Christian music has undergone some major changes over the years. Most will tell you that modern Christian music was born of the Jesus movement. Christian artist Larry Norman was a pioneer in the early days of Christian music. In the mainstream music scene there was also a movement toward featuring Christ’s message in song. The band Ocean released a Christian song that even made it into the hot 100.
That God song “Put Your Hand in the Hand” was embraced by a large number of people. This popularity really served to deliver God's message to a secular audience. There was however unforeseen blow-back from fellow Christians. They feared that these bands were not capable of delivering the message in a good way. The resistance could not overpower the will of the people. Christian music started to gain momentum.
The poser effect started to take hold in Christian music. There were Christian songs being produced by bands who were lacking in the talent department. The demand was high, unfortunately the supply of talented Christian artists was lacking. Because of the demand they released Christian music that was very lacking in quality. I’m not sure if those bands were interested in actually delivering Christ’s message or it was just the only way someone would let them record an album. That is between the artists themselves and God.
In time Christian music started to see an influx of real talent. Performers who formerly hid their beliefs began to deliver the message. Christian songs of greater quality started being released. In 1972 a Christian band called Petra was formed. Petra was an influential band that essentially set the bar for musicians to come. Petra saw a great rise in popularity in the eighties.
Petra was still a very popular band well into the 90’s and beyond. Other styles of Christian music began to emerge. Christian performers were creating music in just about every style. The genre was finally filled with true talents.
The expansion of Christian music as genre was probably greatest in the nineties. These artists were able to adapt and grow with mainstream trends. Gangsta rap was also big at the time. Christian rappers like Tbone had an answer for that.
These days Christian music is a well established music genre. It’s no longer playing catch up with mainstream music. There are some Christian musicians who are even setting the trends themselves.
I never would have thought that I would see a day when Christian albums debut on the Billboard secular charts. Feature films even feature Christian songs on the soundtracks nowadays. The detractors will always be there. I just hope that people will ignore them and not miss out on this great music.
Learn more about God songs at http://godsongsblog.com/. See also this Christian music article for both sides of the debate.
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