in medias res

Here I am, living in Nashville–the capital of Country and Christian music. And I’m just in another one of those moods. I’m sitting in church, actually, running sound for the youth program this fine Sunday mornin’. As the high-schoolers file in, I’m watching the music video playing on the screen. The pre-screened, fully-approved, sanitized music video. It’s a song called Apparitions of Melody by the band Kids in the Way, a group akin to bands like The Juliana Theory or Mae. Anyway, it’s not particularly incredible. What catches my attention, though, is that this is approved. Frankly, I’m glad it’s now accepted in the Christian mainstream, but I’m very disturbed by the reasoning behind its acceptance. The hardcore-, screamer-, emo-type music groups are accepted by Christian labels, not because Christians feel that these are people of worth with real talent and quality music, but because Christians realized that they can use bands like Kids in the Way to “reach” the unchurched emo kids. Really, they must know that anyone that doesn’t go to church isn’t going to pickup an album that screams rather inartistic lyrics about how there’s a guy out there that knows how they feel. Christian label executives surely know they are really marketing this stuff to parents of these kids, parents that don’t know what else to do but buy clean music that claims to safely replicate the music their kids already enjoy. Until they stumbled on this brilliant idea, those weirdo emo kids just made Christians uncomfortable, and we can’t have that in the Church.

If the purpose is to reach unchurched kids, then why is all the marketing done in-house? Why are there so many concerts inside church buildings? Why are new releases flooding our youth ministers’ desks? Why did it take Switchfoot making it to a secular label before their music really took off?

The concept is so transparent, it’s laughable. And everyone outside the Christian music bubble can see it coming a mile away, but it seems that no one inside the Christian music industry can figure out why “Christian Music” (as if music itself were somehow saved, rather than a person’s soul) is the joke of the entertainment industry.

It’s completely the wrong approach! The most heartfelt music is always that which is honest, sometimes even painfully so. The first time I heard Nickel Creek’s Doubting Thomas, it brought me to a place of intimacy with the artist, a feeling of common understanding, and then to a long moment of introspection. But that kind of song would never be allowed on a “Christian” album. Why? Because the artist is honest about his questioning of God. Yes, that’s powerful music. But it’s not safe. Out-of-touch parents wouldn’t approve, they wouldn’t buy it for their kids. It wouldn’t sell. Not to the Christian market.

Perhaps that’s one word that can sum up the Christian music industry: safety. It’s all about the music being safe, clean, and sanitized. And it cannot exist any other way, for it cannot survive.

“Is he safe?”
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver… “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis