A story is making the blogosphere rounds regarding a High School’s decision to drop “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” after being criticized by a local community member. The man argued that:
A high school band director would be fired for playing ‘Amazing Grace’ but no one bats an eye for the playing of a song about the devil … [H]ow can one mention the devil, and not be able to mention a Christian God?”
I can’t speak for everyone of course, but consider me one ardent separationist who will defend Amazing Grace to the ends of the earth. My band played it in High School, and it is flat-out gorgeous. And I know of not a single separationist who would advocate banning the song so long as it was chosen for its artistic merit (a metric Amazing Grace, or at least the Frank Tichelli arrangement I played, passes with flying colors).
The argument is just another straw man that imputes to separationists hostile motives and policy agendas which they simply don’t possess. At some level, this is a silly issue to get worked up over, but at another level, it’s tremendously fatiguing to have to continually explain to the culture warriors: “No, we don’t actually believe everything Pat Robertson claims we do. Why not listen to what we actually advocate for a change, rather than what conservative pundits say we believe?”