Feature: Christmas Evil — The Strange War Over Sacred Noises

How Skillet’s Christmas Song Shows an Old Problem Isn’t Going Away

By Seth Metoyer

Every Christmas season, the same strange battle breaks out across Christian music circles. No, not the peppermint latte wars. I’m talking about the long-running, head-scratching, spiritually-exhausting argument about whether heavy Christian music is “evil” or “demonic.”

I’ve been hearing this debate since my early days of Sanctuary International almost forty years ago. Most of the faces have changed, but the script hasn’t. Someone hears guitar distortion. Someone hears growling vox. Someone hears anything louder than a gentle acoustic guitar and suddenly the demons are, apparently, cackling and rubbing their hooves… paws… hands?… whatever they’ve got… together.

As someone who has worked in the Christian music industry for over twenty-five years, I’ve come to expect this routine. This year we seem to have hit a special milestone: people calling a Skillet Christmas song O Come O Come Emmanuel “demonic.”

Yes. A hymn. A literal church-approved hymn. Set to guitars.

Welcome to the strange war over sacred noise.

Skillet, Christmas, and the “Demonic” Controversy

Skillet dropped their Christmas cover song, “O Come O Come Emmanuel,” and the song immediately took off. Huge numbers. Fans excited. A fresh take on a classic. And then… the internet did what the internet does.

People crawled out of the digital shadows claiming Skillet had taken something sacred and turned it into something evil. Suddenly, distortion equals demonic activity. Apparently, God’s holiness is now fragile enough to be disrupted by John Cooper’s unclean vocals and heavy guitar tone during the last minute and a half of the song.

John Cooper recently spoke with Rock Feed, and his reaction was classic Cooper: equal parts humor and wisdom. He stated that a friend summarized the controversy like this: “Short version? People are stupid.” It was a joke — but also a pretty spot-on snapshot of modern outrage culture.

Cooper wasn’t angry. Just perplexed. As he put it: “It’s a Christmas hymn. It’s not just a Christmas song. It’s a hymn.” People didn’t just call it bad. They called it satanic. Demonic. A threat to all things merry and bright.

Meanwhile, the video opens with Cooper singing in a hospital room to an empty bed, a visual that has resonated with fans deeply. That’s what the critics missed entirely: the heart behind the music.

Noise Is Noise — And God Isn’t Afraid of Volume

Let me break this down in the simplest possible terms. You know what music is? Noise. Organized noise. Structured vibrations. Air moving through time.

Somehow we’ve drifted into this weird theology where one kind of vibration is supposed to be “holy” and another is… suspicious by default. A major chord gets treated like it’s the safe choice, the “church-approved” button. But hit a distorted drop D chord and, honestly, half the room looks like you just put your hand in the offering collection. A clean guitar seems to be considered godly enough, but once you tune the wooden beast down, suddenly apparently you’re summoning fallen angels from the shadow realm.

I’ve been around people arguing about these “noises” for decades. I’ve heard every explanation, every warning, every conspiracy. But when you boil it down, it’s the same fear dressed up in spiritual language:

“This sound is unfamiliar to me… therefore it must be evil.”

What Scripture Actually Says About Loud Music

Let’s look into this.

Psalm 98:4
“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord… make a loud noise, and rejoice.”

Psalm 150:5
“Praise Him with loud clashing cymbals.”

1 Samuel 16:7
“Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

God never said, “Praise Me gently on an unplugged Taylor acoustic and never exceed 65 decibels.”
God isn’t afraid of volume. God isn’t threatened by distortion. God isn’t rattled by drop-tuned guitars. He checks the heart, not the tone settings.

Why Heavy Christian Music Matters (Especially at Christmas)

Christmas is supposed to be a season of hope, joy, and “peace on earth.”, but we know December can also be one of the most painful times of year. Families are grieving. People are alone. People are hurting more than usual. Hospital rooms are tougher than they are already.

Sometimes the clean, polished Christmas songs don’t speak into that darkness. But heavy music does. It reaches the people sitting in the shadows. Those who might want to vent or scream it out. Physically or emotionally.

That’s why the Skillet song and video resonates with so many. There’s a reason why there was overwhelming support for the song and fans seem to connect deeply with its darkness-to-hope message, suggesting loss and suffering resonate with listeners.

Christian metal has existed for decades as a ministry to the hurting. And, that’s one of the reasons I still love it!

If heavy Christmas music gives someone hope in a hospital room, to me, that seems like the opposite of evil.

For those Who Wanna ROCK: Heavy Christmas Songs to Brutalize Your Playlist

Here are some Christmas tracks I recommend you blast unapologetically:

Skillet – O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Deliverance – Silent Night

Mangled Carpenter – I Saw Three Ships

Stryper – “Still The Light”

P86 Christmas – This Time of Year

Becoming the Archetype – O Holy Night

August Burns Red – Joy the World

Final Thought: The Real Christmas Evil

At the end of the day, the loudness and distortion pedals aren’t the threat. Neither are the unclean vox, the drop tuned guitars, or the metalcore breakdowns. The real danger occurs when Christians turn on each other and elevate personal preference to the level of theology. Music isn’t the enemy, and noise certainly isn’t the enemy. So, let’s stop fighting and start loving. There’s too much division anyway, there always has been and honestly, it’s tiring.

The trouble begins when fear, pride, and judgment overshadow things. This season, it’s worth remembering the message the angels announced that first night: peace on earth and goodwill toward men. Skillet’s Christmas song, and heavy Christian music as a whole, is doing far more good than harm, reaching people who desperately need hope (while also headbanging, of course).

If God could work through a teenage girl in a manger and a choir of angels blazing across the sky, He can just as easily work through power chords, loud vocal noises and heavy guitar distortion.

Let us know what you think about this topic in the comments, and don’t forget to follow our Facebook page.

Watch the official Skillet video for O Come, O Come Emmanuel below. We dig it!

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