In today’s Christian market music is divided into two types: Secular and Christian. With this kind of seperation it is often easy for a Christian parent to dictate what is ok for their children to listen to and what is not. However, having Christian music be the sub-culture and a niche market, leaves it being a follower instead of leader. This is where, in my opinion, the Christian music industry gets it wrong.

As the years go on the lines between secular music and Christian music blur more and more. While some Christians would argue that this is a bad thing, it could be arguments to the contrary can be made. Let us begin with the cons of a situtation like this. First off, if the lines are blured too much, a Christian leaves themselves open hearing something they might not want to or mistake something for what it is not. A great example of this would be the band Creed. While Creed sang about Christian themes and ideas, the band was on record many times stating “we are not a Christian band” and while this statement was on record many Christians continued to believe them to be a Christian band. Secondly, when it comes to blurred lines, you end up with bands using the sub-culture to further their carrer. While there is no clear cut example of this, some have aruged that MxPx and P.O.D. have done just this (I however do not think so).

However, there is an upside to blurring the lines between secular and Christian musics. First and foremost by blurring the lines people are introduced to a whole new spectrum of music that they might have otherwise avoided. This allows for more influance and also allows for non-Christians to be subjected to Christian music (which is generally cleaner than secular music) without knowing they should be biased towards it. And as the lines between the two classifcations goes away, it allows the Christian artists of the world to be in a place to set trends rather than follow them. Christians as a whole have a general inclination to want to influance culture and change it to fit their ideals and beliefs but this is exremely difficult when they follow rather than lead. Think about this. Most popular (notice I said “popular” and not “good”) Christian music is a replication of a secular act that did what the Christian counter-part is doing six to twelve months ago. If Christians want to counter the culture they must first learn to be the leaders in the culture. If they can not lead, no one will follow, and there is no hope to counter a culture they deem as “going to down the tubes”. Blurring the lines between the two types of music allows Christian musicians to be leaders rather than followers. They are no longer bound by the “we need to sound like that band to be more popular and furthur our cause” and instead can sound like they want to sound and write the songs they want to write.

Blurring the lines between secular music and Christian music is only the start of Christians countering the culture. There is work being done in movies, print, and other forms of media whose goal is just that, to counter culture. As long as Christians work to break out of their sub-culture, they will be working to further their cause.

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