I sit here, cold in my own bedroom, thinking of what the next month might hold. I honestly cannot wait to get home. It’s not homesickness at all; I do not feel somehow dejected from Nashville. It is this feeling that something–and a most probable something, at that–may be the last of it’s kind for me. In the coming year, I suppose I will have a more intense exploration of that which will be my livelihood beyond May of 2007, and thoughts of the next year have given me an awful feeling of loss for what I’ve had all these years.

At times, I feel very nearly like one might feel entering C.S. Lewis’ Wood between Worlds. I am no longer in the world of my Childhood, though vestiges of that world stay with me. A token count of friends from that world are still with me. And though I carry the green ring around, peering at it longingly, and at times even testing it on my finger, I have yet to fully remain in Adulthood. Sure, at times I’ve tested it out to see how I like it, a bit of self-assurance that I could indeed survive in it, but I always manage to make it back to the safety of the Wood and then to the comfort of Childhood. And I’m sure it’s those comforts that I run back to. I haven’t much of an affection for the physical world of Childhood, and I’m almost certain I would gladly venture into Adulthood if only I could pack along all the comforts of the previous world. Again, not that I haven’t found comfort in Adulthood; I have merely become accustom–and quite fond, if I may say–to those comforts that often draw me back to Childhood.

At this very moment, I can feel the peaceful tension of the Wood, and it is where I will have to remain for the next week. I am only afraid that, once I’ve been back to Childhood for too long, it may not be so easy to reach once again for the yellow ring. But I must enjoy it while it lasts, for the rings may not be here for my pleasure in a bit more than a year’s time.

Here I am, living in Nashville–the capital of Country and Christian music. And I’m just in another one of those moods. I’m sitting in church, actually, running sound for the youth program this fine Sunday mornin’. As the high-schoolers file in, I’m watching the music video playing on the screen. The pre-screened, fully-approved, sanitized music video. It’s a song called Apparitions of Melody by the band Kids in the Way, a group akin to bands like The Juliana Theory or Mae. Anyway, it’s not particularly incredible. What catches my attention, though, is that this is approved. Frankly, I’m glad it’s now accepted in the Christian mainstream, but I’m very disturbed by the reasoning behind its acceptance. The hardcore-, screamer-, emo-type music groups are accepted by Christian labels, not because Christians feel that these are people of worth with real talent and quality music, but because Christians realized that they can use bands like Kids in the Way to “reach” the unchurched emo kids. Really, they must know that anyone that doesn’t go to church isn’t going to pickup an album that screams rather inartistic lyrics about how there’s a guy out there that knows how they feel. Christian label executives surely know they are really marketing this stuff to parents of these kids, parents that don’t know what else to do but buy clean music that claims to safely replicate the music their kids already enjoy. Until they stumbled on this brilliant idea, those weirdo emo kids just made Christians uncomfortable, and we can’t have that in the Church.

If the purpose is to reach unchurched kids, then why is all the marketing done in-house? Why are there so many concerts inside church buildings? Why are new releases flooding our youth ministers’ desks? Why did it take Switchfoot making it to a secular label before their music really took off?

The concept is so transparent, it’s laughable. And everyone outside the Christian music bubble can see it coming a mile away, but it seems that no one inside the Christian music industry can figure out why “Christian Music” (as if music itself were somehow saved, rather than a person’s soul) is the joke of the entertainment industry.

It’s completely the wrong approach! The most heartfelt music is always that which is honest, sometimes even painfully so. The first time I heard Nickel Creek’s Doubting Thomas, it brought me to a place of intimacy with the artist, a feeling of common understanding, and then to a long moment of introspection. But that kind of song would never be allowed on a “Christian” album. Why? Because the artist is honest about his questioning of God. Yes, that’s powerful music. But it’s not safe. Out-of-touch parents wouldn’t approve, they wouldn’t buy it for their kids. It wouldn’t sell. Not to the Christian market.

Perhaps that’s one word that can sum up the Christian music industry: safety. It’s all about the music being safe, clean, and sanitized. And it cannot exist any other way, for it cannot survive.

“Is he safe?”
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver… “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis