Are The Flower Kings a christian band?

The anti-science lines are the only things that really bother me about Roine's lyrics.

Harry Hood wrote: I don't know if Christian band is  entirely accurate. Vaguely spiritual, maybe. Actually so many of their messages are contradictory, In one song Roine speaks out against blind belief, but in another song (on the same album) calls scientific evidence a "childish game". Not really sure if he's a hardline fundamentalist or a staunch atheist. The only overall message I get out of their music is the spread of happiness, positivity and love, and the dismissal of things that would oppose that. Regardless of what he believes in his personal life, I can get behind that, even as a nihilist who typically listens to extreme metal and jazz.

I'm with you on that. I think Roine is more someone who is not opposed to religion or science, but is not exactly for everything they both stand for. Then again, I don't always pay attention to TFK's lyrics, as with most other bands.

colorofmoney91 wrote: TFK being a Christian band doesn't really make a difference, really. I certainly don't enjoy much of their music, but that's mostly because I think they're cheesy (whether that is a direct side-effect of them being a Christian band, I'll probably never know for sure).

bytor2112 wrote: colorofmoney91 wrote: TFK being a Christian band doesn't really make a difference, really. I certainly don't enjoy much of their music, but that's mostly because I think they're cheesy (whether that is a direct side-effect of them being a Christian band, I'll probably never know for sure).

^ I didn't mean to suggest that it's cheesy just because it isn't hardcore serious-as-your-life neo-classical prog.  I honestly find a lot of upbeat pop music very enjoyable and un-cheesy.  It's just that TFK and the like sound very saccharine and substanceless to me, like progressive junk food.  Doesn't mean it's bad, necessarily - just not to my tastes.

From everything Roine has said on various interviews and fan forums, he is a secular humanist who strives for love, peace, light, happiness, etc.  That was the idea behind the Flower Kings.....a counterpoint to all the black metal that Sweden produced in the early 90's.  He has said he agrees with the actual words of Jesus Christ in the bible, but not the bible as a whole.  He thinks all religions have positive bits, but that none are worth following.  So, no, I don't get the impression he is a Christian or that the band is.  However, I am not Roine, and these are just my recollections of things I've read that may or may not be accurate.

However, I personally notice there does seem to be an abundance of Christian themes in their music.  Just as a guess, I'd say that Roine was raised in some sort of Christian household, and that that is why he gets so many themes from Christianity and the bible.  Genesis (the band) did the same, but with perhaps more flair   Anyway, just my take on the subject.  I think the music is fabulous and couldn't really care less what he really believes as long as he keeps making it.


Edited by infandous - July 01 2012 at 15:30

Doesn't matter.

infandous wrote: M27Barney wrote: infandous wrote: From everything Roine has said on various interviews and fan forums, he is a secular humanist who strives for love, peace, light, happiness, etc.  That was the idea behind the Flower Kings.....a counterpoint to all the black metal that Sweden produced in the early 90's.  He has said he agrees with the actual words of Jesus Christ in the bible, but not the bible as a whole.  He thinks all religions have positive bits, but that none are worth following.  So, no, I don't get the impression he is a Christian or that the band is.  However, I am not Roine, and these are just my recollections of things I've read that may or may not be accurate. However, I personally notice there does seem to be an abundance of Christian themes in their music.  Just as a guess, I'd say that Roine was raised in some sort of Christian household, and that that is why he gets so many themes from Christianity and the bible.  Genesis (the band) did the same, but with perhaps more flair   Anyway, just my take on the subject.  I think the music is fabulous and couldn't really care less what he really believes as long as he keeps making it. If Mr Stolte was a "Secular Humanist" I don't think that there would be as many biblical references in the lyrics. Interpretation of the FK's lyrics suggest that Stolte is very much influenced by Genesis (and that is the first book of the bible and not Mr Gabriels Public school boy band ). I am not a theologian, but have read enough about the bible to realise that it's no more than a political manifesto set out in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. And in no way should anybody in the 21st century use the ideas of bronze age nomads and mysoginists as a basis to run their lives or in fact a society. I have always found the idea of a personal god so preposterous that it wasn't even worth spending any time thinking about it. It's fairly obvious that the model set out by evolution is currently the best we have, and until somebody finds scientific evidence to discredit him, Charles Darwin and his Origin of Species trumps the bible in every provable way. Not necessarily.  I think the biblical references are just convenient and easily understood by just about anyone who would be listening (mostly Americans and Europeans).  As I said, he probably grew up in a Christian environment like many of us, and it is familiar reference material.  There are a lot of positive themes in Christianity and he draws on those as well.  Survival of the fittest doesn't lend itself to uplifting and happy themes Unless he likes to hide the fact that he is really a Christian from his fans and deliberately lie about it (which, wouldn't, obviously, be very Christian of him, would it?).  He does say he is a spiritual person, so obviously he's not an atheist like yourself.  Neither am I for that matter, but that doesn't stop me from agreeing with the scientific theory of evolution, either.  He feels that science doesn't explain everything, and I agree with that, as does any rational person (of course, like yourself, I feel that is just because we haven't advanced our knowledge and technology far enough to explain it.....yet).

gazagod wrote: I think you've answered your own question...there aren't easy answers(or any at all) in this life... for anyone the least bit alive-whose arteries haven't been hardened by slavish habits or bitter cynicism... using 'science' as evidence against spiritual potentialities is a 'childish game' --- science can say nothing on such issues- on the other hand, its lack of findings in such realms does not implicitly support 'faith' or obedience to ossified traditions...

infandous wrote: M27Barney wrote: gazagod wrote: I think you've answered your own question...there aren't easy answers(or any at all) in this life... for anyone the least bit alive-whose arteries haven't been hardened by slavish habits or bitter cynicism... using 'science' as evidence against spiritual potentialities is a 'childish game' --- science can say nothing on such issues- on the other hand, its lack of findings in such realms does not implicitly support 'faith' or obedience to ossified traditions...   However science gives us the indisputable FACT of evoution......thus negating logically the need for "God the creator of man" which is the basis of all monotheistic religions......as Douglas Adams succinctly puts it, Oolon Colluphid - "that about wraps it up for god". Also religion suffers from Bertrand Russell's teapot example, the burden of truth and all that...science can point at evolution and provide proof beyond all reasonable doubt.....as for religion.....   As Mark Twain wrote... There are those who scoff at the school boy, calling him frivolous and shallow. Yet it was the school boy who said, Faith is believing what you know ain't so. Here in America, evolution is out of fashion.  It's oh so stylish now to say that it's "just a theory" and that there is no proof and even if there is, you'd still need a creator to kick it all off.  The stupid is palpable here........

First of all, theories aren't facts, and they are not even meant to be ones (because that would make them dogmas, and science isn't supposed to have those). And I can't see, even if the current quite widely accepted view of evolution was 100% correct, how that would end the conversation about god, universe&everything. Evolution doesn't go beyond the beginning of a first life form, and its explanatory power ends there as well.