Casting Crowns come out of the gate on The Altar And The Door <\/i>with another of those \u201csmack-the-church-upside-the-head\u201d songs that they do so well. Previous discs have had similar songs, such as \u201cIf We Are The Body\u201d from 2003\u2019s Casting Crowns<\/i> and \u201cDoes Anybody Hear Her\u201d from Lifesong <\/i>in 2005.<\/p>\n
This time around, Mark Hall and the gang smack the church with the disc\u2019s opening track, \u201cWhat This World Needs.\u201d And the lyrics are every bit as sharp and convicting as Casting Crowns has ever written: \u201cWhat this world needs is not another sign-waving super saint that\u2019s better than you \/ Another ear-pleasing candy man afraid of the truth \/ Another prophet in an Armani suit \/ What this world needs is a Savior who will rescue, a Spirit who will lead, a Father who will love them in their time of need.\u201d And then for the church, for Christians who profess to believe in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ: \u201cWhat this world needs is for us to stop hiding behind our relevance \/ Blending in so well that people can\u2019t see the difference \/ And it\u2019s the difference that sets the world free.\u201d This is using the scalpel of truth to cut out the cancer of complacency in the church. But Hall is far from done. His earnest, prophetic voice continues through five more amazing songs, back-to-back: \u201cEvery Man,\u201d \u201cSlow Fade,\u201d first single \u201cEast To West,\u201d \u201cThe Word Is Alive\u201d and the title track. <\/p>\n In this incredible suite of songs, Casting Crowns points out that the world is full of normal, everyday people who are listening, waiting for someone to speak words of hope (\u201cEvery Man\u201d). With the children\u2019s rhyme, \u201cbe careful little eyes what you see,\u201d Hall addresses the moral failure of fathers in this generation (\u201cSlow Fade\u201d). But God\u2019s forgiveness is an amazing gift, if only it is accepted (\u201cEast To West\u201d) because God\u2019s word, as Hall writes in the album notes, is \u201cinfallible, inerrant, inspired and alive\u201d (\u201cThe Word Is Alive\u201d). <\/p>\n Because of the brokenness of this world and because of the sinful choices of man, God has provided the way (\u201cThe Altar And The Door\u201d). <\/p>\n Musically, this is exactly what you\u2019d expect from Casting Crowns — heartland rock and roll with power ballads mixed in. Listeners don\u2019t come to Casting Crowns for platitudes about the beauty of the Christian life. Hall and co. want to have an impact. They want to move the Church to action; specifically, to action that more closely fulfills Jesus\u2019 call on those who claim His name — to go into all of the world and share the good news and minister to those who are hurting. That\u2019s all the group wants \u2013 and it\u2019s everything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":29148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8121],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-40678","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-casting-crowns","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40678"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}