Comments on: “Christian” Music, “Christian” Artists…We Should All Be “Christians”

By: kev

kev — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:57:04 +0000

“(I)t sounds like an unholy alliance between Michael Bolton, Bob Carlisle, and Pat Boone.” – Steve

That is absolutely frightening…

By: Matt Stout

Matt Stout — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 03:57:11 +0000

Oops. Reading your blog is definitely what made me start listening to bored again christian in the first place, and then I forgot and turned around and recommended it right back to you. That is embarrassing.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 03:34:09 +0000

Peacock’s views as mentioned by Matt remind me of what I was telling Josh a few days ago. “Christian” shouldn’t be thought of as a musical genre but rather as a lyrical genre. Some diehard CCM critics may deny even that, but although not all lyrics written with even explicit allusions to Christianity should be deemed as Christian in genre, it can’t be denied that there are some artists who are not supposed to sing anything but explicitly Christian lyrics.

Unfortunately, the label “Christian” is thought of by believers and non-believers to denote the unfortunate musical genre that comes prepackaged with “positive, encouraging” words ripped from off your refrigerator door. That’s why so many believing artists who do not intend to be covert Christians shy away from the label: saying “it’s Christian music” sounds about as appealing to their target audience as saying, “it sounds like an unholy alliance between Michael Bolton, Bob Carlisle, and Pat Boone”.

By: Josh H.

Josh H. — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 01:16:20 +0000

@Matt Stout: I am a huge fan of the bored again christian. It was on that very podcast that I discovered Andrew Osenga. In fact I wrote a blog post about it (search for bored again christian in my Search box and you should find it).

@Matt Evans: You are so right. The same problem does indeed plague regular radio.

By: Matt Stout

Matt Stout — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:48:22 +0000

Well, the problem as I see it (and I borrow a lot of my ideas about Christian music from a book called At The Crossroads by Charlie Peacock) is that the word Christian was never supposed to describe a genre. The word Christian is supposed to describe a person who follows Christ. In an ideal world, I think that instead of having Christian music, you would have a Christian who plays adult contemporary music, or a Christian who plays rock music etc etc. But since Christian is now a word that describes a genre of music, it fails to encompass the whole diversity of styles that Christians can play and sing. That’s why Christian radio is so limiting, it not only describes the content that people want to listen to, but also kind of creates a genre that people who want to have a Christian message and get played on the radio have to fit in. (I hope that sentence made sense.) Anyway, it’s something that I don’t know how to solve, except to not have Christian music labels and for Christians just to have to make their music in the regular market. But Josh, I have been listening to a podcast called the Bored Again Christian, which I’ve found to be fun. It’s just like an hour long block of radio of Christian music that isn’t on a major label. I don’t always like the music that they play on it, but I always like a few songs on each show, and it’s introduced me to some good Christian artists that I would not have ever heard of otherwise.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:36:06 +0000

Just wanted to respond to one comment made in your post. You said “What if secular stations were like CCM stations? Every station on the dial would only play a handful of artists and they would all sound basically the same”…..I would argue that is the case…..radion in general has taken the same shove-it-down-there-throats-until-they-don’t-realize-they-don’t-like-it mentality, playing “artists” (there has to be a better term) like Fergie and Akon whose repulsive “music” (again, a lose term) can be heard at most any point during the day. So I agree with your assesment of the Christian music industry whole-heartedly…but I think the problem plagues all radion and “popular” music!