CCM, Magnolia, and the Temptations of Christian Subculture

Note: I’m glad to be back writing regularly at this space. Thank you for your well-wishes during my summer hiatus. I’ll have more to say soon about an upcoming book project, but for now I’m excited to return to regular writing. As always, thank you all very much for reading. -SDJ

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Separating artists from the art they make comes easy for me, except recently. The Michael Tait story is pushing me on that question in ways I’ve rarely felt pushed before. One thing that readers should understand is that 90s CCM is a kind of musical center for me. Hardly a week goes by where I don’t dip back in, either via my own collection or a Spotify playlist. Someone once said that cultural tastes are determined over something like a two-year span in our early teens, and then immovable forever. I’m breathing proof that there’s something to that.

Because of that, the allegations, confessions, and wider allegations around DC Talk’s best singer have sat heavy on me. Tait himself has confessed to the greatest substance of the accusations around him. There are video recordings impossible to interpret charitably. Whether or not every allegation that comes forth at this point is true—and I have no reason to think they’ll stop anytime soon—is beside the point. Tait, while one of the most visible icons of Christian subculture, inflicted an insatiable sexual appetite on many victims, often directly and sometimes through others whom he welcomed to join his sin.

The scope of Tait’s behavior raises serious questions about what his Christian bandmates, managers, stagehands, promoters, and fellow artists knew or didn’t know. We know that a member of the Newsboys tour team brought an inebriated woman back to his hotel room, and that Tait shared a laugh with him outside the closed door. We know that Tait’s reputation for sexual acts with younger men was well known in the Nashville area. We know that in years past former frontmen John James and Peter Furler both left the band suddenly, with James admitting years later an alcohol and drug habit that sounds suspiciously similar to recent allegations regarding life on the Tait-era Newsboys tour bus.

It feels less and less credible to think that the Newsboys, as a Christian pop culture institution, have been running a sincere operation that Tait alone was able to deceive and exploit. No, I think the truth is more incriminating than that: The Newsboys were a Christian pop culture institution that was providing opportunity and cover for its members to harm themselves and others through vice.

There’s a certain sort of evangelical who takes a victory lap at this kind of thing. This would appear to vindicate, they think, a deep distrust of “Christian rock,” and the “everything-is-spiritual” and “be a light to the world” mindset that seems to undergird Christian appropriation of pop culture. Isn’t this just more evidence—alongside theological deconstruction of Jennifer Knapp, Audrey Assad, and Michael Gungor—that the whole CCM project is a pretense for listening and living like the world?

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Earlier this summer, Christian subculture was dealt another, albeit less criminal, blow. Chip and Joanna Gaines revealed a new reality show on their Magnolia brand. This season of “Back on the Frontier” features a gay couple with adopted children. Many Christians objected to this, and the Gaineses have seemed sensitive but unmoved by the criticism. For what it’s worth, I think the Gaineses made a mistake, the kind of mistake that Christians whose wealth and fame unlocks elite society often make. Whether they have surrendered their convictions, or are misjudging the responsibilities of public faith, is a question I cannot answer.

But that’s not what I want to get at it. Instead, I’m more interested in takes like this, which I saw being flung around very freely. I’ve observed in the past that Christians whose brand is wokeness and those whose brand is anti-wokeness often treat pastors the exact same way: as untrustworthy covert agents whom you should probably be filming, in case you need to drag or sue them later. But Berry’s opinion here also makes a very interesting assumption that is relevant to our contemplation of CCM culture.

The idea that what happens inside the Gaineses’ multimillion dollar media empire reflects the successes or failures of their pastor contains within it a profoundly naïve idea about what typically happens to Christians who have wealth and power. The odds are astronomically high that the Gaineses did not consult their pastor at all about the decision to have a production company, much less the decision to make a reality show, and even much less what kind of contestants to have on it. Why? Because one of the first things you learn in this world is that holding onto money and fame requires a particular kind of life, and that particular kind of life is very, very inhospitable to deep presence at local church. It’s not that rich people never go to a church. It’s not that rich people never join a church. It’s that rich people do these things very seldom, precisely because wealth (and doubly so for fame) points a person in the opposite direction.

I’m speculating of course about Chip and Joanna Gaines. It’s entirely possible that their pastor was actively encouraging them to send a very confusing (at best) message. If that’s true, that raises a whole other set of questions. But I don’t think I’m speculating very far. The things that make spiritual formation in the church hard for two people with a hugely profitable media empire make it hard for popular CCM artists. Travel on Sunday—to close that deal, or perform that show—is nonnegotiable. Absence from small groups is practically a given. Having a summer lake home and a winter cottage means never getting your life and struggles exposed to the same group of people year in, year out. Instead, what you’re left with is private Bible reading (sometimes), podcast sermons (very occasional), but most of all, the inescapable sense that your Christianity is yours to have and to hold as best and as wisely as you can do it.

Imagine how this might apply to someone like Michael Tait. It’s theoretically possible that Tait has been a rapacious predator as long as anyone can remember. But I doubt it. More likely, Tait was a same-sex attracted Christian whose lust grew stronger as his career grew bigger. A sporadic parade of accountability partners eventually faded, and by the height of his celebrity, Tait was a lone ranger Christian with a vicious besetting sin, plentiful opportunities to satisfy it, and virtually no one in a position to force a reckoning.

Two points of application, briefly.

First, I think evangelical Christians have tended to avoid talking about the spiritual dangers of careerism and profit. For every sermon or article you’ve read about the dangers pornography poses to your marriage, how many have you read that make the same point about long office hours? Conservative Christians in particular can often come across like the only sin possible in one’s work life is laziness. But paying close attention to the lives of those whose large ministries have combusted tells a different story.

Second, all of this is a big reason why I continue to think meanly of Christian pragmatism in general, and Christian nationalism in particular. Giving someone who names the name of Jesus power and means does not sanctify the means. Again: power and wealth demand to be maintained, and the maintenance of power and wealth often occupies the same space that spiritual faithfulness in a church would be. If you want an accurate picture of what happens to the Christians when affluence pours in, don’t look at Constantine. For every one Council of Nicea, there’s ten thousand “God’s Not Dead” tours.

I get that not every criticism of “cultural Christianity” is legit. There are blessings, both positive and negative, to a society that pays even lip service to truth. But there are dangers, too, and long before the dangers come via LGBT couples on reality shows, they tend to come in more prosaic, economical ways. To be a Christian is, very often, to be radically at odds with everything that makes things richer, nicer, and more successful. And when the things getting richer, nice, and more successful are labeled Christian, this is very hard to see…until it’s too late.