Christian Songs Need to Minister to the Heart of the Individual

Buck & Dottie Rambo Interview with Pat Robertson 1984



Over the years many fundamentalists and some evangelicals have been critical of contemporary Christian music, which started back in the late 1960's, and rightly so.  However, there's been much in the southern gospel genre that has been far from desirable as well.  On this particular YouTube segment, CBN founder Pat Robertson hosted former singers Buck and Dottie Rambo on the 700 Club on June 8, 1984.  Both singers were once a part of the singing group called, "The Singing Rambos," which included their daughter Reba.  For several years starting around 1964 when Reba became part of the group, they sang in all sorts of gospel concerts in auditoriums around the country.  They know how the gospel concert circuit was like during the 1960's and 70's.  Dottie commented saying much of the music back in that era was "bee bop".  Many songs that were performed by many of these various southern gospel groups was shallow and was lacking spiritual depth.  Buck Rambo identified one of those songs.  The chorus goes, "You got to move, you got to move, you got to move, you got to move, so when the Lord gets ready, you got to move."  A song of that caliber is fine in its place, but that type of song doesn't possess the spiritual content to touch and minister to the heart of a Christian like a song such as "Behold the Lamb," "We Shall Behold Him," or "The Mercy Throne" will do. 

Pat Robertson made reference to many of those all-night gospel singings where many of these were as fleshly as they could get.  He identified the Oak Ridge Boys as one group that were fleshly.  He mentioned that before they converted into country music singers, their "gospel" music was as fleshly as it could be.  You wouldn't call it "festivals of praise."  Dottie was mentioning that with the state of the body of Christ at that time (1984), Christians were able and ready to hear the type of songs that ministered to the body of Christ such as the few songs I just mentioned.  The one thing one could say about the late singer Dottie Rambo is that she wrote some great songs that have some meat on it.  There have been numerous "gospel" songs that have been written and recorded over the years that greatly lacked in spiritual content.  I believe many of these gospel singing groups recorded them as "fillers" to finish out their albums.  Many of the great gospel groups sang "filler" songs.  They didn't minister to the believer very well. 

I'm thankful for many of the songs that have been written over the eons of time that will stand through the test of time.  Many songs penned by Dottie Rambo, Fanny Crosby, and the Gaithers, to name a few, I believe, will stand the test of time.