"The earth is the Lord's and everything in it." Psalm 24:1
I have been thinking about this verse lately, and have been challenged in the way I look at the world. As Christians we tend to think of things in the world as good or bad, light and dark, black and white. We see the symbol of the Cross as good, and we see the pentagram as evil. We see trees as beautiful creations of God, but we see the marijuana plant as something that should be torn out of the ground. We dress in bright colors, and see those who wear too much black as probably having something wrong with them. We listen to uplifting music because it reminds us of God, but avoid dark-sounding music which is sad or angry, thinking darkness is not of God.
"The earth is the Lord's and everything in it."
In Genesis it explains that God created EVERYTHING and called it good. And so I think that everything is holy! Everything is clean and good, until we ruin it. Evil cannot be attributed to a thing. Evil comes from personalities (demons and humans) only. The world is not black and white. Everything is white, until we taint it with our own evil.
In Tolkien's classic, 'The Silmarillion', Illuvatar (who is a parallel of God) created the world through his great themes of music (much like God created the world with words), but Melkor (a parallel of the devil) started to sing his own tunes. Illuvatar created the seas, and then Melkor created (or thought he did) fire. And when the two met, great clouds were formed, and rain first fell on the earth. But all this was according to Illuvatar's design. Illuvatar then said something interesting to Melkor: "And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined."
Everything on this earth has its uttermost source in God. The pentagram, which we shun as a symbol of evil, was thought of by God (who created all color and shape) long before the Pagans stole it. The marijuana plant was created by God, and he called it good. How dare we dub anything he created as evil? Dark themes of music, dark colors, they all come from God, and they all express different facets of his infinite character.
There is nothing new under the sun which does not have its uttermost source in God. Musicians who 'create' music are simply arranging, in their own way, the notes and sounds which God caused to be. Even those musicians who are in fact evil, and worship idols, even they are using the holy things God created.
"God owns all those calf's, he owns all those hills!" - Woven Hand
Of course we can take anything and use it for evil purposes. We take the beautiful, holy things that God created and we worship them. We must see the difference though. Nothing (besides humans and demons) are innately evil. And everything is redeemable.
Remember, "everything is yours, and you are of Christ." - 1 Cor 3
