music and media

We did it.

The issue that nobody is talking much about — at least not directly — finally slid under the spotlight in Southern California a few weeks ago.

The issue is whether Christian artists, to really make it professionally, have to shed their Christian label and become "mainstream."

The discussion happend at Biola University.

Don't look for that school's name in the Chronicle of Higher Education unless you're looking for sardonic humor. American higher education generally looks at schools like Biola with arched eyebrows and a veiled grin — maybe a chortle.

But it's a school that matters in the grand scheme of a Christian subculture within the United States. It's also a school that takes seriously its interaction with popular culture. Nestled in the lower end of Los Angeles County and within an easy drive's distance from Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm and some fairly serious surfing, this campus is a place where students come for a Bible-based education from faculty who play Peter, Paul and Mary during exams and dissect films like "Pulp Fiction" for glimmers of God's face.

The event where the music conversation happened was the 2007 Biola Journalism Conference. An event organized by Biola Public Relations students and aimed at the entire campus of about 5,300 students.

During the two-day event, speakers from Entertainment Weekly, the Chicago Tribune, and promotions agencies across the Los Angeles region talked about the ways Christian music has moved from Jesus Freak stuff in the 1970s to a YouTube, MySpace, touring band phenomenon that packs out stadiums and has created a new breed of 21st century circuit-riding preachers.

So is Christian music dead? No. Is it derivative stuff? Some of it, yes. Is this Christian vs. non-Christian controversy new? Not really. There's been conflict for centuries between artists who were Christians over the real motivation for their work and its meaning(s). Christians who write really innovative stuff and play it with artistry that knocks the socks off anyone else are scattered all across the world and don't all show up in the music racks at Christian book stores. Some have never been to the Gospel Music Association Awards — or even know what it is.

What was worth looking at in this conference was the "emperor has no clothes" analysis of the contemporary Christian music franchise.

Chritian song writer and author John Fischer, lead speaker in the event, thundered at the gathered crowds about how Christians have made an adjective out of what should be a noun. Christian music is like other Christian stuff — a commodity bought and sold inside the safe walls of the castle we know as evangelical Christian culture. It's a castle with its own language and slang, its own clothing (even a dress code), its own books, films, kiddy toys, knick-knacks, jewelry, greeting cards, car and home keys, even home furnishings.

It's a multi-million dollar industry.

And the ugly little question that this conference raised is whether all that is a good idea and how Christians studying journalism and public relations should be thinking about it all.

The conference ended with questions rather than firm answers. And that's not a bad thing.