There’s a telling post over on Colossians Three Sixteen today about the band Switchfoot–more accurately it’s about Christian artists and Christian music, but Switchfoot is the illustration. It’s obvious Brent has a bias against the band, but his post is thought provoking and worth looking at. His information comes from a book called Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon of Christian Rock by Andrew Beaujon.
Many so-called “Christian” artists have have purportedly “crossed over” into the “mainstream” market (reinforcing the notion that the “Christian” market is nothing more than a niche market, but that’s for another day). Some of these artists have had varying degrees of commercial success while others have had varying degrees of success living out their faith in the public eye.
He then goes on to talk about something that troubled him–an interview Beaujon had with Switchfoot.
Setting up an interview with Switchfoot was not easy. The band’s publicist was concerned that I would portray them as Christian rockers, which seemed like a curious concern when the band in question was playing at a Christian rock festival, but it’s quite a serious matter when that same band has crossed over to what Christians call the ‘general market.’
What’s interesting here is exactly what Beaujon so keenly points out. Many artists do not want to be known as Christians, even while playing Christian venues to Christians. Beaujon continues, recounting a discussion with Switchfoot member Jonathan Foreman:
I asked if this was the only Christian event Switchfoot played.
He lowered his eyes.
“You have to be – the thing is, when you’re talking about Switchfoot, you’re talking about music that we’ve fought really hard to keep out of boxes,” he said.
I’m not interesting in ‘proving’ you guys are a Christian rock band,” I told him. “But this is a Christian festival.”
“That’s the thing,” he replied. “If we’re gonna stay out of the box, we’re gonna have to be very conscientious of what everything is saying. Even opening up for Kid Rock [which they had done earlier that year] says something. Like everything in life, any relationship is a compromise. But where we’re at right now, we’re fortunate enough to pick the shots, and this is one of the festivals that, for the most part, it’s a lot of people that are, you know, searching spiritually. It’s actually a bunch of people that want to see the world change for the beter. I don’t know, that’s important to me.”
Beaujon concludes:
Foreman’s insistence that Switchfoot came to Cornerstone to connect with these radicals was beginning to sound more and more like cognitive dissonance. Especially in light of the fact that the same summer, Switchfoot played at two other Christian festivals and showed up for the Dove Awards – the Christian Grammys – where they took home three statues. It’s easy to understand why Switchfoot would want to avoid being known as a Christian rock band, but they also seemed to want to have it both ways.
This is unfortunately becoming all too common in our society. They can’t (won’t?) articulate their faith because they may lose fans. They accept the Christian awards and enjoy the success their music receives from airtime on stations like KLOVE or Way FM. But at a Christian festival they have to be “outside the box.” They don’t want the label. If that’s how they act at a Christian festival, how do they act when they open for Kid Rock?
Brent said it all much better than I ever could. Read his post and comment over there.
Tags: Christianity, Switchfoot, Music, CCM
