Intellectual Defenestration

Why CCM is so bad

I recently ran across Steve Camp's 107 Theses on the Contemporary Christian Music Industry. He had some particularly harsh words to say about the quality of music put out by CCM. For example:

41. Christian music, originally called Jesus Music, once fearlessly sang clearly about the gospel. Now it yodels of a Christ-less, watered down, pabulum-based, positive alternative, aura-fluff, cream of wheat, mush-kind-of-syrupy, God-as-my-girlfriend kind of thing.

And also:

46. Therefore, when Christian artists today take the old song of the world, dress it up, modify it and say it now represents the person of Jesus Christ, a Christian message or describes the character of God, they fortuitously assault the gospel and diminish the gift that has been entrusted to them. This is inappropriate at best and sacrilegious at worst. We cannot pour new wine into old wineskins. (Psalm 137; Mark 2:22)

I must admit that I was quite happy to read this. CCM is, to put it simply, embarrassing (see Bunnie Diehl for expository examples). It's refreshing to see someone from within the CCMI point this out.

Camp also has harsh words for recent alliances made in the business (I believe all of the major CCM labels are now owned by major secular labels). First, doing so further increases the gap between Christian musicians and the local fellowship:

65. God has designed genuine ministry to be inseparable from the life and leadership of the local church. Any ministry that does not strengthen one's commitment to the local church is inconsistent with the purpose of Christ. (Acts 2: 42-47; Hebrews 10:23-25)

Second, it subordinates what should be the goal of the Christian musician to the particular business needs and desires of those that have no interest in Christianity beyond profit schemes:

87. The promise of increased financial resources, wider distribution and a larger audience is not justification for the surrender or our spiritual autonomy. (Luke 4:4-12; Ephesians 5:8-12)

This is similar to Leonard Payton's chapter "How Shall We Sing to God?" in The Coming Evangelical Crisis. Payton argues that Christians artists used to focus their work on either "high culture" (art for the sake of beauty) or "folk culture" (art for the sake of the local community). This has changed to today's focus, which is on "pop culture": art for the sake of the shareholder. The result of this lack of ecclesiastical involvement and authority has been the "cream of wheat, mush-kind-of-syrupy" music of today.

I have seen defensive arguments for CCM that have noted that pop music in general today is pretty bad. To pick on Christians particularly for bad music, they argue, is not fair since every genre will have some good musicians, some bad ones, and a lot of mediocre ones. The problem with that argument is that, as Camp notes, so much of CCM is imitative; bad music is in turn copied so as to make worse music. And to further compound the problem, the Christian industry is so scared of offending anyone that it uses empty-headed crap for lyrics.

I believe Camp wrote his theses around 10 years ago. Since then, there has been some improvement. Indelible Grace, as I understand it, makes a conscious effort to be tied to the local community. And some of the more recent songs from the One Day movement have been demonstrating an effort to use Scripture in a more in-depth fashion than the "I feel good about Jesus" music that dominates modern praise music.

Still, there's much to be done.

July 8, 2004 04:42 PM