Stryper released their new song “Rise to the Call” on Friday (June 24). It’s the first single from the veteran California Christian metal band’s upcoming 14th studio album that they also announced this week. The effort, which doesn’t yet have a release date, follows 2020’s Even the Devil Believes.
“Rise to the Call,” a standard glam metal number, makes the case for spiritual intervention in everyday life. “Encourage one another / Build each other up,” it opens. “In a world of trouble / Never say enough / Be strong and courageous / Do not be dismayed / For the Lord your God / Is with you today.”
Read the rest of the lyrics and hear the song below.
Revealing “Rise to the Call” on social media this week, Stryper remarked that it’s “the first taste of our brand new full length studio album coming later this year! We couldn’t be more excited and we hope you are too.”
But while the aim of “Rise to the Call” is clearly to bring listeners together, its religious platitudes could be viewed as clumsy the same week the United States Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion. The right had been in place in the U.S. since the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, 10 years before Stryper’s formation. (On Friday, many rock musicians reacted to the news.)
However, Stryper singer-guitarist Michael Sweet is outspokenly against abortion. Last year, he responded online to a video of four protesters who represented the abortion advocacy group Shout Your Abortion reportedly swallowing pills with water outside the Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C.
“When women are shamelessly and proudly taking ‘abortion pills’ on video with smiles on their faces, isn’t that a whole new level of evil?” Sweet asked in his caption when he re-shared the clip on Instagram. “How and why is this acceptable in our world? Are we really this far gone? Celebrating the death of the unborn!”
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Stryper, “Rise to the Call” Lyrics
Encourage one another
Build each other up
In a world of trouble
Never say enough
Be strong and courageous
Do not be dismayed
For the Lord your God
Is with you todayGod is our salvation
Never be afraid
He gives power to the weak
And strength to the enslaved
He’s the God of mercy
But we just can’t believe
He is everything
And more than we needWe can’t go down
Like a ship on the sea
Because we’re too mighty
To fall to our knees
We fight and we wrestle
Risk losing it all
When we could win battles
And rise to the callThere’s so much to be done
But we hit every wall
We repeat our own mistakes
And question why we fall
Because it’s human nature
Hard to comprehend
That someone would die
For everyone’s sin