Posted on 06/17/2014 1:40:02 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Tim Lambesis, lead singer and founder of Christian metalcore band As I Lay Dying, recently confessed that he and other members of his band had become atheists but kept claiming to be Christians so they could keep making money selling records to Christians.
In a wide-ranging interview with Alternative Press shortly before he was sentenced to six years in prison last month for attempting to hire a hitman to murder his estranged wife, Meggan Murphy Lambesis, the singer addressed a claim he made last year in a YouTube video about his spiritual allegiance after fans started saying he had become a Satanist.
"A month before your arrest, you posted a YouTube video addressing fans who felt your new side project, Pyrithion, was 'satanic.' I remember watching the video at the time and noticing you never gave the easy answer: 'Of course not. I'm a Christian!' You knew people thought of you as a Christian. Weren't you lying by omission?" asked AP's West Coast editor, Ryan J. Downey, of the singer in the interview.
Lambesis responded: "Yes. If you say, 'This is what I believe, you can count on this. If you believe the same things, I'm on your team.' A lot of Christian parents said, 'Yes, you can buy this As I Lay Dying CD, because they're a Christian band.' They don't even think to actually check the lyrics. So when you change your views, you kind of owe it to the fans to be honest."
He explained that he was afraid of revealing his true thoughts about God because he was afraid it would affect the record sales of his band; so he simply chose to just say, "I'm not a Satanist" as a cover.
"As far as the [YouTube] video I did explaining Pyrithion's lyrics … I was trying to put out a fire. I was afraid it would affect As I Lay Dying sales, which would affect my overall income. I was trying to put out the fire by saying the easiest thing, 'I'm not a satanist!'" he explained.
"Truthfully, I was an atheist. The 'strategy' I had at the time was cowardly. Two of the songs on that record were about coming to grips with the idea that life has no purpose, no meaning. These were negative themes I wasn't 'allowed' to deal with in As I Lay Dying songs. I thought making As I Lay Dying darker would be bad for my career. That was my thinking," he said.
Lambesis noted that the majority of "Christian bands" he encountered while he was on tour had taken similar positions – where they were simply working to collect a check.
"We toured with more 'Christian bands' who actually aren't Christians than bands that are. In 12 years of touring with As I Lay Dying, I would say maybe one in 10 Christian bands we toured with were actually Christian bands," he said.
He also explained that he wasn't the first member of As I Lay Dying to give up on Christianity.
"I actually wasn't the first guy in As I Lay Dying to stop being a Christian. In fact, I think I was the third. The two who remained kind of stopped talking about it, and then I'm pretty sure they dropped it, too," he said.
"We talked about whether to keep taking money from the 'Christian market.' We had this bizarrely 'noble' thing, like, 'Well, we're not passing along any bad ideas. We're just singing about real life stuff. Those kids need to hear about real life, because they live in a bubble,'" he added.
He said after a while, the double life had become awkward.
"I remember one Christian festival where an interviewer wanted one of the guys [in the band] to share his testimony, and he just froze up and let one of the guys who was still a Christian at the time answer the question. We laughed about it afterward, but we were only laughing because it was so awkward," said Lambesis.
"When kids would want to pray with us after shows, I'd be like, 'Um, go ahead and pray!' I would just let them pray. I'd say 'Amen.' If praying while I have my hand on their shoulder makes them feel better, I didn't want to take that away from them. When they would specifically ask me to pray for something, I'd say, 'I don't really like to pray out loud, but I'll take that with me to the bus," said the singer.
Lambesis was arrested on May 7, 2013, in Oceanside, California, for attempting to hire a hitman to murder his estranged wife and subsequently sentenced to six years in prison on May 16, 2014.
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Never heard of him or them.
People who go to Super-Fun Rock-Band Church aren’t really Christian, anyway.
It’s sad to hear about this... a group of performers who is truly invested in presenting the gospel will beat the spiritual pants off the impostors.
Let's face it - no one is REALLY Christian.
Except you, of course.
If it isn’t based on genuine gospel. It’s possible to do genuine gospel in a super fun rock context. I’ve written lyrics with that intent. Think Shiggaion. Where you need the fury.
The only real Christians attend the painful, traditional churches.
I’ll bet their “music” sucks.
The grace of God will show all around a genuine presenter... and really this is what these folks are. They are presenters of the gospel, using a non traditional format.
“he and other members of his band had become atheists but kept claiming to be Christians so they could keep making money selling records to Christians.”
Gee, someone in the entertainment industry whose public image that he presents to his fans is totally phony. And he only cares about making money.
Gee, who ever would have guessed? What a surprise.
Little Richard went back and forth from rock ‘n roll to gospel. I guess he went back to rock’n roll when he was running low on cash.
Back in the day a guy once told me that the PDs for contemporary Christian radio used to judge songs on ‘JPMs.’ That’s ‘Jesus per minute’ as in how many times the word ‘Jesus’ is used in a minute. Songs with high JPMs got more airplay because they needed to let their audience know as soon as possible that it’s the place on the dial they are looking for. Supposedly the music was so bad that unless you had high JMPs everyone would just flip past.
Freegards
He’ll come to Jesus while living in a gated community, reading in his private room and pondering life in a cloistered chapel....
Case in point.
There’s an adage that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. Paul voiced a similar sentiment when he said he was glad to hear the gospel getting preached even by those who only had pecuniary interest in mind. It was better than it not being preached.
“Those kids need to hear about real life, because they live in a bubble,”
What a narcissistic, elitist piece of trash. Yeah, the real world is where you hire a hitman to murder your wife. Methinks this dork has been playing too many video games. What a loser.
Hope you enjoy getting butt-raped in prison, jackass.
He's saying: "I stopped being a Christian. Then I became a murderer."
That's a testimony of a certain kind in itself.
And that isn’t always a good criterion of what is gospel and what isn’t.
He tacitly admits that bands that maintain a clean image will sell more music.
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