Tony Cummings reports on Britain's Christian music scene.

The Christian record companies had two problems with Greenbelt. One was that the festival seemed more interested in putting "secular" (usually non-Christian) artists onto their bill than CCM artists they seemed to consider sub-cultural evangelical-sloganeerers. Secondly, the theological/PR disasters of past Greenbelts (the white witch, the homosexual art show, the NOS "worship" service) meant that as their attendances plummeted in the '90s, Greenbelt could no longer deliver CCM's core audience, evangelical youth groups.

In 1992 Chris Cole wrote, with seeming prophetic insight, about the problems that were likely to face Greenbelt in the years ahead. "There'll be a long haul ahead for them. Will they get the numbers right to make an immensely costly exercise break even in this recession-racked age? Will the 'evangelical backlash' against the liberal elements within Greenbelt yet bring it to it's knees? These are questions I can't answer. What I do know is that I'm glad, very glad, Greenbelt isn't safe, and cosy, and an unreal, unchallenging retreat which does nothing to shake the Church from its cultural lethargy and fear of thinking. Cross Rhythms is committed to lifestyle evangelism and liberation through God's Holy Spirit. And like everyone else, we must guard against error and imbalance. But I know also that our fear of heresy is tied up with our fear of living. And that fear is there because we are insecure with God. Such insecurity cannot be remedied by creating and supporting an insular Christian subculture only interested in speaking Language Of Zion platitudes to the converted. That is as deceitful a path as worldly liberalism, the old religions of the New Age and all the other siren voices calling us to deviate from the way of Christ. I for one am profoundly grateful to Greenbelt. It needs to be affirmed for all that it has achieved in the past. Without such a festival, contemporary Christian music in Britain could well have died and I doubt whether Cross Rhythms would exist."

Consumerism Masquerading As Spirituality
As we can see from today's CCM scene in America, though, an expanded market place has brought new problems. When speaking about the eyebrow-raising marketing surrounding the tragic shootings at Columbine High School which, in America, has brought "Yes I Believe" bracelets, hats and T-shirts, William D Romanowski, professor of communication arts and sciences at Calvin College, USA, commented, "In some ways, wearing religious paraphernalia is hardly different from wearing brand-name clothing.

Both tend to foster a consumer-orientated identity in which purchasing is like an act of faith. Wearing a clothing item that advertises a religious theme can easily be confused with, or even substituted for, genuine belief."
At its worst, contemporary Christian music engenders a similar shallow consumerism where purchasing a Delirious? CD or going to a Tribe concert or joining the Word Record Club takes on, for some people, a quasi-spiritual role. Commented one pastor to Cross Rhythms, "It would be admitted by all those who were honest about Christian music ministry that there are instances of young, immature Christians getting so caught up with the trappings of CCM fandom buying the new CD, getting the T-shirt, even making the right responses at Soul Survivor, that THESE things, rather than an intimate, life-sustaining relationship with Jesus through is spirit, become the focus. The likelihood of this happening is much greater in the USA of course. There, the market place for Christian music has gotten so big and so potentially lucrative that precisely the same marketing hype that squeezes the consumer dollar out of millions of Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears fans is being used to making young evangelicals into fanatical dc Talk or Point Of Grace fans. Now, in terms of expanding the market place for Christian music, the big music multi nationals have done a great job. But if all it produces is shallow consumers, or in the worst scenario young church goers who are more into their CCM heroes than into Christ, then it needs to be challenged."

Image Over Reality
Clearly much of the Nashville CCM scene puts huge emphasis on an artist's looks with image builders and fashion stylists working furiously to find "the next Michael W Smith" or "a Christian answer to the Backstreet Boys" with all the disquieting zeal to feed teenage audience fantasies as their secular colleagues. In Britain too, artists with more looks than musical talent have been for quite a while vigorously promoted by the Christian record companies. Through most of the '80s the most popular male pop CCM artist was a strikingly handsome ex-professional golfer called Martyn Joseph, although today the singer/songwriter is highly critical of the music he made during that era. He told Cross Rhythms in 1990, "I don't think anyone who's ugly could have got away with the songs that I used to sing!"

If marketing of image, particularly to attract teenage girls, makes many observers of Christian music uncomfortable even more worrying is the series of spiritual and moral falls which have blighted Nashville CCM for many years. From the BJ Thomas drug bust in the early '80s through to Sandi Patty's messy divorce and onto Nikki Leonti's recent pregnancy-out-of-wedlock, there often seems to be a major gap between the message sung and the message lived out. In 1990 one of the founding fathers of Greenbelt, Graham Cray, wrote, "Over the years of involvement with Greenbelt I have known more marriage failure among those in the Christian arts subculture than in the so-called 'secular' scene. Let the one without sin cast the first stone! The primary question to ask is not, where are these people compared with God's absolute standards, but in which direction are they traveling? I am happiest when I hear artists describing faith as a pilgrimage and a journey rather than a doctrinal package. I believe in doctrine and preach it, but the arts are best used to describe a journey and give the opportunity to be vulnerable."

Cray's whish for spiritual honesty seems idealistic when one views the Christian image makers and spin doctors currently dominate the Nashville CCM scene. "There's an unreality in much of the American companies' image building," said James Stewart. "I remember when I was at GMA and a major CCM artist didn't want to be seen having a drink with us as his record contract banned him from drinking alcohol in public. He drank, but not in public."

The Need For Accountability
The more responsible American Christian record company executives have long recognised that there needs to be greater accountability in their structures to guard against their artists falling into sin. In 1995 Star Song Records' president, Darrell Harris, said, "We must bear in mind that those whose musical careers give them a public platform bear the yoke of leadership whether they want it or not. I Timothy and Titus give us clear lists of the qualities looked for from those in Christian leadership... That does not mean we should shoot our wounded. But, neither does it mean that we can ignore one another's struggles and sins."

Many of the current ills of American CCM seem to be tied up with its on-going romance with corporate America. It is today a gigantic industry. Christian/gospel music sales were up 11.5 per cent last year, totalling 49.8 million units, making it the fifth largest-selling genre, according to the Gospel Music Association (GMA). Such big money has brought its own tensions to a business purporting to minister.

Ulf Christiansson of the veteran Christian hard rock back Jerusalem (who had, in the mid-'80s, the distinction of being the first Christian band featured on MTV) is today an outspoken critic of the contemporary Christian music scene in America, accusing it of being too market driven and too little concerned with the "expansion of God's Kingdom." He recounts Jerusalem's bad experience with the business side of the Christian music industry, "I was ordered by the record company to write hit songs, and I did. Until then I had written songs to please God, not man, and quite a few had become hits in Sweden. But selling big has never been my goal." Mixed motives can result in the loss of divine power, he believes. CCM's current preoccupation with record sales is a situation he believes may be corrected by a new wave of musicians that God will raise up who refuse to compromise.

It would be wrong to put all the blame of the current ills in CCM at the feet of businessmen. Christian musicians have often shown a lack of maturity in pursuing their creative vision. Glenn Kaiser, founder of the Resurrection Band and pastor of Jesus People USA, wrote in his book The Responsibility Of The Christian Musician, "Praise, testimony, and prophetic songs alike wield the sword of the Spirit with great effect. Yet how rarely do I hear this voice crying for solid biblical concepts to be made available to the younger or newer Christian musicians. It is one thing to know how to write, arrange, produce and perform music. It is quite another thing to know how to live biblically in the process. Musicians, your lives and gifts will affect so many to such a deep extent! 'From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded' (Luke 12:48).

"The Bible plainly teaches the responsibility of the Christian. Musicians are not exempt. Because of the very communicativeness of our art form and the position it holds in society today, Christian musicians must be even more responsible with their lives and works of art. We musicians have tremendous potential as yielded vessels of the Holy Spirit...or as agents of nonsense...and even destruction. Idolatry takes many forms. Some of us bow to our culture as if it were Christ! Do you worship the creation and created things (ie, music) rather than the Creator?"