A recent conversation has got me thinking- does it make sense to speak of “Christian music” without words being sung?
My starting point in thinking about this is Colossians 3:16 “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.” What makes music Christian is that it has the message of Christ in it. And over the centuries, Christians have taken popular local forms of music and made it Christian by adding words about Jesus. Churches in Nepali villages have recognisably subcontinental style of music, churches in Ghana a recognisably African rhythmic style, and so on.
I think the idea of “Christian music” without words is really thinking of certain cultures as being “Christian” and then taking the music of that culture as “Christian music”.
But maybe I am wrong. Does anyone have a good example of Christian music that does not involve Christian words?
Jots and Scribbles 
When I saw the title of your post I assumed that you were going to argue that any music written by a Christian with God in mind and his glory as the purpose, was in some sense Christian music.
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I think you can argue that. But in a multicultural context, what would we offer to a festival as “Christian music”? In that context, I think it is only the words that make the music Christian.
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If we had a festival with a bunch of Christian artists and amidst the lyrics they threw in some instrumental (e.g. Michael W Smith throwing in some tracks from Freedom) no one would be asking for their money back. If it was all instrumental I think you would get questions.
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