{"id":237,"date":"2006-03-30T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-03-30T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/when-is-a-group-of-christians.html"},"modified":"2006-03-30T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-03-30T12:00:00","slug":"when-is-a-group-of-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/when-is-a-group-of-christians.html","title":{"rendered":"When Is a Group of Christians Not a Christian Group?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/mutemath1.jpg\" style=\"margin-right: 8px\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" \/>The category \u201cChristian rockers whose band is not Christian\u201d\u2014think Scott Stapp, or P.O.D.&#8211;is getting less exclusive every day. But at least one band is willing to sue to get on it. Mute Math, a Louisiana prog-rock group, is suing Warner Brothers for labeling them a Christian band. Headed by Paul Meany, formerly of the out-Christian act <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/music\/reviews\/2004\/theriseofmodernsimulation.html\" target=\"_new\">Earthsuit<\/a>, Mute Math played to raves at Christian festivals over the summer and opened for Mae, a Christian band, last fall. But when Warner released their EP on its Christian subsidiary, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wordrecords.com\/\" target=\"_new\">Word Records<\/a> instead of one of their mainstream labels, the band balked, first putting their full album out on a label co-owned by Meany called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.teleprompt.com\/\" target=\"_new\">Teleprompt<\/a>, then filing suit.<\/p>\n<p>Naturally, the band&#8217;s move has bred <a href=\"http:\/\/americandaily.com\/article\/12306\" target=\"_new\">resentment<\/a> in the evangelical ranks that calling any entity Christian is a litigatable offense. But think of the upside: the case may yield a court-approved definition of the term \u201cChristian band.\u201d A Mute Math spokesperson sketched out a sort of negative definition in saying what Mute Math is not: &#8220;Mute Math is not a worship artist. They don&#8217;t preach from (the) stage. They don&#8217;t preach in their interviews.&#8221; That\u2019s a start. But Meany himself intimates there\u2019s more to the distinction when he told <a href=\"http:\/\/localnewsleader.com\/jackson\/stories\/index.php?action=fullnews&amp;id=152983\" target=\"_new\">Billboard<\/a>, \u201cI had no desire to be the Christian version of a real band.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;padding-bottom:0.25em\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The category \u201cChristian rockers whose band is not Christian\u201d\u2014think Scott Stapp, or P.O.D.&#8211;is getting less exclusive every day. But at least one band is willing to sue to get on it. Mute Math, a Louisiana prog-rock group, is suing Warner Brothers for labeling them a Christian band. Headed by Paul Meany, formerly of the out-Christian&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":275,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>When Is a Group of Christians Not a Christian Group?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/when-is-a-group-of-christians.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When Is a Group of Christians Not a Christian Group?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The category \u201cChristian rockers whose band is not Christian\u201d\u2014think Scott Stapp, or P.O.D.&#8211;is getting less exclusive every day. But at least one band is willing to sue to get on it. Mute Math, a Louisiana prog-rock group, is suing Warner Brothers for labeling them a Christian band. 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But at least one band is willing to sue to get on it. Mute Math, a Louisiana prog-rock group, is suing Warner Brothers for labeling them a Christian band. Headed by Paul Meany, formerly of the out-Christian&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/when-is-a-group-of-christians.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2006-03-30T12:00:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/mutemath1.jpg"}],"author":"burb","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/when-is-a-group-of-christians.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/when-is-a-group-of-christians.html","name":"When Is a Group of Christians Not a Christian Group?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/when-is-a-group-of-christians.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/when-is-a-group-of-christians.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/mutemath1.jpg","datePublished":"2006-03-30T12:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-03-30T12:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/712e98c75f8fee807fba226a8bfa2bd8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/when-is-a-group-of-christians.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/when-is-a-group-of-christians.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/when-is-a-group-of-christians.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/mutemath1.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/mutemath1.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/when-is-a-group-of-christians.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"When Is a Group of Christians Not a Christian Group?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/712e98c75f8fee807fba226a8bfa2bd8","name":"burb","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"burb"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/burb"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}