Now and then I get a lofty idea about improving myself. During one of these moments last summer I decided to be less opinionated and give people the benefit of the doubt.

When my born-again friends told me they rented the pavilion at the park for a fiesta, I said I might stop by.

Within minutes of arriving at the Christian gala, the reservations I had all played out before my eyes. I was trapped in a game of volleyball listening to blaring Christian tunes.

At the end of the game I made up some pretense for leaving, and everyone was upset that I couldn’t stick around for the sing-a-long.

On the way home I thought about how I really don’t like Christian rock. It just isn’t very good.

According to Stephen Erstwhile, a critic for the All Music Guide, it “lacks the sonic innovation of mainstream music due to the absence of competition.”

Try though I may to discount this, the more I hear Christian rock the more truth I find to the statement. It seems to be the only genre of music that people listen to entirely because they think they should.

The composers of yore worked to honor God through the music itself. People like Mozart and Bach made advancements in music with their religious works.

They did more than just come up with some cheesy lyrics.

Another reason I have problems with Christian rock is its contradictory nature. Music has the power to invoke images in your mind.

Take reggae for instance. The first thing you think of is cool guys from Jamaica like Bob Marley.

Over winter break when I was freezing my ass off in my driveway, I was shoveling to the beat of the reggae song in my head thinking about playing guitar on the beach with Bob, watching the bikinis go by.

When you think about rock, you immediately think of dirty, womanizing, drug addicts in leather pants. It hurts my brain to put this image together with good Christian fun.

One song I heard at the party bothered me more than the others. It was a dance tune which featured the lyric “God is in the house, we’re gettin’ busy.” This struck me as incredibly funny because I’ve never heard the term “gettin’ busy” other than in the context of the recreational aspect of reproduction.

This led me to doubt that the musical pioneer behind the kickin’ Christian dance tune had ever gone clubbing in Amsterdam, Manhattan or even Des Moines.

In this song I found the utility of Christian rock. It gives white suburbanites a rudimentary understanding of cultural piracy.

If you haven’t lived in white suburbia, it’s pretty much devoid of culture.

At least out in the country people still have ethnic influences but once everyone gets mixed together and works full time there’s not much left.

That’s why I’ve always found it difficult to see why people get so upset about the Atlanta Braves “tomahawk chop” or Cleveland’s Chief Wahoo.

The closest thing to culture young white suburbanites have is rock. From the very beginning rock has had a definite rebellious edge.

Elvis was too risqu‚ to be shown from the waist down on television. As of late it has a depressive, life sucks element. A lot of it is made by people who shared the same sort of experiences with the general feeling of indifference in towns.

That’s why Christian rock is so hard to take. It’s taking something that you can associate with on a personal level and bastardizing it.

It’s stealing from someone else what you lack the aptitude to create.

The shining example of this is Christian death metal. As far as I can tell death metal is about having close and personal conversations with Satan himself in between abusing controlled substances.

Throwing the word of God over the top is like changing the words to “Go tell it on the mountain” to feature the ugliest prostitute in Cleveland.

Christian rock is even worse than white people who think they can play the blues. At least people rip blues off from the source. Rock is already ripped off.

Elvis’ marketability stemmed from his ability to be true to the music and be white at the same time.

The same goes for Buddy Holly, who was once accidentally booked for the Apollo.

Cultural piracy may just be a fact of life as it’s not something you can really define ownership of, but thanks to Christian rock I can see how it pisses people off.

Perhaps the key to cultural piracy is having some respect or understanding of the culture you’re pirating.

If you’re going to try to make a living playing the blues, you should probably pay at least one visit to the Mississippi River Delta.

If you think you can make a living making dance music, you should spend at least one night in tight clothes, taking ecstasy and dancing until 7 a.m.

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Erik Hoversten is a senior in math and physics from Eagan, Minn.