Once I was out of the Christian music industry, I realized a lot of the damage that was done while I was in it. Music has historically been one of the most prominent and accessible forms of worship in Christianity. Music is a unifier that can transcend culture, language and distance. But what happens when that experience gets commodified? Enter the contemporary Christian music industry. Emerging as a genre in the late 60s, musician Larry Norman pioneered
contemporary Christian music as we know it today. He married his rock n roll style with a spiritual, Jesus-loving message and brought Christian music mainstream, kind of. Since then, CCM has grown into a multi-million dollar industry, encompassing nearly every musical style but united in one lyrical theme, praising the Lord. Between publishing, radio play, licensing
music to churches and live shows, this multifaceted industry is not slowing down. Major artists continue to sell out arenas, headline major festivals and even appear on the Ellen Show. Which is a whole thing... I was raised on Christian music. I know pretty much all the words to every DC Talk song, Switchfoot, Reliant K, Newsboys... Not to brag. But as I got older, I realized
that as a queer Christian, a lot of this music and the artists behind it would not be welcoming or affirming of who I am. So I set out to check in with the industry
as it stands today. In an industry that's built on faith, with the product being a deeper connection to God through music, who is being championed and who is being left behind? We all know Nashville is Music City, but it's not just country music they're exporting. Nashville is home to the majority of Christian artists, labels and publishing companies. It's a uniquely positioned city at the intersection of Bible Belt ideology and entertainment sensibilities. My first stop is at the home of Lauren DeLeary. Lauren and her sister performed in a Christian pop band called Love Collide. They were Juno Award-winning, touring artists
with three studio albums. Recently, Lauren began deconstructing her faith and pinpointing the ways her beliefs weren't compatible with the pressures of the Christian music industry. Being in the Christian music industry, obviously you have to adhere to purity culture, especially as girls. It's this weird fine line between, like, you have to obviously look cool, but also not be like revealing. I remember one time we were doing a show. I lifted my hands in worship and there was a picture where you can see like this much of my stomach. How dare you? Yeah, I know, right? I remember somebody tweeted at us and was like, "How can you consider yourself a Christian? How can you even say you're worshiping whenever you're making your brothers in Christ stumble with the skin that you're showing,
with midriff?" Is it true you can't jump and dance on stage? Yeah, yeah. People would complain about it. Men would. Right. And they would say it was too sexual. One of our singles, I Don't Want It,
the music video for it, we had paint dripping. There's one point where I'm singing and so there's paint dripping down on my face. And we got complaints that it looks like semen. Just out of curiosity, were these people... Have we confirmed that they are
aware of what semen... Looks like? Just, would be an interesting follow up because as far as I know, if it is hot pink, then you should see a doctor. It's just wild to me, that kind of stuff. Like to me, the modern Christian
message right now is like, "We are nothing, we are but worms!" Putting ourselves down so much and then looking
at a holy God, like... It's just all about this huge gap. While worship music can feel incredibly cathartic, the content of most popular songs is nonspecific and tends to rely heavily on generic formulas and a lot of times water metaphors. So Lauren and I gave ourselves a challenge. I think that we should write an "I Am The
Worm" worship song. Okay. "Oh, but I am worm," sort of as an example of the
cadence of Christian music that is easy to match. Yeah. Let's see if we can do it. Okay. In 10 minutes. Something like, "Glory you are not the... I will name my savior... You reach out to me..." Oh my gosh. You're just doing it. Okay, I love it. I love it, okay! Well, that's what... No, it's perfect! I'm not saying it's a great song. I'm just saying that it's the
structure of a worship song. It's wonderful. "Though I am not worthy..." Or something like, "Glory, ever undeserving." Ugh, it hurts me! I'm sorry! I'm thinking about, when do the hands go up
in the service? "And we will praise!" Yeah, so. "Holy father." Oh, yeah. It's sort of like a choose your own adventure of Christian buzzwords. Exactly! Yeah, "You rescue me." Oo, that's a good one. Something. "And we will praise you, holy father. And we adore you. You rescue me." Alright, back to glory. One more time! "Glory. No, I am not worthy..." And that's when that
harmony is full on. That's when it's full on. Guys, we have a minute to spare. Christian worship song, nine minutes or less! We did it! And what's a song without a music video? Lauren had shared some of the guidelines from an imaging standpoint. Modest, covered up, still trendy, but in like a Mumford and Sons way,
minimal movement. We did our best. "Glory, though I am not worthy. New with every morning. You shine down on me. And we will praise you, holy father. And we adore you. You rescue me." Let's write a song we care about! Next! So what do you want to write about? What you sing is what you meditate on. Yeah. And it's like, if you're just singing over
and over that you are unworthy, that's your meditation. To be honest, I don't think I've ever felt like there would ever be a place for someone like me in worship music. Yeah. Because I haven't seen it. To me, it's kind of just the
opposite of what we just did. I would love to hear a worship song that's saying, "I am worthy. I belong." So we started writing. And um...it took longer
than nine minutes. We took a break to get a fresh perspective. Hey! Hi. Come on in. This is Adam Palmer. He's a songwriter, musician, and former founding member of I Am They, a pop-acoustic worship group. After going through a divorce and enduring scorn and criticism from his community, Adam stepped away from the band. He's since been on his own journey,
navigating the industry with his own progressive and inclusive faith. I think without saying it, the average Christian listener wants the people on stage to be super Christian. They've really got the faith thing down. They're really dedicated and like, "I read my Bible every single day and night." They want that so that they can project that, oh, that exists. That it's attainable. It's attainable and look, they've done it. But really, I've found quite the opposite on
the road. Yeah. Most people are struggling in their faith. You don't have like a stable lifestyle. So you're always kind of in this flux of being confused with life. So questions and confusion is like part of the daily life when you're touring. I've heard much talk about the names assigned to different demographics
that Christian music targets. Yeah, it's real. And I want to hear for myself. There's like a family of people? Yes, excluding the dad. There's Becky, she's the mom that is really spoken to about the lyric of, I broke the heel off my shoe today, and the kids are making me late, and I have to clean up cheerios, and blah blah blah. And then you have Taylor,
which is a teenage girl, and she is targeted by heroes
of modesty and purity. They want to pour into her this ethic of her sexuality needs to be this sacred prize. And then what's the other demographic? Austin. It's the teenage boy. He's listening to the hard rock bands like Skillet and the tough Christian rock bands. You want to be presented safe angst. Safe angst?! Yeah. Please, kids practice angst safely. Safely! God-honoring angst. The demographic focus is primarily based on it reaching the mom. Because she's the one in the car
driving around the kids. Yeah. That's a fascinating implication as well. Yeah. Because it speaks into how
we view gender roles. Yup. And the culture. And what's the mom supposed to be doing? Well, she's supposed to be
raising the kids at home. Right. Doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room for like the mom that's out hustling and is the breadwinner. Yeah. Like that not a thing. Right. So, yeah, it's very one dimensional. For me, music is about finding community through shared human experiences, when a song gives voice to
something you thought that no one else could possibly understand. But whose hearts are being touched when the music is being written for imaginary, picture-perfect people? Whose stories aren't being heard? I headed out to meet Ricky Braddy, Lauren's friend from church. Ricky has spent the majority of his life as a professional worship singer and songwriter. He competed on Season 17 of The Voice and, frankly, has one of the best voices I've ever heard. When I was like four and five years old, my mom, dad, and sister
would sing at the church, and I would sit with my grandmother and sing every single word that they were singing. My mom homeschooled me so I could travel with a Christian singing group when I was 16, and that's when I realized, this is what I want to do. Ricky worked in almost every facet of the industry, touring consistently with gospel groups, singing backup for major artists, and even writing and recording under a record deal. But he found that being in the closet was stifling his creativity and motivation. He got off the road and accepted a position as the music leader for a church worship team. The pastor and I, we saw things differently, voted differently, but we were able to mutually respect each other and— Did they know that you were gay? He still believed, I guess, that it was there, but I wasn't pursuing it, any relationship or anything like that. And so I knew that I needed to
at least tell the pastor. There was a part of me that hoped, maybe naively, that because of the relationship that I'd had with the church for years, that they would say, "Okay, well, let's figure it out. You know, we love you. We appreciate your heart." Anything like that. And it was not the response. So you were fired. I was basically let go, yeah. I was given the option, almost, to stay and stay quiet, but not the option to stay and
be authentic and honest. I've done a lot of session work here in Nashville, mostly for Christian artists, like choral stuff. I'm now not called for those things anymore. Our second to last interview was with a major
Christian music label. We had a fine experience filming, but after we left it became clear that they were not comfortable with some of the questions I asked. Hint, it was the gay ones. Following a polite and respectful discourse, we've opted not to include the interview. But I won't deny that it's frustrating not to be able to have an open dialogue, and it's hurtful that this interview is perceived to
have been controversial. Honestly, we didn't really learn
anything especially new. There wasn't a major reveal in this interview. The only thing I can think of is that I asked about representation in the Christian music industry, and if there was space for a gay artist. And the answer that I received was basically like, "I don't know. To be determined. We don't talk about it. It doesn't really come up," which, honestly, I don't think is totally true. But that was the answer, and we moved on. And there were other questions that were asked as well. So there was a whole phone chain of freak out because I asked a question about representation and inclusion. I think that they don't want to
be included in this story. And by not being included, I think that already speaks volumes to what we've heard from other people. It's just pretty sad to think that someone walked away from the conversation we had and was like, I think this could be a problem, because the question isn't the problem, it's the fact that you're not having the conversation. It's the fact that you're complicit in this exclusion. That's the problem. We are on our way right now to talk with Dan from Jars of Clay. He was the lead singer. If you paid attention to contemporary Christian music at all growing up, like other cool kids like me, then, you know that Jars of Clay
was a huge band. They were staples of the Christian music industry. I'm curious about what a long career revealed to him about the nature of the industry. I'm Dan Haseltine and I am the singer for the band Jars of Clay. You were a pretty big band. We had a good run, I would say. We toured for about 22, 23 years. If you're reading the bio, it would say, multi-platinum, three time Grammy-winning band, Jars of Clay. Same. Yeah, you know. My bio too. In 2014, Jars of Clay faced backlash after Dan sent out a handful of tweets questioning why people were so adamantly
opposed to gay marriage. LifeWay and like all the outlets that sold
Christian music had pulled our Jars of Clay
stuff off the shelves. We had been disinvited from a bunch of the music festivals and things that we were supposed to do that year. Christian Radio had pulled our music off. They weren't gonna play it anymore. It was the backlash of the Christian community because I was asking questions about how we treat the LGBT community. The fact that I was asking the questions meant that we were unsafe now. That was the moment where I was just like, okay, I guess we're not going to have this conversation with this community of people. And yet, I look at it and I go, I think we were asking the right questions. I don't regret pushing that conversation forward. There weren't any other Christian artists that were having that conversation. There aren't. There still really aren't, you're right. There really aren't. Yeah. And it's just unfortunate because the other thing I learned from it was just there's so many people that have been hurt really badly by the church. Are there other artists that are sort of where you are but won't say anything publicly because— Yeah, I've got a list. I'll just— No, no, no. No, I'm kidding. I just mean that surely you can't be the only person who is questioning. A lot of artists that are still in the spotlight, they believe that way, but they're really not allowed to say it. At some point the value of an artist comes from telling the truth to lift another person up rather than keep a person oppressed. It makes me so sad because I think of music that was so there for me, that felt so comforting. Yeah. I almost have to redo some
of my childhood memories because there are artists that now I think back on the struggles
I was going through that I don't know would be there for me. I just have to wonder, who was it for? Was it for me in the closet? Like, who was it for? Would they have rathered that? Yeah, wow. Yeah. And I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, actually. I really am. You don't need to apologize. I know, well. But as just a— yeah. It pains me that that's how the story plays out. If you could make sort of a prediction, or maybe a speculation, on where you see the Christian music industry going and perhaps what would your hope be? I think there will be church music and that's sort of the worship music that exists. And then I think the artists that want to look at the world and describe it, they're just finding their space amongst all the other
artists in general music, which maybe is how it always should have been. The fact that we don't have a Christian artist speaking to the powerful
journey of coming out, coming into yourself, who God created you to be, that there isn't that... Like, I'll buy that album. Right. You know, I want to hear that story. Yeah. And maybe it's not on a Christian label. They might not be ready for that, but it won't make it any less divinely inspired if it finds its way into the world. I miss worship music. My goal, if, you know, I'm going to start
writing worship songs again is to write songs that I resonate with, and that people in my church could sing, and you can sing and not be stepping over bad theology or damaging messages. Sadly, I think the bridge was
burned just by coming out, but it's met with an overwhelming amount of peace knowing that I am exactly where I need to be. Everything that I create, music and otherwise, is going to come from a place of complete honesty and oneness with myself and my creator. We know the resilience of the human spirit. We will always find a way. And I think that's what I'm excited and hopeful for. And that's what I've learned in my time in Nashville. And also letting people know if you're gay, you can still listen to Jars of Clay. Great, yeah. Don't worry. It's okay. It's true, yes. You never left me and I believe I'm worthy, and you couldn't be closer. I see the light breaking through, so I'm gonna break free. Oh your love, wide as a river for me. Oh your love, deeper than an ocean rising for me. Thank you for watching Refinery29. For more videos, click here. And to subscribe, click here.
I totally missed jars of clay getting cancelled. I like them even more now
I'm laughing because as a teenager, I was a total Austin when I was supposed to be a Taylor. I just wonder where "Christian Hip Hop" fits between all these demographics...
Loved it! Her list of 00s CCM was a real flashback.
I was a little disappointed that Grace did not mention Vicky Beeching though, at least by name, as she was a CCM artist who came out and wrote a book about it. Only bc Grace was saying how there had been no CCM artist that has told the story of coming out. Admittedly, even counting Beeching there are sadly so few.
And wow... how damaging is the christian family archetypes o.o