Jesus music

David Stowe has a new book about Christian pop music, and
he recently placed a teaser article as a New York Times op-ed.

Stowe's basic argument makes sense, though it's
unsurprising: Jesus came up more often in mainstream pop music before 1980 or
so, after which the growing Christian Contemporary Music industry--and its
association with social conservatism--created a "religious/secular rift in pop
music." Mainstream artists avoided Jesus because of his new cultural baggage,
and conservative evangelicals avoided mainstream music because they didn't need
it anymore.

That sounds about right as far as it goes. But as Tom
Beaudoin points out, classifying music as religious or
secular based on explicit references to Jesus is an awfully primitive
framework:

Jesus does not have to be named
in a song for people to take music into their prayer, meditation,
justice-seeking, discernment, wonder, creativity, and sense of the larger whole
of which their lives are a part. And even when Jesus is named, people do not
necessarily make of that anything significant for their religio-spiritual
practice.

The latter point Stowe acknowledges, noting that among
the Jesus references in the 60s and 70s, "few signaled a deep theological
commitment." (I'd add that the ones that were
somewhat more serious signaled
little else worth remembering--a world of strict religious/secular dualism has its
problems, but a world in which we have to hear "Eve of Destruction" on
the radio is far worse--but that's just me.)

Beaudoin's first point, however, is important: Jesus
name-drops aside, a lot of pop music speaks to religious concerns. This was
true in the 60s, and it's true today.

Occasionally such music even makes the top 40. Stowe
highlights Lady Gaga's "Judas"
as a striking (and 11th-hour) counterexample to his thesis. He might also have
mentioned U2 or even a shorter-lived success like Creed, both of which charted
high with thoroughly (if somewhat abstractly) religious material long after the
Religious Right and CCM emerged.

But in general, the biggest pop hits just don't have much
to say about anything. This, too, is
nothing new--which is why it's odd that Stowe uses Mike Huckabee's classic-rock
band alongside John Ashcroft's gospel-schmaltz hobby as examples of how
"popular music is a critical component in the new conservatism." What do Chuck
Berry covers have to do with "Let
the Eagle Soar," much less with the evangelical movement?

Traditional gospel, however, presents an interesting
case. Secular artists have drawn from old gospel music for decades--sincerely,
ironically or in some ambiguous combination of the two (see the Louvin
Brothers or, more recently, the Violent Femmes). Others
in folk and alt-country scenes play and even write gospel songs as a
religion-free way of honoring the traditional-music canon. A lot of this music
is relatively obscure; on the other hand, a whole lot of people have heard
someone's version of "Orphan
Girl."

Of course, I could list lots of small and medium-sized
bands that have spent their careers resisting the secular/religious divide in
one way or another, and a lot of you could help me. But Stowe's focus on
big-time, mainstream pop music isn't just a way to avoid most (again, not all)
exceptions to his thesis.

It also suggests that what's he's after has less to do
with a particular kind of music than with the overall pop-cultural zeitgeist.
"Jesus," he says, was "a highly resonant symbol for many '60s youth." That's a
lot less true today, and that says something--even if Beaudoin is right that
"the conversation in theology and popular culture is beyond" simple
distinctions based on explicit Jesus talk.

I wonder whether Stowe's thesis ultimately says more
about the symbol of Jesus in the 60s youth culture--or the reduced meaning of
symbols generally in today's--than
about evangelicalism or pop music in particular. I'll have to read the book to
find out.