Jesus climbs the charts: the business of contemporary Christian music

Christian Century, Dec 18, 2002 by Mark Allan Powell

It is ironic (but surely no coincidence) that the ccm industry's insistence on segregation from "the world" comes at the very time that Christian artists like D.C. Talk, Jars of Clay and P.O.D. are enjoying unprecedented success in the general market. Not surprisingly, a number of Christian artists are now bothered by what they regard as the "mammon-inspired isolationism" of the Christian music scene, which Rolling Stone recently described as "a parallel universe--a world unto itself." A major act named Caedmon's Call (named after the seventh-century monk) scored a 1998 hit with a song that proclaimed, "This world has nothing for me"; later the composer confessed a secret irony: by "this world" he meant "the world of ccm."

As that double entendre suggests, many Christian artists (not to mention fans and critics) have noticed that the more separate from the world the ccm industry seeks to be, the more worldly it seems to become. Several young Christian stars have struggled to reconcile Christ's call to self-denial with their record company's desire to put their names and faces on T-shirts and magazine covers. Strangely, Reunion Records promoted Joy Williams by distributing 2002 calendars that display the 17-year-old singer in a variety of attractive poses. Daniel Smith of the eclectic pop band Danielson dismisses the whole notion of a Christian music market by saying, "I just find it hard to believe that Christ Wants to be in a market. Didn't he turn over those tables?"

The Christian music subculture is a microcosm of popular religion in America. It's also a laboratory within which various theological questions are engaged. A couple of decades ago--in the wake of the first scandals in the ccm field--the industry revisited the Donatist controversy: Can the Holy Spirit minister through songs performed by unholy vessels?

Recently, the favorite topic has been vocation: Is there a distinction between the "call to ministry" incumbent on all Christians and the call to professional ministry as a vocation? Might some Christian musicians (like Stapp and Bono) receive only the first but not the latter? And what exactly does ministry mean? Can entertainment count as ministry, or does ministry mean (as one voice in the discussion claims) "winning people to Jesus and discipling them in their walk"? As near as I can tell, no one involved in this argument has read Luther on the subject but quite a few have arrived independently at positions similar to his.

THE INDUSTRY'S grappling with theology is fascinating to observe, quite apart from the question of whether the music is any good or not. In 1999, Sixpence None the Richer scored a crossover number-one hit on general market radio with their romantic ballad "Kiss Me." The Gospel Music Association immediately ruled the song ineligible to receive any of its Dove Awards because, though it's a nice song, there is nothing especially Christian about a woman wanting her husband to kiss her. Singer Leigh Nash and her newlywed husband (the composer) attempted to explain that they don't experience faith as some compartmentalized religious aspect of life, but to no avail.