help them play the guitar better" so they could be able to "play crazier and harder" and "go professional." Two other teens associated with these three were convicted of murdering a 75-year-old woman. The murder of Elyse Pahler was unsolved for months until Casey came forward to the police and guided them to the body. He said he had "new found religious beliefs" and that he was afraid that the others would kill him if he distanced himself from them. Casey told the police that a lyric from the band Slayer warned, "If you’re not with us, you may no longer exist."
A Wisconsin Death Metal band, The Electric Hellfire Club, titled their 1993 debut album, Burn, Baby, Burn!, the cover of which depicted a church in flames. The lyrics to their song "Age of Fire" state: "Synagogues and churches burning/ Can’t you see the tide is turning?/ How many fires will it take?/ Before you realize your god is dead?" This vicious, blasphemous song is a crowd-pleaser at their concerts. A fan of The Electric Hellfire Club, Caleb Fairley, of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, murdered a woman and her young daughter and violated their corpses in 1995.
In April 1996, a group of young people with intimate connection with Death Metal, who called themselves the Lords of Chaos, went on a crime, arson, and murder spree in Fort Myers, Florida. They burned a Baptist church and a large tropical aviary containing a collection of exotic birds. They burned down a former Coca-Cola bottling plant. They then murdered the director of their high school marching band, blasting him in the face at close range with a shotgun, because he had stopped them from vandalizing the school the day before. The leader of the group, 18-year-old Kevin Foster, was referred to by the others as "God." Before they were caught by police, the group was making plans to dress up in costumes and walk through Disney World shooting tourists with silencer-equipped guns.
In October 1997, another teenage Death Metal lover, 16-year-old Luke Woodham of Pearl, Mississippi, killed his mother by beating her with a baseball bat, stabbing her repeatedly, and slitting her throat. He then went to his high school and calmly opened fire with a .30-30 rifle on fellow students. He killed two girls and wounded seven others. Woodham was part of a group of Death Metal fans who prayed to Satan, admired Hitler, tortured animals, and embraced the anti-Christian views of the German philosopher Nietzsche. The leader of the group was 18-year-old Grant Boyette, referred to by the others as "Father." Woodham was chosen as the assassin for the attack upon the school. Woodham and five other teens were charged with conspiracy to commit the attack upon the school. The group had also planned the murder of the father of one of the members, but they had failed to carry out the plan. Woodham had written out his blasphemy against God on a paper found by the police: "Hate the accursed god of Christianity. Hate him for making you! Hate him for flinging you into a monstrous life you did not ask for nor deserve! Fill your heart, mind, and soul with hatred; until it’s all you know ... hate until you can't anymore." The students allegedly had grander plans, including more killings, napalm fires, and ultimately taking over their high school and then disappearing ("Small Town Rocked by Bizarre Murder Case," CNN, Oct. 21, 1997).
In December 1997, 14-year-old Michael Carneal shot and killed three students and wounded five others at a high school in Paducah, Kentucky. One of the injured was paralyzed from the waist down. All of the targeted students were participating in a prayer meeting sponsored by a Christian club. Carneal was a member of a group of students who claimed not to believe in God and who heckled the prayer meetings. A lawsuit brought after the crime alleged that Carneal was influenced by violent movies, videos, and music.
In March 1998, 13-year-old Black Metal lover Mitchell Johnson, and his 11-year-old friend, Andrew Golden, killed four girls and a teacher and wounded 10 others at a school in Jonesboro, Arkansas,. Mitchell had become more aggressive after his parents’ divorce in 1994, "talking back and pushing the limits." Many speculated that the violence in the music that Mitchell loved contributed to the slayings.
In April 1999, Death Metal lovers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked onto the campus of their high school in Littleton, Colorado, and brutally murdered 12 fellow students and a teacher and wounded 20 others before taking their own lives. Some of those murdered were picked out because they were Christians. Before they shot 17-year-old Cassie Bernall to death, they asked, "Do you believe in God?" She replied, "Yes," and they shot her. They laughed as they destroyed and mangled their victims. Witnesses reported that "they were just hooting and hollering, having the time of their lives." Harris and Klebold loved the most wretched forms of rock music, particularly Marilyn Manson and German "techno" and Death Metal rock groups.
Marilyn Manson rips apart Bibles on stage and says: "Hopefully, I’ll be remembered as the one who brought an end to Christianity. … Each age must have at least one brave individual that tries to bring an end to Christianity. ... No one has managed to succeed yet; maybe through music we can finally do it" (Spin, August 1996, p. 34). We have news for Mr. Manson. True Christianity will never end. Of those who believe on Jesus Christ for salvation, Christ promised they "shall not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). Everlasting is a very long time. John Lennon once said Christianity will vanish and shrink; I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and will be proved right" (Newsweek, March 21, 1966). Lennon is gone. Church of Satan founder Anton Lavey, who exercised much influence upon rock & roll, said that Christianity would be finished if a representative of the Church of Satan could have just one hour on national TV (Lords of Chaos, p. 236), but LaVey is gone. Jimi Hendrix considered the laws of God a form of bondage and saw himself as a liberator of young people from Bible-believing Christianity (‘Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky, pp. 214,215), but he is gone. Famous Satanist Aleister Crowley, who had a large influence upon modern rock music and who has been glorified by rock stars such as Ozzy Osbourne, David Bowie, Graham Bond, the Beatles, and Mick Jagger, once offered himself to the Russian authorities to help destroy Christianity (Steve Turner, Hungry for Heaven, p. 92). Crowley is gone, though. After Marilyn Manson is gone, biblical Christianity will continue forever.
Some claim that no matter how vile, no matter how violent rock music is, it does not have a destructive influence upon its hearers. There are many who make light of those who find connections between such things as violent music and violent crime, or pornography and rape.
We believe this is strange and unreasonable—yea, irresponsible—thinking. The pounding beat of rock does have an influence. A visit to any rock concert will demonstrate that. And the rock lyrics also influence. Those who saturate themselves with rock are deeply effected by it. I know this by the sad experience of the years I spent immersed in the world of rock.
Countless others who have similar backgrounds testify the same thing. Why is it that it is rock music that is always connected with debachery and violence, and not classical music or "easy listening" or bluegrass or Christian hymns? The fact is that Rock corrupts. Rock injures. Rock maims. Rock kills.
Gladys Alarcon, a detective with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department in Florida, testifies that "every teen she has interviewed in relation to a hate or occult crime has listened to ‘black metal’ music and used hallucinogenic drugs" ("Police Chiefs Warned Against Occult Crime," Charisma, January 1991, p. 26).
If there is such a thing as cause and effect—and there is!—it is clear that rock produces aberrant behavior. We believe the gruesome summary of Death Metal rock music is found in the title of another popular rock song: "Another one bites the dust." Rock destroys.
My friends, evil is rampant in this world, and we must diligently guard our own hearts and minds and those of our children. The Bible warns that "a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame" (Proverbs 29:15).
"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world" (1 Peter 5:8,9).
THE ROOTS OF DEATH METAL ARE TRACED THROUGH ‘70S ROCK BACK TO THE BLUES
Death Metal is more violent and anti-Christian than previous forms of rock, but only in intensity. Death Metal is more violent and anti-Christian than previous forms of rock, but only in intensity. The seeds of Death Metal can be traced to the thrash metal groups of the 1980s, such as Slayer, Metallica, Venom, and Anthrax; and to heavy metal groups of the 1970s, such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, which destroyed equipment, praised Satan, and promoted the grossest type of hedonism. This theme goes even farther back, to the Blues of the early part of this century. The most famous Bluesmen were immoral, violent, and some, such as Robert Johnson, even allegedly sold their souls to the Devil for fortune and fame. Three of Johnson’s songs were titled "Crossroads Blues" (a reference to selling one’s soul to the Devil at a crossroads at midnight), "Me and the Devil Blues," and "Hellhound on My Trail." Johnson lived a carousing, violent, and immoral life and died at age 27 when he was poisoned by a jealous husband.
Rock music has always been associated with an anti-Christian attitude, an immoral lifestyle, and violence. The first rock concert in 1952 (called a Moon Dog Ball), which was organized by disc jockey Alan Freed, resulted in a riot that sent mobs of young people rampaging through the streets of Cleveland, Ohio. Riots, beatings, and stabbings occurred at other Freed concerts. Following a riot in Boston in 1958, rock concerts were banned in several cities and Freed was kicked out of the concert business. Freed, called by Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock "the original Pied Piper of rock & roll," allegedly was the first to apply the term "rock and roll" to the new Blues-based music. He died in 1965 at age 42, penniless and drunken. Freed well epitomizes the wretched history of rock & roll.
Rock and its most direct predecessors—the Blues, Ragtime, Jazz, and Boogie Woogie—have shared a philosophy of hedonism—whatever feels good is right, do your own thing, if it feels good do it. That is also the basic philosophy of Satanism. Famous early 20th-century Satanist Aleister Crowley (1847-1947) has had a large influence upon modern rock music. Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin scored soundtracks for films about Crowley. Images of Crowley’s Satanist religion were woven throughout the albums of Led Zeppelin. The Satanist’s photo appeared on the Beatles’ Sargent Pepper album cover. Ozzy Osbourne wrote a song entitled "Mr. Crowley." David Bowie referred to Crowley in his song "Quicksand." Graham Bond thought he was Crowley’s illegitimate son. Crowley’s philosophy was "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." Anton LaVey (1930-1997), founder of the Church of Satan (1966) and author of the Satanic Bible (1969), also exercised a large influence upon rock music. He taught that men are like gods and that they are not bound by "the chains of Christian morality." Those statements reflect the philosophy of rock & roll. Even 1950s rock, which was "innocent" in contrast to later forms of rock, glorified sexual lust outside of marriage, which the Bible plainly condemns.
Michael Moynihan researched the violence and occultism of Death Metal for his 1998 book Lords of Chaos. Moynihan, who, to my knowledge, makes no claim to Christianity and who writes sympathetically to rock music, traces a direct connection between the Blues, ’70s rock, and Death Metal.
"Bathory’s [a Swedish Death Metal group] bizarre bloodline of demonic inheritance—and that of Black Metal itself—can be traced straight back through Venom, Mercyful Fate, and other darker-themed Metal bands of the early ‘80s, to the Heavy doom-ridden sounds of Black Sabbath and the mystical Hard Rock of Led Zeppelin, to their bluesy antecedents the Rolling Stones, and all the way to a poor black guitarist from the American South who may have sold his soul to Satan in a lone act of desperation. An unlikely Black Metal pedigree, but there it stands, helped along the way by countless others who poured their own creative juices into an evolving witches’ brew" (Moynihan, Lords of Chaos, p. 22).
Black Metal is simply pushing the envelope of wickedness and blasphemy that has always been present in rock music. Even the Beatles, who were Sunday School boys by comparison to many Death Metal groups, were viciously anti-Christian and blasphemous and thus did their part to pave the way for Death Metal. The Beatles’ press officer, Derek Taylor, testified: "They’re [the Beatles] completely anti-Christ. I mean, I am anti-Christ as well, but they’re so anti-Christ they shock me which isn’t an easy thing" (Saturday Evening Post, August 6, 1964). In 1970, Paul McCartney stated, "We probably seem to be anti-religious ... none of us believes in God" (Hit Parader, January 1970, p. 15). In 1966, John Lennon created a furor by claiming: "Christianity will go. We’re more popular than Jesus now" (Newsweek, March 21, 1966). Though he claimed that he was misunderstood and gave a half-hearted apology, it is obvious what the head Beatle thought about Christianity. In his book A Spaniard in the Works, which was published by Simon and Schuster, Lennon portrayed Jesus Christ as Jesus El Pifico, a "garlic eating, stinking little yellow, greasy facist bastard Catholic Spaniard." In his hugely popular song "Imagine," Lennon mused: "Imagine there’s no heaven … No hell below us, above us only sky. … no religion too/ You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one/ I hope some day you’ll join us, and the world will live as one." That is a blasphemous denial of Almighty God and His Holy Word. The description of other blasphemous rock & rollers from the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s would fill a large book.
THE VIOLENCE AND BLASPHEMY OF DEATH METAL
The Norwegian group Mayhem, which was formed in 1984, is considered the father of Black Metal in Europe. The founder of Mayhem, Oystein Aarseth (1967-1993) (who originally called himself "Destructor" but changed later to "Euronymous," allegedly meaning "the prince of death"), was stabbed to death in 1993. He was murdered by another Death Metal rocker, Varg Vikernes, of the group Burzum. Aarseth was 26 years old. Other band members were called "Necro Butcher," "Dead," and "Hellhammer." One of the trademarks of Mayhem and other Norwegian Black Metal groups is the wearing of "corpsepaint," which is black and white makeup designed to create a morbid appearance. Aarseth operated an occultic bookstore/record shop in Oslo that was very influential upon young people. It was called "Helvete," which is the Norse word for Hell. The vocalist for Mayhem, Per Yngve Ohlin (whose alias was "Dead"), blew his brains out (literally) in April 1991 with a shotgun. His body was found by Oystein Aarseth. Before the police arrived, Aarseth took pictures of Ohlin’s shattered body and collected pieces of his brain and skull. Describing the death of his fellow band member, Aarseth replied with complete lack of concern, "Yeah, Dead killed himself." Aarseth made necklaces with the skull pieces and cooked some of the brain and "ate it so he could claim himself to be a cannibal" (Michael Moynihan, Lords of Chaos, p. 59). Ohlin had once stabbed Aarseth with a knife. Ohlin also hated cats and tried to cut them with knives. Ohlin, who saw himself "as a creature from another world," had an obsession with snuff films that depict real deaths by horrible torture.
Death Metal in Scandinavia has been connected with the burning of many churches. Since 1992 there have been at least 45 to 60 church fires, near-fires, and attempted arson attacks in Norway alone. Roughly a third have a documented connection to the Black Metal scene (Lords of Chaos, p. 79). In every case that has been solved, the Kripos (Norwegian national investigation department) found that the arsonists were Black Metal "Satanists." A fire fighter was killed while battling one of the blazes. Black Metal rocker Varg Vikernes (1973- ), who is strongly suspected of setting the first fire in 1992, of an ancient church building in Fantoft, Norway, is in prison for 21 years for the murder of Oystein Aarseth and for setting other church fires. There were roughly a dozen church fires in Germany from late 1993 to early 1997. Most have a proven link to Black Metal and Satanism.
Death Metalist drummer Bard Eithun of the group Emperor is in prison for brutally murdering a homosexual with a knife for no reason other than the lust of killing. That was in August 1992. He stabbed the man 37 times. A fellow band member of the Death Metal group Emperor said Eithun had been fascinated with serial killers for a long time. The day after the murder, Eithun participated in a church burning.
The members of the German Death Metal group Absurd, composed of three high school students (Hendrik Mobus, Sebastian Schauscheill, and Andreas K.), murdered a 15-year-old classmate in April 1993. The group also called themselves "Children of Satan." Band leader Hendrik Mobus stated in an interview that we are at "the dawn of the New Aeon, when Christendom will perish and a neo-heathen state will arise" (Lords of Chaos, p. 260).
A member of the Swedish Death Metal band band Dissection was imprisoned for desecrating 250 graves.
In 1992 at a Halloween celebration attended by members of the Swedish Death Metal groups Dissection and Abruptum, an elderly man was stabbed repeatedly in the neck by an 18-year-old who had been instructed to prove that he could kill without compunction (Lords of Chaos, p. 268). Another member of Dissection, Jon Nodtveidt, was charged in 1997 with another Satanist in connection with assaulting people.
Members of British Death Metal band Necropolis assaulted churches and cemeteries in 1994.
A member of the French Death Metal band Funeral, Anthony Mignoni (who uses the pseudonym "Hades"), says he created the group "to spread my ideas based on the destruction of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions, and on the purity and supremacy of the true Aryan race" (Lords of Chaos, p. 275). He was convicted of desecrating a grave in 1996. He and three others exhumed the body of Yvonne Foin, who had been dead 20 years, and placed a cross in the cadaver’s heart area. Another youth police believe to be associated with Mignoni, David Oberdorf, murdered a priest by stabbing him 33 times with a dagger. He then carved on the body after the man was dead. He had confronted the priest with the words, "I am possessed by the demon—I must annihilate men of religion!" Investigators found a collection of death metal CDs in the teen’s room, and neighbors testified that they had heard "gnawing music, hard and stressful" blaring from his room.
Violence has been committed by young people intimately connected with the music of the popular Tampa, Florida, Death Metal group Deicide. In January 1993, two 15-year-old boys mulilated a neighbor’s dog, Princess. They later told police that their fascination with Deicide led them to commit the atrocity. In April 1994, a female employee of a convenience store was brutally murdered and another woman nearly murdered in Eugene, Oregon, by teenagers. The families of the dead woman sued, claiming the youth were heavily influenced by the music of Deicide and Cannibal Corpse. The killer told police, "I did it in essence of Glen Benton and Chris Barnes [lead singer of Cannibal Corpse]." The youths had allegedly been listening to Deicide music in a church parking lot shortly before the bloodbath (Lords of Chaos, p. 290). The cases were settled out of court, with the record labels paying substantial sums while "expressly not admitting guilt" (Ibid.).
In July 1995, three teenagers in California, who were members of a Death Metal band called Hatred and who were "fanatical Slayer fans," murdered 15-year-old Elyse Pahler as a Satanic sacrifice. The three were Royce Casey, Jacob Delashmutt, and Joseph Fiorella. As Pahler prayed to God and called out for her mother, they stabbed her at least 12 times and left her to bleed to death. They chose Pahler because "her blond hair and blue eyes and virginity made her a perfect sacrifice to the devil" (Scripps-McClatchy Western Service, San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune, Feb. 21, 1997). When the chief investigator asked one of the teens why they committed such a deed, he replied that "it was to receive power from the devil to help them play the guitar better" so they could be able to "play crazier and harder" and "go professional." Two other teens associated with these three were convicted of murdering a 75-year-old woman. The murder of Elyse Pahler was unsolved for months until Casey came forward to the police and guided them to the body. He said he had "new found religious beliefs" and that he was afraid that the others would kill him if he distanced himself from them. Casey told the police that a lyric from the band Slayer warned, "If you’re not with us, you may no longer exist."
A Wisconsin Death Metal band, The Electric Hellfire Club, titled their 1993 debut album, Burn, Baby, Burn!, the cover of which depicted a church in flames. The lyrics to their song "Age of Fire" state: "Synagogues and churches burning/ Can’t you see the tide is turning?/ How many fires will it take?/ Before you realize your god is dead?" This vicious, blasphemous song is a crowd-pleaser at their concerts. A fan of The Electric Hellfire Club, Caleb Fairley, of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, murdered a woman and her young daughter and violated their corpses in 1995.
In April 1996, a group of young people with intimate connection with Death Metal, who called themselves the Lords of Chaos, went on a crime, arson, and murder spree in Fort Myers, Florida. They burned a Baptist church and a large tropical aviary containing a collection of exotic birds. They burned down a former Coca-Cola bottling plant. They then murdered the director of their high school marching band, blasting him in the face at close range with a shotgun, because he had stopped them from vandalizing the school the day before. The leader of the group, 18-year-old Kevin Foster, was referred to by the others as "God." Before they were caught by police, the group was making plans to dress up in costumes and walk through Disney World shooting tourists with silencer-equipped guns.
In October 1997, another teenage Death Metal lover, 16-year-old Luke Woodham of Pearl, Mississippi, killed his mother by beating her with a baseball bat, stabbing her repeatedly, and slitting her throat. He then went to his high school and calmly opened fire with a .30-30 rifle on fellow students. He killed two girls and wounded seven others. Woodham was part of a group of Death Metal fans who prayed to Satan, admired Hitler, tortured animals, and embraced the anti-Christian views of the German philosopher Nietzsche. The leader of the group was 18-year-old Grant Boyette, referred to by the others as "Father." Woodham was chosen as the assassin for the attack upon the school. Woodham and five other teens were charged with conspiracy to commit the attack upon the school. The group had also planned the murder of the father of one of the members, but they had failed to carry out the plan. Woodham had written out his blasphemy against God on a paper found by the police: "Hate the accursed god of Christianity. Hate him for making you! Hate him for flinging you into a monstrous life you did not ask for nor deserve! Fill your heart, mind, and soul with hatred; until it’s all you know ... hate until you can't anymore." The students allegedly had grander plans, including more killings, napalm fires, and ultimately taking over their high school and then disappearing ("Small Town Rocked by Bizarre Murder Case," CNN, Oct. 21, 1997).
In December 1997, 14-year-old Michael Carneal shot and killed three students and wounded five others at a high school in Paducah, Kentucky. One of the injured was paralyzed from the waist down. All of the targeted students were participating in a prayer meeting sponsored by a Christian club. Carneal was a member of a group of students who claimed not to believe in God and who heckled the prayer meetings. A lawsuit brought after the crime alleged that Carneal was influenced by violent movies, videos, and music.
In March 1998, 13-year-old Black Metal lover Mitchell Johnson, and his 11-year-old friend, Andrew Golden, killed four girls and a teacher and wounded 10 others at a school in Jonesboro, Arkansas,. Mitchell had become more aggressive after his parents’ divorce in 1994, "talking back and pushing the limits." Many speculated that the violence in the music that Mitchell loved contributed to the slayings.
In April 1999, Death Metal lovers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked onto the campus of their high school in Littleton, Colorado, and brutally murdered 12 fellow students and a teacher and wounded 20 others before taking their own lives. Some of those murdered were picked out because they were Christians. Before they shot 17-year-old Cassie Bernall to death, they asked, "Do you believe in God?" She replied, "Yes," and they shot her. They laughed as they destroyed and mangled their victims. Witnesses reported that "they were just hooting and hollering, having the time of their lives." Harris and Klebold loved the most wretched forms of rock music, particularly Marilyn Manson and German "techno" and Death Metal rock groups.
Marilyn Manson rips apart Bibles on stage and says: "Hopefully, I’ll be remembered as the one who brought an end to Christianity. … Each age must have at least one brave individual that tries to bring an end to Christianity. ... No one has managed to succeed yet; maybe through music we can finally do it" (Spin, August 1996, p. 34). We have news for Mr. Manson. True Christianity will never end. Of those who believe on Jesus Christ for salvation, Christ promised they "shall not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). Everlasting is a very long time. John Lennon once said Christianity will vanish and shrink; I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and will be proved right" (Newsweek, March 21, 1966). Lennon is gone. Church of Satan founder Anton Lavey, who exercised much influence upon rock & roll, said that Christianity would be finished if a representative of the Church of Satan could have just one hour on national TV (Lords of Chaos, p. 236), but LaVey is gone. Jimi Hendrix considered the laws of God a form of bondage and saw himself as a liberator of young people from Bible-believing Christianity (‘Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky, pp. 214,215), but he is gone. Famous Satanist Aleister Crowley, who had a large influence upon modern rock music and who has been glorified by rock stars such as Ozzy Osbourne, David Bowie, Graham Bond, the Beatles, and Mick Jagger, once offered himself to the Russian authorities to help destroy Christianity (Steve Turner, Hungry for Heaven, p. 92). Crowley is gone, though. After Marilyn Manson is gone, biblical Christianity will continue forever.
Some claim that no matter how vile, no matter how violent rock music is, it does not have a destructive influence upon its hearers. There are many who make light of those who find connections between such things as violent music and violent crime, or pornography and rape.
We believe this is strange and unreasonable—yea, irresponsible—thinking. The pounding beat of rock does have an influence. A visit to any rock concert will demonstrate that. And the rock lyrics also influence. Those who saturate themselves with rock are deeply effected by it. I know this by the sad experience of the years I spent immersed in the world of rock.
Countless others who have similar backgrounds testify the same thing. Why is it that it is rock music that is always connected with debachery and violence, and not classical music or "easy listening" or bluegrass or Christian hymns? The fact is that Rock corrupts. Rock injures. Rock maims. Rock kills.
Gladys Alarcon, a detective with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department in Florida, testifies that "every teen she has interviewed in relation to a hate or occult crime has listened to ‘black metal’ music and used hallucinogenic drugs" ("Police Chiefs Warned Against Occult Crime," Charisma, January 1991, p. 26).
If there is such a thing as cause and effect—and there is!—it is clear that rock produces aberrant behavior. We believe the gruesome summary of Death Metal rock music is found in the title of another popular rock song: "Another one bites the dust." Rock destroys.
My friends, evil is rampant in this world, and we must diligently guard our own hearts and minds and those of our children. The Bible warns that "a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame" (Proverbs 29:15).
"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world" (1 Peter 5:8,9).
