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This Means War!

album by Petra

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 3, 2025
Entity authorityQ7786138 ↗
Source-derived summary

This Means War! is the ninth studio album of the Christian rock band, Petra. It was released in 1987.

In this album, the band started to refine their movement into a more hard rock/arena rock sound, still retaining keyboard synthesizers to back the driving guitar work. This album also signaled the beginning of a military motif present in the song lyrics that the band would carry through several of their following albums.

Track listing

Awards

Nominated for Grammy Award for Best Gospel Performance in 1987.

Won the Netherlands's Contemporary Christian album of the year in 1988.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “This Means War!” as album by Petra. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1987, 1988—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1987. The account is most persuasive where Means, album and Petra can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as album by Petra. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 3, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7786138. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1987 and 1988.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “This Means War!”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow This Means War! primary sources, This Means War! archive and Means research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “This Means War!”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “This Means War!” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.