About Reclaim the Music

Reclaim The Music
A Movement for Christian Musicians

By Steve Babb

The Lure of Fortune

It is well known that many young people go through a period of rebellion. They readily see the hypocrisy in others, especially in their elders and others in authority. As they seek to find their own identity in the world, some cling to a false pride in nonconformity, engaging in further rebellion against the status quo. This is especially true of young musicians.

Yet when these same musicians become enamored with the pursuit of celebrity, their desire to become rock stars inevitably sweeps aside their distaste of conformity and their aversion to hypocrisy. In truth, they succumb to the ultimate conformity and become the ultimate hypocrites.

The music industry that dangles the carrot of stardom before these young ones is the very same industry they revile. They typically see in this industry a hypocrisy that goes far beyond that of their parents and other authority figures. Ask any musician. He or she normally despises or has no respect for most “major acts,” most groups signed to a label, or most singers who achieve stardom. These “stars” all fall short of the unsigned artist’s standards. They are viewed as frauds and fakes, sell-outs to commercialism. They might once have been “cool,” the story goes, but the industry has robbed them of sincerity. They sold their souls for rock-n-roll, as the saying used to go.

Nevertheless, if the opportunity presents itself, the young musician will eagerly sign over the rights to his or her career for membership in this fraternity. Even when simple math will show clearly that he will most likely never profit a dime from his efforts, and even when faced with the knowledge that his music is now legally tied up by an industry for which he has virtually no respect. He will not only willingly enslave himself to this industry, it is in fact his goal to do so.

To view his plight through the lens of Christianity, the musician has fallen under a spell. He is chasing a pot of gold ’neath a rainbow barely glimpsed. He is buying the world’s most expensive lottery ticket. The price? His art and his career. This becomes nothing short of tragedy when the bespelled individual happens to be a “Christian musician.” The damage is much worse. The consequences are eternal.

The Gift of Music

God has given the Christian musician a gift. The musician, in turn, seeks to hand this gift over to a “Christian record label,” which may in fact be owned by a secular corporation with secular goals. If his group is trendy enough, if his music shows promise of financial rewards for the corporation, he may be permitted into “the inner circle.” His gift is then scrutinized, produced, and eventually “dumbed down” to suit the supposed tastes of the CCM audience.

Galations 5:1 For freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage. Christians are “free in Christ.” But Christian musicians give up much of their freedom to work in the music industry. And the bondage isn’t only of the legal sort, nor only of the kind imposed by producers and Vice Presidents of Creative Development. It is also the bondage of the CCM mindset.

Dumbing Down, Sexing Up

It is possible that long before the musician’s gift is thrown into the lion’s den of the CCM industry, he has already “dumbed it down” himself. He knows what the industry demands from the first moments he picks up his guitar or puts his hands on the keyboards. For instance, he knows his Christian band must be made up of trendy, fashionable young people with a moderate degree of talent. Attractive musicians will fare better. Those who exude a youthful sexuality will fare the best.

Further, he knows that his songs must follow a formula such as verse, chorus, verse, bridge, long chorus, or some slight variation of that formula. The song needs a “hook,” and the music and the group need “crossover appeal.” To serve his worldly masters, the Christian musician willingly puts God into a box. The industry merely chains the box shut.

Of the thousands of songwriters flocking to Nashville in hopes of ‘making it big’ in Christian music, none are presenting their Handel’s Messiah or Brandenburg Concerti. They know better. And what of the unattractive, older musician? Apparently God has no musical communication with him worthy of the industry’s attentions. We can only wonder how a chubby-faced Bach would have succeeded in today’s Christian market.

Open Hypocrisy

Does the industry acknowledge its hypocrisy? Yes, as a matter of fact they do. But they say that it is not their fault! According to Jim VanHook, currently Dean of the Mike Curb School of Entertainment at Belmont University (Nashville), previously head of Provident Music, one of the largest Christian music labels today, the blame is to be placed squarely in the lap of the Church. The Church will simply not support music written as art. Worship music must be kept idiotically simple, while music for the entertainment of Christians must mimic secular pop music.

Since VanHook was one of the founding fathers of CCM, I asked him this simple question; “If a modern-day Bach or Handel brought their music to Nashville, would they be welcome?” His answer, “Yes, at the Nashville Symphony.” About art, he explained that “if the people would buy it, Christian record companies would supply it.”

Art of Faith

To counter that argument, writer Sam Karnick (The Weekly Standard, National Review, The American Spectator) replied, “If that is true, why was Mel Gibson’s The Passion so huge?” Gibson’s film certainly represents a high level of Christian cinematic art, yet the Church wasn’t clamoring for such a thing four years ago. What it took to make and present The Passion was a monumental commitment of money and faith by one man, Mel Gibson.

Hollywood would never have backed such a risky proposition. Mr. Gibson had to operate outside the loop, and risked much to do so. Ultimately, when the Church was presented with this work of art, it enthusiastically supported it. Hollywood executives are still scratching their heads.

In an interview last year on UMC.org (the website of the Methodist Church) I commented that Christian music needed its equivalent to The Passion. But I noted that “the only thing we are likely to see is a CCM disc of ‘music inspired by The Passion’ with the standard list of CCM celebrities doing the standard, watered-down pop.” It took a few months, but it happened.

Cynicism aside, I still think that the world of Christian music needs a few Mel Gibsons, and perhaps a few sword-wielding William Wallaces would come in handy as well. If Christian music is ever to be free, if we are ever to truly reclaim it for the glory of God and the edification of his people, the Church, we will need such men and women. If Christian musicians are ever to be the salt of the earth or a light unto the world, chains need to be broken. Courageous men and women, risk-takers and Christians of conviction, are needed. If we do not find these people, we will lose much. The musicians, the church, the world—we all lose.

Inferior Pop

Christianity will never win the culture war when its music is only a cheap imitation of secular pop. And that is exactly and unarguably what it is today. CCM is usually not as good, and usually far behind the secular model it seeks to emulate. Ask its practitioners if that isn’t true, and judge for yourself the sincerity of their answer.

I would like to make plain that I am neither condemning all of CCM, nor all musicians, nor all celebrities, nor all the Church, nor the good and decent Christians who are working within the CCM industry to make positive changes. Some of the music of today’s Nashville might qualify as “good” on some level, and some of it might even rise to the level of art. I am not saying that Christian musicians should quell their natural desire for acceptance and for an audience. Nor am I suggesting that all Christian music should be classical in nature. In fact, I am a fan of rock and pop myself, when it is intelligently executed.

Reclaiming the Music

So, what am I saying? The following is an incomplete list of principles based on the precepts of Reclaim The Music, a new organization I have cofounded to facilitate dramatic change in the world of Christian music:

Christian music in its many forms, need not be written to “the lowest common denominator.” It need not be dumbed down.
Christian musicians must rethink the way they compose and the reasons they compose.
The Church must be enlightened. Its members are today but pawns in the great game of consumerism. In war, the one who profits is the one who makes and sells the bullets. The “worship war” being waged currently in many churches is a product of the industry that sells the music. Christian music has been highjacked, first by well-intentioned men seeking to reach young people with “Jesus pop,” and now by a secular corporate mammoth that has no objectives other than profit. Art and the creation of art are impossible in the corporate model. There is “no room in the Inc.,” to coin a phrase.
If the CCM industry is permitted to continue, the Church must actively seek the financial resources to buy back the industry from its secular overlords.
The CCM industry must be put on notice. There will be no more rewards for mediocrity. They must either lead the world in music, or move aside. The Church must cease to support them with money. Christian songwriters must cease to provide them with product.
Christian musicians must be free to write the music that God is singing to them. They must realize that they have been duped and are compromising their faith by continuing to support and seek alliances with the current CCM industry. With that in mind, Reclaim The Music will be working on a “Musician’s Creed,” an oath that, once taken, will never permit the musician to hand over his gift to a secular corporation. To clarify this point, I will add that I in no way seek to impede the ability of a musician to work and make money. “Work for hire” may include every form of music from the cheesy to the grand. But work that claims to be “Christian” must be free of corporate marketing and packaging, and free of the legal strangleholds typically placed on musicians through publishing and recording deals.
Christian artists must seek alternative methods of distribution. The CCM industry has a complete lockdown on all distribution, and most radio. The internet is one solution, and independent radio programs are another.
Though we will not endorse one form or genre of music over the other, Reclaim The Music will seek to point out the bright lights of modern music and encourage musicians to search out the highest forms of classical, rock, and other genres to use as a base of inspiration.

Informing the Church

Currently, the world mocks Christians for their music. But they are laughing less at the message (we know they will scoff at that) than the musical form it takes. Christian musicians are laughing too. Many of them refuse to have anything to do with the Christian music business, so they turn instead to the world, where their talents are more appreciated.

The CCM industry executives that I have spoken with, but who may wish to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, feel nothing less than shame over the situation. They would love to change things, but they seem helpless to do so. Conversations with CCM radio executives reveal a similar dissatisfaction. They are not free to program their own playlists. Excellent independently released albums are literally tossed into the trash in favor of corporate releases. The president of one CCM radio station revealed to us that even he could not penetrate the mysterious cabal that dictated his playlists. He had no control over his own programming, and did not know the names of those who did.

So, with the world mocking, the musicians laughing, radio powerless, and the industry paralyzed with self-loathing, one might think the news would have filtered down to the Church. It has not. The cycle continues. Songwriters provide cookie-cutter tunes and hooks to an industry which in turn markets, packages, and sells a product to God’s flock. Those who know the truth merely stand by and criticize. Reclaim The Music aspires to more than sideline criticism or elitist snobbery.

Help Is Needed

It wasn’t always the case, this abusive relationship between corporation and artist. There was a time in the distant past when there was no corporate option for the musician. Can you imagine the youthful David of the Bible pitching his latest Psalm to a modern-day Christian music executive? “Sorry dude, ditch the harp. And work on that hook!”

On the one hand we have the historic Biblical example of God’s favorite musician in David; some of his enduring work written in the darkness of a cave where he hid from a murderous and crazed King. On the other hand we have David’s contemporary. He too writes in cramped and dismal spaces, though his office cubicle in Brentwood, Tennessee is hardly a cave.

Of course David, like most musicians, had an ego. When God worked directly through him, great deeds were done; giants were slain, a nation was forged. When David’s ego got in the way the result was mayhem, adultery, murder – and this from the “man of God’s own heart”. Were David alive today, he might well take the bait. He might be the top artist on the largest Christian label with the most hits to his credit. If he had no other option to permit his music to be heard; no other way to reach his audience; he might well justify the trade-off.

Once there were Patrons. To a certain extent, you will still find them or hear rumor of their diminished breed today. Patronage is the way much of the great art of recent centuries made its way to us, through commissions. It needs to be a factor in ‘reclaiming the music’ of the future. Powerful and wealthy members of the flock must be encouraged to step up, either to buy back and retool an outmoded and mishandled Christian music industry, or to promote the music of worthy artists, writers and musical groups. Once enlightened, they have a responsibility to do so.

Charles Erlandson said in his 1992 article “The Lost Art of Patronage,” “This, then, is our motive in patronizing the arts: art and the making of artistic choices are inescapable. The question remains: will we be found to be faithful stewards of what God has given us? The Scriptures do not allow us to take this responsibility lightly, for Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things (and by extension participate in and promote these things).”

Unleashing God’s Music

Reclaim The Music may seem at first to be nothing more than an attack on the CCM industry. True, I believe that this industry, with the mindset it generates, is the biggest stumbling block toward our true aim. What is said here regarding the culpability of the musicians and the ignorance of the Church may also seem harsh. Yet they too share the blame and stand in the way of our aim.

So, what is our true aim? Reclaim The Music seeks nothing more and nothing less than to see God’s true music unleashed on the earth in whatever form He chooses to make it known. Music should flow from Heaven downward to the songwriter, then directly to the Church and the world. Call it a revival, call it a rebellion, call it what you like. The time for a change is long overdue.

See the truth! God’s music is held captive in the dungeons of secular strongholds. Just think! Young hearts and minds are so twisted by the myth of making it big, so poisoned by the music of secular corporations, that they have lost the ability to hear the real music.

This should never have happened. Musicians may well say of themselves, “We took the apple once more, and we are Eve.”

Breaking the Spell

The spell must be broken, and the real music must be heard. To assist our cause we will actively seek knights and warriors in the form of talented musicians, pastors, youth leaders, music directors, praise and worship leaders, and a host of others. To further our aims, a website is currently under construction. ReclaimTheMusic.com will feature articles, forum discussion, suggested reading, and announcements about Reclaim The Music activities and conference appearances.

We realize that we are asking for nothing less than a complete rethinking of the way in which Christian music is written and disseminated to the Church in the modern world. It is a daunting task, but an important one. If you don’t think so, then ask yourself this question:

If you wouldn’t want your pastor’s sermons shaped and dictated by the filter of the secular corporate elite, then do you really want your music, God’s music, run through such a filter?

God’s message, spoken or sung, requires no filter.

If we are (as many evangelicals submit) standing on the brink of Christ’s return, if this is indeed the time of the end, then what is the end to sound like? What is the soundtrack for the end of time? While the angels shout glory to us, what will we sing in return? The book of Revelation hints at the words, but the music is left to our imagination. You will be hard pressed to find something that magnificent, that grand, and that transcendent in the current world of Christian music. Yet it could be written—there may still be time. We must live and work as if there is.