I remember the bizarreness of that time in CCM. I was in a Christian college working at the student station, where we were getting people telling us Amy and Vince Gill were having an affair (and this was long before any divorce was made public). A month after the announcement I was at the Grant/Chapman farm watching Gary tape his CCM countdown show, and we were all told to not bring it up.

The double standard thing was on all of our minds, in part because we were seeing Amy's album pulled off radio and stores while LeAnn Rimes was being pushed to all of us, and Mariah Carey's Christmas album was everywhere in bookstores a few years prior. The formula for who is okay and who isn't still seems to be a total mystery to me.

Right with you Justin.

When my wife read this article, she commented that the editor in this story was being very "elder brother"ish. I thought that was a great insight.

When it comes to a divorce, for many people and denominations, a mere apology won't be enough anyway.

Having a divorce in your past is like having a scarlet letter for life, and that has nothing to do with CCM.

Fast forward to last month and Jennifer Knapp - what do you do with that?

Doug Pinnick, Jennifer Knapp, Ray Bolz, Katy Perry (who released a Christian album under the name "Katy Hudson" before reinventing herself)Amy Grant, Vince Gill, Country artist who occasionally record a Gospel album, Flyleaf, John Tesh, POD...

To me, it's all interconnected, but I haven't figured out how to put it all together into a coherent post. I'm letting it all ruminate and swim around in my mind right now, and maybe it all come out in some way that makes sense eventually...

People are very complex and we're all, to varying degrees, crooked deep down. So I don't have a strong take.

When I was a younger, new Christian (and, a male in his early twenties who thought he knew it all, so - in other words - a huge pain in the neck to most everybody and thank goodness the blogosphere wasn't invented then) I thought CCM was hypocritical. I was also a music snob but this statement had nothing to do with music. What really troubled me was not CCM, but the way people talked about CCM artists. In those days, Amy Grant was considered by many to be a nearly perfect person. I could tell from her music that she wasn't.

I grew to really appreciate CCM and I don't like it when people give blanket condemnations of the music labelled as CCM. These artists work hard, most are very talented, and there is a good deal of creativity out there. But they are still people. And here's the problem, and it's a catch-22: There is a lot of good coming from CCM, it brings many people closer to God (20-something know-it-alls like I was notwithstanding). And it is a vehicle for the unique genre of worship music.

But it's still a business. Anytime money and faith mix there are going to be a lot of contradictions, compromises, etc.

The answer to that is not, I don't think, to throw the baby out with the bathwater as some would suggest.

For me the best answer is to take CCM for what it is

- it's a lyrical-genre (not necessarily a musical genre) that isn't going away

- It is constantly changing, with past hard lines and barriers moving all over the place.

- God can and is using it in people's lives.

- It is not essential for faith but can be helpful.

- It is not evil-incarnate and it isn't ruining music any more than any other music producing industry is (again, this is directed at the former me)

- It is a label placed on musicians, producers, publishers, etc (and some don't want the label).

- CCM artists are artists, and many probably have spiritual gifts centered around creativity. Many of them don't have spiritual gifts centered around evangelism, pastoring, teaching, prophecy, or discernment, and we shouldn't expect them to any more than we expect that from anyone else.

- Most importantly, it is an industry, and we should not expect too much from it. At the end of the day, people are making money off of it. Amy Grant has made a fortune off of CCM, for instance. Doesn't make her bad or good. Just a fact. She is our sister in Christ and should be treated with the same grace as we would treat anyone else.

I agree with everything Bill and Jim said, but ...

Words have meaning. Singing songs about God's mercy and sin and forgiveness while living in open unrepentant sin is hypocritical (not talking about anyone specifically because I don't follow the details of any singer's life). We shouldn't look to CCM artists as "pastors, prophets, and shepherds," but what if they're preaching through the words to their music? What if they're preaching heresy? Or what if they're preaching truth but living a lie?

I don't have this all worked out either. It seems to me that the Jennifer Knapp deal (which I did read a little about on the internet) presents Chrisian retailers with a difficult decision. Do they sell the work oran artist who says that homosexuality is not a sin? It's not that homosexual behavior is any worse than any other sin; it's that she doesn't believe it's wrong at all. (As I understand)

If a talented Christian living in unrepentant sin wants to write a book and through that book explain to us all why he thinks that his particular sin is OK, should a Christian bookstore carry the book? I don't think so. How about if he writes a nice love story with no reference to whatever is going on in his life?

I don't know what you're referring to with Jennifer Knapp, I'm going to have to look that up. It sounds like I'm going to be sad - I like her.

With this topic, I always think of Leslie Phillips. She sang one of my favorite Christian songs ever "It's Your Kindness that Leads us to Repentance", then she went supposedly "secular" and became Sam Phillips, and was one of the the bad guys in "Die Hard 3" - that always kind of freaked me out........but I choose to believe she's still God's child.

I think the editor in the story is like a lot of Christians who like their "secular" and their "sacred" separate. According to that view - secular artists can't really sing about anything "Godly" because Christ does not reside in them.

Conversely, "sacred" or Christian artists need to mind their p's and q's and be above reproach in all things because they sing about Jesus.

That's just not my world view. Some of my favorite Christian lyrics in music are from secular artists who would not even call themselves Christians. And then you can flip it - some of the biggest bubblegum cr*p lyrics out there are on Christian albums.

I think the secular and the sacred reside together in our world - and we need to especially see art through that light - both ways.

Yeah, Amy Grant never owed me an apology. But the sort of irritating thing about this whole episode is how so many CCM artists go on and on about authenticity and integrity and artistic honesty but then prove they don't mean it. Here's what I mean: While married to Gary Chapman, Amy Grant records the "House of Love" album which is about sticking it out, loving your lover forever, even though storms come, etc etc. Of course, one of the songs on there was a duet with Vince Gill. :-/

So when the divorce became public and her public remarks were along the lines that Chapman wanted to keep trying to work it out b/c he's "traditional" -- as if that is a bad thing -- I realized she didn't really mean what she sang. The songs were just performances.

While married to one man she was singing songs about staying together forever with the man she eventually would leave her husband for. I think it's fair for her "customers" to think this was shady.

I apologize for my divorce. My husband cheated on me with a friend/shepherd’s wife. I lived through verbal abuse for years that worsened after he cheated the first time. I’m sorry for the divorce and breaking a promise to God.

Ummm now can I publish or have a CD?


BTW I love Vince! Go Okie dude and thanks for singing Go Rest High On That Mountain hearing it person brought tears to my eyes.

I think it's ridiculous for us to ever expect or demand an apology for any celebrity's actions. Unless that person has wronged me directly, there is no need for them to apologize or ask forgiveness from the masses. They only need do that with God and the parties directly involved.

Re: Amy Grant in particular, the whole thing with Vince made me uncomfortable, but I have no idea what happened in her marriage with Chapman. And it's none of my business. Period.

That said, how I choose to spend my time or money regarding said celebs in the wake of their public failures is my business. But aren't we to extend grace and forgiveness to our brothers and sisters? How can we withhold the very grace that God extends?

I think the reason a lot of Christians react so emotionally to her life, and to failings of Christian public figures in general, is personal shame. We know we're too sinful to model what's perceived as a good Christian life ourselves, so we come do depend on well-known Christians to display superhuman holiness so that we have somebody to point to when we make our rare attempts to evangelize. When one of them falls, we feel like they broke some kind of personal contract with us, a contract to make Jesus easier to sell, and a contract to shore up our own faith by example when we're weak. Not a healthy thing.

I'm sorry, but I'm troubled by the fact that they are selling music of people that committed adultry but refuse to sell the music of Ray Boltz and Jennifer Knapp, even their older music. The fact that they came out does not change the message or the original intent of the music, does it? If they had never come out noone would have ever known and their music would still be on the shelves. Throughout junior high and high school we used so many of Ray Boltz's songs like "Thank you" for skits and performances. Both artists have a great message in their music.

Bottom line... sin is sin... hate the sin, not the sinner. God is love and says to love one another. Why not reach out to these people and minister to them rather than condeming them? Show them God's love, not the hatred and judgement of Christians (which we shouldn't be doing!)

GIM:

You said it!! Why are so few critics asking the obvious-- did Gary force Amy's hand? She refuses to hit the tabloids with scandalous backstory about Gary, tho she probably could and be considered a better woman for clearing the air. YES-- Gary is on wife #3, and brags about her on his Facebook page. All the while promoting his Hymn of the Week program!

To me, the story has not been told, and Amy takes it on the chin for staying quiet. True, marrying Vince is not the best optics. But, let's say Gary was unfaithful, would that mean Amy is condemned to singlehood the rest of her life? We don't know, but it looks like he enjoys his women (and booze and pot...).

So, let's leave her alone-- she has been a rock and anchor to me thru her music for decades, and I love her to death.