I came across the "Corrupt Christian Music" website the other day. A friend of mine sent it to me. I thought, "Hey, this should be interesting." I know for a fact that there are plenty of reasons to criticize the Christian music machine. Lord knows I've spouted off with a few of them. It's a horrible, three-legged monster - God, Art, and Commerce, and the final product, nine-times-out-of-ten is this sort of grotesque clone that the monster breeds. It isn't really art, because the vast majority of it is formulaic and uninspired. It leaves you wondering whether the original motive was God or mammon.

Unfortunately, these people didn't bother to criticize the industry for good reasons. Instead, they chose dumb ones.

Apparently, these are leftovers from the "Hell's Bells" generation that believes that Christianity should have nothing to do with Rock music (although the vast majority of "Christian" stuff out there can hardly be called rock). Coming soon! What type of music IS okay to listen to! We wait with baited breath.

Rich Mullins wasn't a real Christian because he investigated and considered joining the Catholic Church, and Catholics don't worship the same God that we worship. Seriously. That's what they said.

Other artists were criticized for being "crossover" artists, which necessarily means they are deluting their message in order to gain listeners.

I mean, really, aren't we past this? I thought that the only people who thought this stuff still had outhouses and were married to cousins and what-not. I certainly didn't think anyone who was sophisticated enough to make a website (complete with snappy flash intro) could still believe such tripe.

And we wonder why our kids grow up thinking that, if they want to be a singer, they can ONLY be a peddler of CCM. Why is it that we don't hold Christians with business degrees to the same standard? "NO! You can only operate a CHRISTIAN photocopying and printing chain!"
posted by Stephen at 9:49 AM | |