Yes, you'll find this with a great many Scandinavian bands. The old Norse pagan traditions still have a very strong hold in the north- even in Germany and Switzerland, actually. By contrast, the Eastern European bands tend to be a lot less dour on the Christian faith- I suspect because of the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire.

The best nuanced songs that I've ever heard from any metal band are by (of course) IRON MAIDEN. The last three albums had some great takes on Christian theology- "New Frontier" from Dance of Death, "For the Greater Good of God" from A Matter of Life and Death, and "Mother of Mercy" from The Final Frontier. They are hardly a bunch of Christian choir boys- actually these days they act exactly like what they are, a bunch of 50-plus-multi-millionaires- but their takes on Christianity are far more introspective and positive than you'll find in most of the metal community.

Will you be bringing cookies? =)

I'm getting there, that's for sure. The more closely I look at what the Bible actually says, rather than what its most noisy and irritating critics think it says, the more I realise that it makes unassailable sense.

I haven't yet gotten around to setting foot in a church and worshipping- it just doesn't feel right somehow to intrude upon a place of worship like that if I don't really believe. But I'm looking forward to the day that I can go there.

Indeed. Atheists who attack Christians for being bloodthirsty warmongers strangely tend to keep forgetting that if this were true, those same Christians would have no problem whatsoever with returning the favour- and then some.

But because Christians rarely respond with anything other than reason, argument, dialogue, and compassion, atheists are given free license to continue attacking obliviously, spewing their bile without once recognising the absurdity of the situation.

I'd like to see those same anti-Christian zealots display the level of courage that Hitchens did in attacking Islam. The man may not have been able to string together any set of logical arguments- but he certainly had panache.

B) I know that I stumble into the anti-christianity stuff in metal now and again as well. One Nightwish song from Imaginareum certainly has a dour take on it.

You're 90% there, just take the dip and join us, already.