Commentary

As millions of baseball fans watched, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and other legends dominated the game in the first half of the century. Few knew of men like Rube Foster or Cool Papa Bell, who were never allowed one pitch at the Sultan of Swat or a single swing at a Walter Johnson fastball.
>The Negro Leagues, borne from a culture of segregation, thrived as the result of collusion on the part of men like Commissioner Kennesaw 'Mountain' Landis and Negro League team owners whose financial well-being rested on the comfortable arrangement. The Major Leagues remained all-white, and the Negro League owners made money. The African-American players, who wanted to be baseball players, not Negro baseball players--and the fans--were the losers.
The color barrier is gone today, but there is an analogy to be found in the world of music. As with baseball, strange bedfellows have colluded to keep musicians with Christian beliefs in the modern-day equivalent of the Negro Leagues--the contemporary Christian music (CCM) industry.
This cooperation between the religious and the secular industries means that most Americans have never heard the music of brilliant artists like Larry Norman, Steve Taylor, Charlie Peacock, Ken Tamplin, John Elefante, Paul Clark, Russ Taff, Phil Keaggy, Rex Carroll, Randy Stonehill, and hundreds of others whose only 'sin' was faith and the refusal to exclude it from their music.
The arrangement worked nicely and the formula was simple: Explicitly Christian lyrics bring in more airplay on Christian stations--and more money. Artists who happened to be Christians were signed to Christian record labels and encouraged to write one-dimensional God songs. Struggles of faith were allowed, but preferably if a conclusion had been reached.
Not content to simply sign new acts, the CCM world pulled artists like B.J. Thomas, Mark Farner, Joe English of Wings, Barry McGuire, Leon Patillo of Santana, Richie Furay, Dan Peek of America, Al Green, Rick Cua of the Outlaws, Dion, and Philip Bailey out of mainstream music to 'sing for the Lord.' As they did, it quickly became apparent that they were doing so exclusively for fellow believers.
The difficulty of the CCM concept would be exposed when rap, bluegrass, and metal were all housed under its tent. As artists of faith were effectively silenced in terms of having any significant impact on pop music culture, the real irony was that the censorship was largely a self-imposed one.
Pat Boone's recent misadventures were good for a few laughs on late-night television, but as Mr. CCM himself jumps back into popular music culture, he is reflecting a new pattern among artists of faith--something performers like Donna Summer have been doing all along: keeping the faith without leaving the mainstream musical marketplace of ideas. Summer is the new role model for artists of faith as the wall separating Christian faith and popular music crumbles.
In 1994, shock rocker Alice Cooper announced his conversion with lyrics like, 'What about Christ/What about peace/What about love, what about faith in God above . . .' Significantly, Cooper made his record for Epic and let his music do the talking.
Foreigner regrouped with a new album and a recently born-again lead singer, Lou Gramm, who refused to retreat to CCM. Al Green recently re-emerged on the mainstream BMG label with a collection that mixed wholesome songs about love and life with obvious references to his faith commitment. Mark Farner and Grand Funk have similarly re-emerged, as have artists like Sam Phillips and Julie Miller.
Not only are well-known artists refusing to be lost in the CCM world, so are new artists who want to avoid cultural segregation at all costs. Rockers like Lenny Kravitz, Extreme, King's X, Galactic Cowboys, Collective Soul, the Tories, Judson Spence, Moby, U2, and others have peppered their records with statements of faith while remaining in mainstream music.
A clear indication of the power of this surge came at the Grammys, when Eric Clapton's 'Change The World,' written by three veterans of the CCM world, was voted record of the year. Clearer still has been the success of Bob Carlisle's song 'Butterfly Kisses,' which put a dagger through the heart of the widespread untruth that a song that speaks of God or Jesus will not be accepted by mainstream radio.
As these and other artists of faith enter the mainstream music culture, they face the challenge of creating art illuminated by their faith, rather than fashioning propaganda. And as the wall that separates CCM from mainstream music continues to crumble and new alliances are formed--not unlike what Roy Campanella, Jackie Robinson, and Lou Brock achieved--artists like Carlisle, dc Talk, Jars Of Clay, Third Day, Newsboys, and mxpx (which recently linked with A&M Records) lead the way for a generation of artists of faith who refuse to be silenced or sidelined.
(c) BPI Communications, 1997 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED