Apostles of Rock: The Splintered World of Contemporary Christian Music. - Review - book review

Apostles of Rock: The Splintered World of Contemporary Christian Music by JAY R. HOWARD AND JOHN M. STRECK. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1999, 299+vii pp., $29.95.

In this book, Howard and Streck employ Becker's "art world" paradigm to examine contemporary Christian music (CCM). The authors describe three different camps within CCM, which correspond to divisions within evangelical Christianity. Howard and Streck analyze the public discourse surrounding contemporary Christian music to discover the meanings that recording artists and other industry personnel attribute to their activities. They argue that contemporary Christian music "represents a microcosm of the contemporary evangelical religious experience" (p. 6).

Contemporary Christian artists provide aesthetic justifications for their music in religious terms. In so doing, they must face such questions as: What makes an artist (or a song) Christian? What is the purpose of Christian music? What is the proper relationship of Christian artists to their audience, and to commerce? Howard and Streck argue that three different approaches to CCM -- which they term separational, integrational, and transformational -- each have a particular set of answers to these questions.

The dominant segment of contemporary Christian music consists of "separational" CCM. Separational artists see the main purpose of Christian music as "ministry" and therefore tend to see commercial success as inconsistent with their values. These artists are frequently criticized on the grounds that their work is musically banal and lyrically cliche-ridden.

Integrational artists view Christian music as entertainment that, while not explicitly "Christian" in content, is consistent with Christian values. They legitimate their music as a wholesome alternative to mainstream pop music, and as a way to present a Christian worldview within the marketplace of ideas. Within this view, commercial success is virtually equivalent with "spiritual" success, conceived as connection to the audience. Integrational artists often seek to enter the mainstream pop music arena -- Amy Grant is the most notable example. These artists are often criticized for watering down the religious message into "positive pop" in order to sell records.

Transformational CCM artists take an "art for art's sake" approach to the music, tending to write in personal rather than general terms. They often use their music to critique both religious and secular society, including contemporary Christian music. Transformational artists have found a very small audience, and tend to view commercial success as antithetical to their purposes. They are often criticized by others in the CCM world as "self-indulgent, condescending, or irrelevantly 'political"' (p. 144).

Howard and Streck provide a detailed description of the three separate camps within the "splintered art world" of contemporary Christian music. They illustrate how participants in each camp describe different motivations, rationales, and purposes behind their work. The authors also show how CCM participants operating within one approach tend to misunderstand and criticize those operating under different assumptions, and how the three approaches to CCM mirror divisions within American evangelicalism.

The strength of Apostles of rock lies in its emphasis on discourse. The data come primarily from contemporary Christian magazines and trade publications, supplemented by interviews with CCM participants. The researchers focus on the meanings and rationales that participants ascribe to their activities, rather than trying to uncover some "underlying reality." By starting from their respondents' understandings, Howard and Streck construct categories that are firmly grounded in the practices of the CCM world.

While the analysis of CCM as an "art world" is useful for understanding how CCM participants give meaning to their activities, it fails to locate contemporary Christian music within a larger historical and social context. The reader is left to wonder how the political rhetoric of family values, for example, influences or is influenced by the world of contemporary Christian music. While the authors do discuss the economic expansion of the Christian music industry, they fail to compare this expansion to broader economic trends.

Further, Howard and Streck make few explicit ties to sociological theory beyond Becker's (1982) Art worlds. This may reflect the intended audience for the book, presumably a lay audience rather than academic sociologists. However, the authors could benefit by situating their argument more explicitly within the sociological work on culture and religion.

Apostles of rock offers a thorough description of the art world of contemporary Christian music. Despite its limitations, this work aptly demonstrates how value systems inform cultural production. The reader is left with a deeper understanding of the ways that cultural objects embody values.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Association for the Sociology of Religion
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