leah payne is an associate

professor of american religious history at portland seminary. she's also. 2022 to 2023 public fellow at public religion research institute. and her research has been supported by the louisville institute in the wabash center, teaching in theology and religion. her first book, gender pentecostal revivalism making a female ministry in the early 20th century, won new rma. the journal of the society for pentecostal studies twice and 16 book award paine's work

analyzing religion, politics and popular as appeared in the washington post nbc news religion service and christianity today. she's also co-host of weird religion, a podcast about religion, popular culture and rock that doesn't roll a podcast about christian rock. i would like to remind everyone, please silence your phones after leah a talk. we will have a question and session if you would then come up to this microphone here, please join me in welcoming you. thank you oops. oh, that's right. well i, i, i googled what you do at. an author meet and greet a bookstore. so what they said was, well google told me was you read an

excerpt and then you fielded questions. so i will be reading an excerpt for, you all. and then i look forward talking with you and seeing what what kinds of questions that this may bring up. so i'm going to start with the beginning. cc and the industry of american. 14 year old david shields. nervous, really nervous. nope mike okay. oh. okay. there you go. there you go. there you go. oh, boy, this is me. i'm booktv having a mike. mike, feel moment. i'm to go with it. thank you so much for telling me that because i was kind of questioning about the lab. so okay. all right. so i'm going to go go back. go back and just say i googled to do at a book event and reading an excerpt and then questions is what you do. and so what i'm here to do and thank you so much for being here.

14 year old david shields was nervous really nervous it was 2005 and his death metal band skull was about to play a big show in lexington, nebraska. skull crushers may not sound like an unusual name for a death metal band, and perhaps it's not. but what made it somewhat unusual was that it was inspired by a passage in the bible romans 1620, the god of peace will soon crush satan under your feet. skull crushers aim to crush heck out of the devil that night. they're tools biblically based lyrics screamed over distorted guitars. the band book by david's cool skater youth pastor played in the youth building of a southern baptist church by david's dad. we were absolutely, david recalled years later. but the small crowd of evangelicals cheered for more southern baptist churches.

of the 2000s. we're not widely known for being death metal tastemakers, but david and his bandmates did not see their work as metal per through the power of music they were spreading the gospel in a performance that was part rock concert, part religious revival school crushers sought to entertain and to bring audiences to christ our yelling unintelligible lyrics were suddenly holy work, he remembered, because the lyrics were christian david in the school crushers were not unique. they were among thousands of and artists who in the second half of the 20th century performed on sanctuary three stages in youth rooms and basements, at music festivals denominational meetings, colleges, coffee shops and camps around, the nation, these performers, along with record company executives, publicists, booking agents, radio deejays, journalists and many more, were part of the

thriving industry of contemporary christian music, commonly called ccm. cc, encompassed many genres, and often sounded like mainstream, but what made it distinctive is that it was created by and for sold almost exclusively to evangelicals. consume by millions. ccm was the soundtrack of evangelical conversions worship adolescence, marriage, child rearing and activism. few services, youth, all nighters sporting events, holiday gatherings or political protests were complete without ccm accompaniment by the time school crushers took the stage. however, ccm was in a precarious position once an almost billion dollar industry with culture power. by the early aughts the genre was in decline. this book analyzes contemporary christian music as, an industry born from early 20th century

southern white revivalist tim singing networks stoked by 1960s and 1970s baby boomer converts on the coast and fueled in the late 20th century by a vast network of evangelical media makers and marketers, booksellers, denominations congregations, parish, church organization, educational institutions, lobbying and advocacy as contemporary music grew enterprising conservative white protestants recognize that songs of revival were and are powerful portable vehicles for ideology. gene, the following pages trace how come produced music that served as a sonic shorthand for white evangelical orthodoxy. social action prized for its capacity to disseminate evangelical messages about. what it means to be christian and ccm songs often reflected

and drove evangelical conversations pressing social and political like abortion, prayer in public schools or, teen abstinence. at the turn of the 20th century. however, contemporary christian music was by many of the market forces and cultural norms that built even though the industry declined precipitously in the early thousands. however, the theological visions and political ambitions of cms leading music makers and the media networks that connect them continue to shape evangelicalism in the united states and abroad. contemporary christian served adults and young children, to be sure. but the industry's core customers were suburban middle class white american adolescent. ccm marketers were certainly not alone in recognizing the buying power of american teens, but evangelicals became convinced that teens were in a poetic, precarious state, which meant

that ccm sales had cosmic importance for evangelical. the teen years were a must win battlefield in the war for the future of the christian faith, the nation and even the mass media they recognized was an effective weapon. be employed in that fight and they set out to save young souls and shape the nation through the pages. trace how these evangelical caregivers in the united states came to see christian spins on american popular music. even genres like death metal as invaluable tools molding their children socially spiritually and politically as the industry grew, so did confidence in kim's ability to encourage teen citizens to conform to conservative norms and strengthen nation. it hard to overstate the power of contemporary christian music

and its ubiquity in the late 20th century evangelical life as the ambient sound of white evangelicalism. it felt it certainly was for me growing up in the 1990s as a pentecostal pastor's kid in a working class town in rural, my father had no love for ccm. he thought the quality of the music poor and he did not play it. my childhood home. he did not allow. i'm editorializing here. but yes, he didn't want it in his home. and as a family we didn't the means to participate in the middle class, suburban consumption patterns of ccm, the concerts, festivals, albums and other merchandise. but many young people around were immersed in the world of youth groups and christian music festivals. and almost everyone i knew had either heard an immigrant song or performed live action version of a carmen in college, i was

introduced to revivalist by derrick johnson, a conductor, vocal arranger and creator of a vocal ensemble that laid the foundation of what would become ccm. derrick and his vocalist debbie johnson expand my understanding of sacred music beyond the boundaries of the pentecostal praise and worship tunes of my upbringing. he taught me to appreciate recognize west coast pop and jazz harmonies along with black gospel and southern gospel standards. after i graduated, i married an aspiring ccm artist and moved to nashville, tennessee in 2001, when ccm at its pinnacle in terms of prosperity and cultural influence as a new nashville in, i found myself doing what a lot of peers with humanities degrees did, working at a coffee shop. two of my favorite customers were charlie and andy ashworth, whom i only knew as west coast

fellow west coast transplants. i discovered eventually that charlie was an award winning singer songwriter, jazz artist, pianist, producer and record label executive who had also written a really important book about ccm. charlie ended up offering me a job as his assistant. and i worked at charlie and andy's legendary art house studio for several years. i did understand, as a 21 year old barista, the scope of charlie's influence and work. nor did i grasp in the early 2000 that i was bearing witness to a transformative moment in the music industry in general and ccm in particular. eventually, i went to graduate at vanderbilt divinity school, became a religious historian, and i thought that my short, youthful stint in ccm was over. as i studied american religion, however, my perspective on ccm began to change. i began to regard contemporary christian music performances as

more than just quirky evangelical entertainment. instead, i to see them concerts as sites where power is created and negotiated at ccma performances exerted influence over attendees by soliciting public conversions, stoking political action, and seeking for social causes. in these performances, best selling ccm artists and audiences also performed and enforced strict evangelical ideals about gender sexual race, ethnicity and class. women who could and would be womanly to straight, middle class, white ideals were adored. men who could and would be manly, according to straight, white, middle class evangelical norms admired. those who could not or would not adhere such standards were often marginalized used for many

participants and observers. the trappings ccm the evangelical pop stars, interpretive dancers and puppeteers and mimes and bodybuilders. these are silly expressions of kitsch or, an embarrassing remnant of an evangelical. silly things, however, can be deadly serious to devoted. just ask anyone who has angered online fans of beyonce or taylor swift see them have the capacity to be both. so question that guides this book is what can one learn about the development evangelicalism by looking at contemporary arie christian music, one of the largest, most profitable forms of mass media produced in the 20th century. i treat ccm charts as representing of a conversation among but not exclusively white about what kind of people they wanted to be, what sort of world they wanted to create, what kind of actions they thought would honor god? to listen to that conversation, i analyzed the music of 20th

century songbooks, early recordings and radio programs, tracked the top selling ccm through the pages of contemporary christian magazine and the billboard christian music charts, and listened carefully to the top 25 ccm albums from the late 1970s to 2023 as the soundtrack of white evangelical culture. contempt arie christian music carried in music and merchandise, decades of musical conversation about evangelical identity and ideology because it was produced mostly by white evangelical men and marketed en masse to white evangelical mothers and youth pastors for consumption. white evangelical children. it is also a large scale, multigenerational conversation about evangelical values in. the united states. converse about what music ought to be made. who ought to make it and? what messages it should include. reveal how evangelicals aim to

their children to be idealistic. sons of the kingdom of god. and of course, the united states part business, part devotional activity, part religious instruction. the trajectory of ccm also shows how the marketplace and technological innovations, evangelical identity and ideology. the story of ccm is the of how white evangelicals to the marketplace for signs of god's work in the world. while there were always notable dissenters, for the most part, those within the industry regarded prophets as a sign of god's blessing. the top selling artists and entertainers then reflect a consensus consumers about what constituted right christian teaching about god, the people of god and their place in public life. certain ideas thrived in part because they appeal to white evangelical. other ideas because they could not be easily sold in this.

the history of the ccm charts is a history of how consumers, their theological and opinions unofficially through their buying practices year after year. why are evangelical denominations and churches published official treatises and position papers and public statements. and all the while, the people who constituted these organizations purchased music that they came to believe represented true christian life charts represented rank and file white evangelical about what sorts people evangelicals believed be credible messengers of the gospel. and the charts displayed. what sort of ideas about god, the world and the people of god were bankable theologies. sometimes these off the books ideas aligned with official denominational congregational teaching. sometimes they did not through the market, consumers challenged and in some cases overturned the

traditional institutional authority of their pastors congregations and denomination. because many white evangelicals viewed kim as a distillation of christian orthodoxy, a purveyor of godly activity, and a form of christian parenting. contemporary christian music was and is a very high stakes industry. i interviewed dozens of journalists, publishers, producers and, artists as well as businesspeople, church leaders, politicians and activists in and around the industry. not all wanted to be quoted. the record, and many of those who willing were no longer heavily involved in the business. some were retired. others left of their own accord. and some were no longer welcome in the fold because they had rejected some of the strict ideological boundaries around ccm. those who asked their comments to remain off the record did so understandable reasons. people who work in evangelical and then publicly disavow

evangelical norms risk their livelihood along with their social, religious and sometimes familial networks. i'm profoundly grateful to those who are willing to speak to me about the industry and the dense of organizations that constitute the commercial religion that is evangelicalism in the united states to capture the silliness, the seriousness of ccm among its listenership, i created ccm contemporary christian music, a survey in 2020. the survey invited respondents to reflect on how. they first started listening to ccm. their favorite and least favorite and entertainers. how they participated in the industry. how may or may not have shaped their identities? what people unfamiliar with contemporary christian music should know about it and? their formative memories that involved christian music. some wrote that ccm was a peripheral part of their young

adulthood, but most claimed that ccm had shaped their lives profoundly, for better and for worse. now, i had hoped to somewhere between 50 and 100 responses, but i was soon overwhelmed. as of 2023, and i should say now 2024, i have more than 1200 ccm listeners from more than a dozen countries have participated in the survey. they shared stories of nostalgia, humor and joy and also stories of alienation, anger and despair. through this book, i've included representative observations and comments from those listeners. indeed, there is a main character in this book. it is the ccm audience, ccm listener, real and. the biographies of particular ccm figures are material as they were used to sell music to consumers and to serve models for christian living. those models and the people who sold them have been always

overwhelmingly white and male like mainstream popular music. ccm is a male dominated business, both behind scenes and on the charts, where women occupied more than 20% of the top spots. the situation was even more stark when it came to race. nonwhite artists and entertainers represented more than 10% of the top 25 albums and singles even as ccm listeners, ccm singers and musicians appropriated black gospel music. hip hop and rap. and even as non-core christian charts diversified in late 20th century. the demographics of ccm artists remained remarkably like american as a whole. the ccm world was segregated. that segregation goes back to the industry's earliest days. ccm grew out of early 20th century white revivalism. the networks of predominantly, not exclusively white churches can't meetings and bible

colleges served as the tracks upon which ccm would travel the nation. many of these institutions desegregation well into the 20th century. the tastes buying habits of the consumers that were embedded in these networks along with the racial hierarchies embedded within and expressed through these habits, also allowed the industry to remain homogenous for decades. this book starts, with those networks. most books about contemporary christian music begin with the stories of bands or begin the story of bands. the school crushers with the sounds of rock. this book instead begins with cms's roots in the business of early 20th century revival. so thank you so much. all right. thank you. oh, thank you. this a tougher for for class. i would love to field. any questions you have or comments. and should people come to this microphone over here, i guess i

guess you'll have to brave the microphone over there. oh, oh. hi, please. yes, thank you. thank. i wondering in your research, if you looked some of the festivals like cornerstone ichthys, which i know a lot of people around here probably went to a lot. kind of the effect that that had on ccm. that's a great question. so you you mentioned to christian music ichthys, which is right from right here in kentucky and is a a what i think is fascinating about this as a festival is that it is rooted in those early 20th century revivals right.

it's a christian music festival that was essentially an version of a camp meeting, an old fashioned camp meeting, and so this was one of the earlier versions of of christian festivals that got started in 1970s and then really peaked in the early 2000 where they got to be huge, hundreds of thousands of people would come to christian music festivals and the mainstream ones, the that had the the top charting artists were were festivals the creation festival but cornerstone festival is a really interesting kind of quirky festival that represented, i think, a minority report within evangelical circles. so the bands who were invited to cornerstone festival were that may or may not conform to the kind of strict boundary around what was so christian music and and cornerstone because.

it had a reputation for being a a taste making festival a lot of big bands got their start at that festival and then they would go on to stardom in other venues. but i, i do find that people who were fans and since you are here, i'm going to guess that you're going to know everything that i'm about to say because a rattles and stuff, but people who are fans of music from labels like tooth and nail record or five minute walk records, those kind of scalloped metal music cornerstone was was sort of the annual family gathering where people would get together and celebrate that those kind of edgier forms of music and yes that that's one thing that i, i try to capture in this book that there is a mainstream conversation and then there's always dissenting voices and really people if you if you look at conversation about that

music, you can see them talking about, well, who are we and who are we going to be? and most importantly, what do we want for our children. and so cornerstone festival hosted bands and young kids who would do you think you know very wild things like where weird colored hair earrings and tattoos things like that that were a pretty and evangelical circles. so did you did you ever go to cornerstone? yes. my my youth pastor went one year fully. he went fully dressed like goth and was like chasing as they were driving their golf carts and down the i wore free hugs t shirt and just gave out all the free hugs and it's definitely like just kind of reminisced back on that now since it's been probably like ten years since it has even been in existence. mm hmm. just it was a wonderful festival. yes. and, you know, it's it's roots are in a a essentially like a

christian hippie commune called jesus people usage of whose f or those who who know which was the host of that festival. so it always had a hippie flair to it that other more mainstream festivals never, never had. and i think for, you know, i think a lot more people, a lot fewer people went to cornerstone, but a lot more people, remember, have vibrant of that. then then, you know, those bigger festivals. so you so much. that's a great question. hey megan. hi, dr. park. hi, megan. megan is my student i'm so happy to see her. my question was, is there anywhere in your book where find or throughout your research where you found that maybe a certain like american cultural event or, a historical event, a lot of musicians were trying to almost like make their lyrics about that or like send a

message. maybe more subliminally to come back like maybe certain like worldly or secular messages that they were against. oh, that's such a question. i love that question. yes. so that is the fun thing about studying this music is you can almost depend on any big issue that mattered to evangelicals. they were writing songs about that. so the very first big social issue that i cover in this book is the issue of temperance. the prohibition movement was, fueled by songs many of them, were written then published by revivalists talking all about the doom of of booze and alcohol. and some of them are are really funny. they're they're not in any way subtle when you said, you know, are there subtle things. nope. you know, alcohol is the devil's brew. you're welcome. but and a lot of them were aimed young people. so in the know the the idea of

there being an adolescent period and teenager teenage ness teenager would really as that developed a lot these revivalists came to see those years as really critical. so there are temperance movement or temperance hymns and temperance hymnals aimed at young in particular. so it back that far but any big events that that or any any event that i'm conservative white protestants as important is is usually reflected in. so if you fast forward even hundred years after those hymns were developed like the the columbine mass shooting was a huge of contemporary christian music about that event. and what's fascinating is that it it represented the an evangelical interpretation of that. so there weren't a ton of songs. for example, that were arguing

for regulation of of guns, right? there were a lot of songs that interpreted those horrifying events as a form of christian martyrdom, because there were some evangelical teens who were tragically killed on that day and a lot of very popular contemporary christian music was generated from that moment and used an opportunity to encourage evangelical young evangelicals to live their faith very public ways. so i don't know if that helps answer your question, but there are there are so many examples. you know, any era cold war, there's a song about that, you know, the the 911, there were lots of songs about about interpreting what was happening. so, yeah, i, i listen to lot. i had an interesting era as as you can and i subjected my family to it to my children

especially. dr. paine you talked about white evangelicalism. yes. that's broad term. you know, kind of umbrella term. could you talk about the different strata within evangelicalism, different denominational groups, and how they were involved scheme, how they influenced. kim historically even up to the present day. thank you so much for that question. one of the most surprising discoveries i found by analyzing charts is that what was as a as a kind of generic form of evangelicalism was actually overwhelmingly produced by only three groups. so there were white baptist, specifically southern baptists. and the southern baptists really created the infrastructure that contemporary christian music. so a lot of the parish church

organized missions that were big, that that were heavily involved in. ccm had southern baptist roots. a lot of the activist organizations. so there were a lot of baptists involved in that conversation. and in fact, one of the biggest record labels of contemporary in contemporary christian music was created from baylor university in waco, texas. a well-known baptist hub. and so baptists and then holiness people. so i start the book with holiness revival books. so people like the nazarene teens and westlands and and then pentecostals and eventually charismatic. so pentecostals, people who are known for speaking in tongues and believing in divine healing and stuff like that. and they're charismatic cousins who i define as people who belong to christian organizations that aren't necessarily from they wouldn't be pentecostal, but they do pentecostal practices. so you're like you could be, you know, presbyterian speak in

tongues. so those pentecostal think charismatics end up becoming really important figures part because the you know, the book is titled god gave and roll to you. i start before rock, but rock is really important part of creating contemporary christian music and that is borne primarily southern black and white, pentecostal and holiness communities. so those but what's fascinating is over 100 years that rarely. it's unusual are every now and then there'd be a catholic and would notice you know, like, oh wow. okay, so and so is catholic or they'd be presbytery. but the kind of norm that that went into creating with what's fascinating is that because the industry grew really quickly and it thrived in american it was just seen as the soundtrack of what it meant to be just generally evangelical. even though most of the people creating it were from a really, really specific communities and it reflected a lot of their

favorite ideas and those ideas through music infiltrated other forms of of american. one kind of funny story about this, i've heard many versions of this story, but i was talking to a woman who was raised with a methodist mother umc mother catholic, and she went to a like a baptist camp. and one summer as a teen and was exposed all of a sudden to the world of contemporary christian music. and, you know, all a sudden just kind of plunged into that world. she came home and she was terrified. she asked or she asked her mother, do you think that my dad is saved? and her mom just thought, what happened to you? you know? she'd gone to a baptist camp and come back with contemporary christian music songs that made her think about her catholic dad in a different kind of way. and i think that's a really striking example of how it's actually a small group of people, but they had a an

outsized influence through, the power of this industry, because i don't know about you, but you it's one thing to intellectually process an idea, but it's another to sing it and to act it out. and that that really has a powerful influence, people. so, yes, thank you so much for that question. actually, a really small group of people and i thank you so much for this research. thank you. after. thank you. yeah. yeah. thank you. this is so wonderful. i have about a dozen, but like to. the first one that i'll ask is if joseph-beth have forced you to have a walk out song that when you're going, oh, that's great well you know god gave rock and roll to you is a song that, that was a secular, so-called mainstream song that was covered by iconic ccm petra. and then was covered by kiss, which that's the one that my two children like the most. and then it covered again by

another band, two groups, bride in the drc. it's about for another one. so it might be that one. i think it might be okay. yeah. thanks. well, yeah so the talking about just kind of the influence, you know, it's a small but it's having this much bigger influence than just that group some i'm curious about the impact on the academy because you have you know do you get into that much like like seeing colleges seminaries that begin these degrees and trainings and things like that for students coming in and even marketing for that and things. so just curious if there's anything there that you've seen or is in the book, the research. what a great question. okay. so yeah, how did contemporary one of the the main. one of the main develop networks for contemporary christian music was christian colleges. so and by i mean the coalition of christian colleges and universities use that to many cu schools and many of the the ones

who contributed the most were from either the holiness tradition. the baptist and then charismatics and pentecostal so they were from the get go, they were producing people who were making this, this world fact. one of the earliest figures, the world of contemporary christian music, is a man, ralph carmichael, who went to is now vanguard university and then went on to discover cm greats and people who transcend people like andre crouch and the disciples. so those those universities were already those colleges were already producing those those acts. but as industry grew, many of those colleges came to see an opportunity there. if there were so many people who wanted to be involved in it, they could create programing that would encourage that. and some them are based in nashville, which it's no surprise anyone who knows about contemporary christian music that the major hub is nashville, tennessee contemporary christian

music and country have. a lot in common in terms of demographics and general view of the world and that's no surprise why the industries are based the same city. so some of those schools are sort of natural to think of, you know, belmont university. they have a huge music and they have a just a big music industry program generally. but they they a lot of contemporary christian music, but other places, greenville college and stuff have produced artists and then also business people who end up who have ended up going on to shape the business because i mean, i did mention that most artists were from those communities, but also most business people were from communities and they really saw what they were doing as. christian activism, the major distributor and hub of contemporary christian music was, the christian bookstore, and most of those were business people came. a lot of them came from those colleges. so and obviously i mentioned waco. baylor university was a major

hub. they created word records, comes out of those networks. so yeah the christian colleges have always had a really tight with that and you can see why there are a bunch of young people who are together i mean universities, you know college radio deejays are still taste making now, you know, so that's there. that's not unusual in mainstream culture as well. but college is an exciting time. you have a lot of time on your hands, time that you'll never have again. so thank you. so i've got a here. sure. in my teenage years, eighties, early nineties and grant was a really deal and she was complicated though. mm and when i think about the only song of hers that i can remember, it's baby baby, which is not christian. so it seems like that complexity of her legacy in ccm movement, but also her crossover capacity and the gender element. you said women were were on

times absent. i wonder if you can speak to what do you see her legacy as her place her role in discussion. oh that's a great question yes. if there's one person that you would have to know about to say that you knew about contemporary music, it would have to be amy grant. she's the the undisputed queen of christian, and she's a really interesting figure. i write about her as part of her legacy is some of her relatives generations earlier had been part of creating revivalist. so in many ways, she was participating in a family business. and then when she began her career, she was really influenced by kind of hippie communities who created this music known as jesus music in the 19 late 1960s, early 1970s, and she put the the revivalist nashville communities and the folk music and really an

emerging sense of polish and professionalism that would become contemporary music all together in one person and and she was upheld for decades as i mean, because she started when she was a teenager, she was regarded in many evangelical households as the ideal. she married that she she got married she had children and was a regular on evangelical media outlet. so television and magazines and there are these idyllic portraits of her with her with her children and her husband and. so when she in the early 1990s, she made what was an incredible leap into the mainstream had a mainstream hit that sold millions of copies the song baby baby is one of them. every heartbeat is another one. and she was a bona fide pop star in that time.

and it was very in those days throughout her career because was upheld as this example. and these are communities, if you know anything about the holiness community, they have very specific standards about modesty, especially for women and about how you publicly present yourself. so throughout her career she was watched for did was her shirt low cut where she posing in too sexy of a way when she talked about having sex with her husband that was just you know there were many moments where she caused a scandal and along the way there were particularly christian bookstore owners would take her product off the shelf. a lot of times they would eventually put it back because she was she had a very disciplined public presence. but in the late 1990s, she she her husband, she and her husband divorced and in a conservative

evangelical communities that was one of the biggest stories of the decade. right. the disillusion of of amy grant's marriage. and there were many other male contemporary christian music artists who had been divorced. but her her marriage, and also marriage of sandi patty, who was another really huge star in contemporary christian music. and her marriage as well. and those the at that time there was just a of writing and public hand-wringing about does this what does this mean that this person that we've put up on this pedestal is no longer these are these ideals was a lot of i would say, a very mean spirited commentary about her and her. one of the things that i thought was so fascinating of the the people responded to the contemporary christian music, especially for women who were adolescents that time, her

disappearance from the contemporary christian music world and, all of the conversation about who she was you know you couldn't have amy grant music in church even really catchy songs like elsa die you know all of a sudden that was not appropriate to be in or angels just watching over me, you know you couldn't you couldn't use music anymore for a lot of. the young women that was a real loss. one one wrote to me, you know, they her away from me. you know, this this person who had been so meaningful in her life. but amy grant was not the only one. i mean, one of the things that i find so fascinating about looking at the theological development of evangelicalism as an industry is that you see how like industry it consolidates and homogenize is as it develops and as it gets more more profitable and. as time went by there you know originally were certain expectations about women in

particular about sex and sexuality and their role in the home. but as time went by, a lot of these artists started to put a finer point on on evangelicalism. and, you know how how evangelicals should live their their sexual ethic out. so in the early days, it was very common for female contemporary christian music artists, in particular to have songs about remaining pure their wedding night, you know, not not having outside of of marriage but then as the grew people started developing kind of riffing on that point. so by the time you get to the late 1990s, it was no longer, just just don't sex before marriage don't even date right there's a rise the development contemporary christian music don't even think about it right don't hold hands don't any of that stuff. the development of contemporary christian illustrates growth of this movement known as the purity movement, which was very

concerned with regulating adolescent and their sexuality. and most of the top evangelical organizations, including the true love waits organization, which was a southern baptist organization and viewed contemporary christian music. women, in particular, as ideal for promoting that that world. so the 1990s figures like rebecca saint james and jacki velasquez and out of eden went on tour with true love waits organization and would put on a concert and also issue a call for young people. you know sign these commitments abstinence pledges they were called that said that they would not have sex the boundaries of heterosexual. and when you think about it's a really big challenge for creating pop music that has those messages because most a lot of pop music is not about

abstinence at all, right? it's about teens having sex. and so the challenge was was really in terms of using popular music toward those ends. but there were and i didn't even talk about groups like barlow girl who were really in that it was that that one question of who are young women and how are they living out those values as contemporary christian music artists was perpetual and it shifted time. so thank you for that question. thanks. i'm on a real learning curve. i've never listened to contemporary christian music much, much more of a brahms, stravinsky person. so i'm learning as i go. you seem to equate evangelical

christian music with, contemporary christian music is is there no a diverse city in practice or is there any progressive christian music or is that outside of the realm of contemporary christian music? oh, that's great question. so the first question, thank you so much for asking that is really and you know, it's kind of one of those if you know, you know, things the title contemporary christian music it was actually coined in the late 1970s by a a group of christians who they were revival revivalist christians on west coast in the late 20th century who had a really extraordinary experience with a kind of mystical hippie ized form christianity and.

it comes out of a specific church that hosted a lot of those meetings and it was contemporary christian x was a newsletter that went out telling about what was happening with these hippie converts on the west coast known as jesus. but pretty soon the editors and the journalists who were writing christian acts really ized that mostly people were interested in the music that was coming out of that world. so they changed it to contemporary christian music magazine. and so that's where that that the title comes from. the to your question is, was were there other forms of christian music? absolutely in fact, one of the things that i tried to articulate in this book is how the the market niche of contemporary christian music created a pretty specific, pretty narrow rendition of what constituted christian music, but

the american public historically, predominantly christian, has never shown sustained distaste for christian themes in popular music. so you know, there's there have always groups who have even had very explicit references in, in their music. and also there are other forms of sacred popular music like black gospel music that there was for most of the history of contemporary christian music. it was very unusual for artists who in black gospel circles to chart there were very, very notable to that rule. but to your question, yes, there are many forms. and are there progressive forms of music? absolutely. one of the things that i look at in this book is the challenge for people who had popular music, progressive christian themes. they were not widely consumed by the of contemporary christian music. so there were always dissenting figures.

i think a notable one who did have success in contemporary music would be a figure named rich mullins, who had a very he he had a kind of a constantly developing idea of what it meant to a christian. and he expressed those ideas through song and also through pretty strident commentary on the world of contemporary christian music. so there were always figures the way one of the things that i enjoyed reading about the magazine contemporary christian music magazine, were industry people talking about the ideological, the lack ideological diversity in contemporary music. the industry folks themselves expressed at basically why why is it there? there's one op ed in the magazine that said, why is it that people just assume that all contemporary christian music artists are republican? why would we assume that why

should we assume that we should not assume, you know, but the consumers themselves largely purchased music that overlap very neatly with the republican so there are there are many forms and cornerstone was a haven for a lot of those dissenting voices and so there were smaller communities. but the market itself supported a fairly consistent outlook. thank you. thank you. hi there are people oh, thank you for this. i will just autobiographically i was a baylor university college student during this christian music heyday. so like, i didn't know i was in history in this way until. and i appreciate that. and so that's kind of the sum of the parts of my question. so while i was early 2000, it's

like right there, you know one of the things that became big with, some of these very influential bands like jars clay cavemen call either these scenarios is the wedding of humanitarian aid organizations with these contemporary christian music groups like. compassion international is suddenly showing up and being like, you're a college student, but for $8 a month, here is, another child that needs. right, you know, and anyway, so i was just out of that is is kind of this question we've talked a whole lot about social action, but also sort of the the conforming into the home purity, things like that. but humanitarian is like a service out there into the world. yes. and so this like a dissenting thing or was this is this just another wave of how revival can appropriate into, like social action abroad? is it an american like if you

know anything, this maybe this just a failure i don't know. no, no, no. it wasn't. no, no. so much for that question. yes. of the things that if you know anything about revivalist communities and the act of revival, you know that the pinnacle of revival meeting is an experience, an altar call and that is the moment if you've ever seen a billy graham crusade or footage of a billy graham crusade, that is a moment where usually like a really talented preacher when they give an altar, which is a an exhorting to the the people who there to come forward and to do some act. a lot of times has become an christian or. it could be in the holiness tradition becomes sanctified which meant to express the whole entire holiness of god. or if you come from the pentecostal tradition, it might be to come forward and all of a sudden receive baptism of the holy spirit, which means that you'd be speaking in tongues. it's very exciting moment that

moment in a revival meeting, and if you think about contemporary christian music as coming of that tradition, then it i think it helps you understand a contemporary music concert because a lot concerts were expected to include an altar call. there are very funny stories about who are uncomfortable with that, especially know like i'm a punk band, you know, i'm a punk artist. like then it's like, okay, i'm going to slow it down here for a minute and everybody to come forward, but conservative and evangelical activists noted is that that moment in a rock, if someone is asking you to act after they've been moved by music, they will they will act. and so that altar call became a really prized moment, especially for evangelical aid organizations. so from the, you know the earliest days of when contemporary christian music that term was coined organized like compassion and world partnered with contemporary christian music artists and

would sponsor their concerts. it's expensive to go on the road, so it was a mutually beneficial relationship wherein the contemporary christian music artists would give an altar and and solicit commitments toward providing that kind of aid. so one of the things i looked at is which kinds of aid thrived in that so things like in which kinds of activism. activism thrived in that altar call space. so organizations that their people to participate individual to individual so you said you know if you're going to i'm going to sign me personally, i will sign up to take care of one child across the world. those organizations did really well because it conformed to the kind of evangelicalism figures like billy graham were promoting, which was a very individualistic, personal relationship with jesus. and then you can have a personal relationship with another a child across the world, one of the fascinating things is in the early 2000, when a very

well-known artist in mainstream circles, bono partnered or solicited help from contemporary christian music artists to to promote aids relief and debt relief on the african continent, the artists, many of the artists themselves were really about it. one of the things that i talk about in the book though is how the congregation and the people who participated in the the revivalist tradition struggled with understanding the concept because it's one thing to say one child to another. it's another thing to say this a policy like an international policy issue and to be a faithful you need to call your senator or, you know, pass piece of legislation. it didn't really fit the altar. call space as well. so a lot of artists kind of workarounds for it so jars of clay for example really invested

they created an entire organization providing clean blood and water, which was a way of providing aids relief. that was also escaped kind of thorny questions for many evangelicals about the aids crisis and wasn't to, you know, just a few years earlier, many evangelicals were calling, you know, aids, the homosexual disease or something like that so they weren't too far removed from. aids being a an of sexuality which back to really question about like what what were some of the themes that were really popular christ in contemporary christian music so creative bands and artists figured out of providing aid that were more line with the were more easily communicated in that space. but i think that really speaks to the complexity of of that moment. so thank you so much for that question any other okay okay

well thank you all so for coming i really appreciate your time and thank you so much. thank you thank, you, leah. and we'd like to thank all of in the audience also for joining us today. lee is now happy to sign books, so she'll be at the table here if you could form a line here on the left