Andrew S. Thomas

I often get tired of hearing people bashing CCM for being shallow and money-grubbing, ineffective in its own self-stated purpose of “reaching the lost.” CCM was a big part of my spiritual formation as a “baby Christian,” and a lot of its influence still comes out in the music I write today, so you can probably understand a little of my defensiveness. Yes, there are problems with it (as with any intersection of faith, art, and business), but it just feels counter-productive to constantly whine about how bad it all is, when it’s seemingly ministering to lots of people.

Then I read something like this that makes me want to join in the chorus of dissent.

Where to begin?

Robert Beeson, Provident Label Group’s sr. vice president of A&R and executive producer for The Christ, elaborates, “It’s a natural and obvious parallel that people will make between our record and many of the movies coming out today that take a look at Christianity. We’re not affiliated with any of them, but it is impossible to take away the impact that these films are going to have on our world, and this is our response to what we believe is going to be a move of God.”

Read: “We wanted to release this to piggyback on the media hype surrounding Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, but we don’t want you to think we did.”

The project comprises three installations: His Passion-Remembering the Sacrifice, His Birth-Celebrating His Coming, and His Life-Embracing the Truth. All contain previously recorded City on Hill songs in addition to exclusive content.

They needed to push this thing out the door as soon as possible, since the movie’s releasing soon. Instead of taking the more challenging route of making it predominantly new material, they’re taking stuff from their last “trilogy” of popular modern worship CDs, City on a Hill, and re-sequencing it, cutting in a few new tracks to make it seem like something new and different. At least the cover design looks cool.

I’m sure that somewhere higher up on the Essential corporate ladder, this is a very sincere attempt to reach people, but it just comes off as a blatant attempt to follow in the Mel Gibson movie’s wake, and I can’t be the only one who sees it as such.

It’s stuff like this that makes me of two minds when it comes to Christian music…

Popularity: 10% [?]

This entry was posted Thursday, January 29th, 2004 at 10:45 am. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.