The Problem with Christian Music

How Belief in a Creative God Should Influence Our Music

I have a problem with Christian music. Specifically, contemporary Christian music. As in, the modern contemporary Christian music that is frequently played over radio stations to be used as a banner for Christians to rally around and listen to exclusively.

But I suppose before I continue down this path and inevitably become bombarded with questions and possible accusations of heresy or not being a Christian, I should clarify myself.

First, let me establish that I believe music is an amazing and effective way to communicate intrinsically complex or beautiful messages, and that those messages can be used to carry the message of God. I believe God can use music to meet us in every circumstance and to remind us of his presence in it all.

Second, I would like to clarify that these are my personal beliefs. If you enjoy contemporary Christian music, more power to you. You have found enjoyment and life in something that I cannot. I have nothing against you for that and I am glad to hear that you have found the music you enjoy. To each their own.

Also, it is worth noting this post will focus mainly on Christian music that would be played over the radio or in the “everyday” circumstances, and not explicitly about the worship music you may find in a church. But I do believe a fair amount of the same problems within contemporary Christian music can also be found within worship music.

NOTE: And I should also mention too that this post is filled with embedded YouTube music/lyric videos to help illustrate my point. To streamline reading, I’ve built-in the start and stop points on the parts of the video that help illustrate my meaning, so you get the gist of the song without needing to listen to the whole thing (typically 15-30 second snippets). But if you would like to listen to the complete songs, be my guest – Just start the song over at the beginning and YouTube should work normally.

The Origin of Creativity

As Christians, we believe in God. More specifically, we believe in an infinitely creative God. One who, at the foundation of time, spoke the earth into creation. Out of nothing – ex nihilo (Pretty impressive, to say the least).

And creativity itself is a beautiful thing. There are scores of people across the world that are using their creativity to write songs, poems, works of art and word, and other mediums to build truly amazing things. The problem, I believe, is that there is a group of people that I think should be utilizing their creativity but aren’t: Christians.

If we believe in this infinitely creative God, who has used His ultimate creativity to create humanity – whose job as images of God is to use our talents, passions, and creativity to point back to God – why do we find it so hard to incorporate that same level of creativity into our music?

Industry, Not Ministry. Conformity, Not Creativity.

In the words of Josh Keefe, “When I look at Christian music, I don’t see a ministry; I see an industry. I don’t see creativity; I see conformity.”

One of the main problems I hear when I talk to people about this is that each Christian contemporary song sounds the same as the previous one. The same chords, the same beat, repeatedly used to the point where someone can confidently guess if a song is a Christian anthem just by the drumbeat or the ethereal-piano-filler-entrance-while-a-girl-opens-on-a-high-“Hallelujah” technique. It has become a joke among the religious music community that you only need to know four chords to play almost any worship song. Just look at this video where the YouTuber BlimeyCow shows how to write a worship song or this video where John Crist emphasizes the need for water references in Christian music or even this book you can snag off Amazon that compiles a decent amount of worship songs that are only 4 chords. While this is admittedly aimed primarily at worship music, I’d say it also applies in part to contemporary Christian music.

But getting back to contemporary Christian music. It’s pretty easy to see from the outset how these songs often mirror each other. They’ll have the same beat…

… or the same message…

…or the same sound…

If you listen to enough popular contemporary Christian music you’ll also notice that the songs are often just imitations of popular secular songs. Compare the sounds of Lauren Daigle and Adele (especially the presence in Daigle’s song of the oo-ohs that are a staple of Adele’s style)…

… or TobyMac’s ‘Feel It ft. Mr. TalkBox’ (released 2015) working to emulate the funk vibes of Mark Ronson’s ‘Uptown Funk ft. Bruno Mars’ (released 2014).

And sometimes they don’t even try to hide where their inspiration comes from. Like in the case of MercyMe’s ‘Shake,’ which is totally not inspired by Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’…

They do all of this while often repeating the same clichés and phrasings that are always used within Christian music. Let’s take a look at the opening verse to Lauren Daigle’s ‘You Say’ (linked above):

I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I’m not enough // Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up // Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low // Remind me once again just who I am, because I need to know

I took the liberty of bolding clichés that I saw in this song that I have frequently seen in other Christian songs. The tropes of “voices in your mind,” the trope of thinking you “aren’t enough”/”you don’t measure up” feeds into the cliche of “Am I more than just the sum,” and the idea of being “reminded” who you are is played out in three ways in the last line. (Side note: the chorus of that song is also essentially the same message shown above in the songs by Jordan Feliz and For King and Country)

To show the pervasiveness of these clichés, it took me all of 20 seconds to find a song that used the line “you are more than the sum of your past mistakes”:

See what I mean?

What I’m Getting At

Please, please do not misunderstand me when I point out these things in Christian music. I do think it is a good message. And some people need a good message like being loved and cherished by God. I am trying not to detract from that truth. And I also see the reasoning behind why people support it. It is easy to turn on the radio and know that you are getting clean, Christian content, even if the songs seem a little repetitive or over-produced.

However, as I said before, I think that the root of the problem lies in a lack of creativity within the mainstream Christian music genre. So why is there a lack of creativity? Going back to Josh Keefe, it’s an industry.

From the standpoint of Christian music producers, it is easier and more efficient to simply back the horse that you know will win, and that horse is the modern Christian music. It doesn’t ruffle any feathers, it is easy to sing along to, it doesn’t wade into theologically confusing waters, and it also guarantees a consistent supply of hits that can be sold to the nearest radio station for a nice little profit to keep that station alive. What’s not to like?

This, in turn, means that Christian artists are pressured to conform to the “standard” of Christian music or risk not becoming largely successful.

Singing Through a Net, Not to It

The problem is that life is often a bit messier than that. Christianity, and being a Christian, is hard at times. And I often feel that the reason people listen to mainstream contemporary Christian music is because of that happy-go-lucky message that always provides a positive outlook. But the good thing is that there are artists out there that are willing to write songs that are not only about the happy-go-lucky side of Christianity.

When trying to explain this topic of modern Christian music, I often use the illustration of a net that is our faith stretched and hanging between the church and the rest of the world. The large majority of contemporary Christian music today will only sing up to the net, in effect only singing to people that are already Christian, and not willing to write songs about the real world, where hurt and pain exist. I believe that the truly good and well done Christian music (believe me, it does exist) is the music that sings through the net. They sing about the actual world, but they do it through the lens of their faith. They don’t shy away from difficult or not-so-easy topics, but they still look upon them through the eyes of Christianity.

So What Does All This Point To?

There are “Christian creatives” (as I and others have come to call them) out and about in the world. Singers that are making music with no restrictions, not overseen by any restrictive Christian record companies, or anything else inhibiting them from creating truly unique and God-worshipping music, with their own style and sound, worshipping God in their own personal and (often) heart-wrenching way. Artists like Josh Garrels, Rivers & Robots, Kings Kaleidoscope, John Mark McMillan, The Grey Havens, Pas Neos, Benjamin James, Michael Ketterer, Mutemath, Young Oceans, and hundreds upon hundreds more.

I believe that there is a lack of creativity in the mainstream Christian music sector, but that doesn’t mean we are bound to listen to it. There are creatives out there. They may not be as well known, it may take a little bit of work to find ones you enjoy, but they are out there. We needn’t just be content with our music. If we believe in a creative God, our music should reflect that.

It may just take some creativity of our own to find that which we enjoy.

---

Looking for a place to start listening to Christian creatives? Try checking out this playlist, put together by Josh Keefe. Or this one put together by the one and only Josh Garrels. Or start your own search and see what you come up with.

FINAL NOTE: I know that my personal music tastes certainly have influenced the recommendations. I know too, that I haven’t mentioned certain genres, such as rap, in this post. I have nothing against any of those genres, merely that I don’t really listen to them, and so I did not want to comment on that which I do not know. That being said, I do enjoy new music. If you have a favorite Christian creative, let me know, I’d love to give them a listen.

Want to read more about Christian Creatives? Click on this tag.