Beat the System is the seventh studio album of the Christian rock band Petra.

[2][nb 1] It is the first album to feature John Lawry on keyboards, although he only joined towards the end of the recording process; his contributions were limited to some overdubs on the songs "Beat the System", "Clean" and "Adonai".

[3] Carl Marsh's programming, under the direction of producer Jonathan David Brown, veered the sound of the album more in the synth-rock genre of music.

The album includes the band's second cover of "God Gave Rock and Roll to You", the first being on 1977's Come and Join Us.

Guitarist Bob Hartman stated that the recordings of some songs were left unfinished for the album and subsequently never released.