{"id":2593,"date":"2009-02-09T10:52:58","date_gmt":"2009-02-09T10:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/the-futures-of-christian-rock.html"},"modified":"2009-02-09T10:52:58","modified_gmt":"2009-02-09T10:52:58","slug":"the-futures-of-christian-rock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/the-futures-of-christian-rock.html","title":{"rendered":"The Future of Christian Rock"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"tobymacpic.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/import\/imgs\/tobymacpic.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"236\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right;margin: 0 0 20px 20px\" \/><\/span>Christian rock\/rapper Toby Mac&#8217;s &#8220;Alive and Transported&#8221;  was not to be denied this year, at the Dove Awards this Spring or at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.grammy.com\/grammy_awards\/51st_show\/list.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Grammys<\/a> last night, when he took home the award for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album. Toby&#8217;s comeback album hit a nerve with young Christians with its message of inclusion and diversity wrapped in a bright pop package. What Toby is saying is what many evangelicals are thinking about these days: how to drop the us-versus-them posture and broaden the tent.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nThe answer may lie with some of tobyMac&#8217;s competition for the Grammy: bands like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/superchick\" target=\"_blank\">Superchick<\/a> with its European overtones and emo funk or hard-rocking <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/afteredmund\" target=\"_blank\">After Edmund<\/a>.<br \/>\nThese next-generation gospel rockers don&#8217;t hold anything back, and listening to them it&#8217;s hard to convince oneself they&#8217;d judge of anyone of whatever creed who might encounter their sound. Tell the  mainstream kids they are Christian, and you&#8217;ll get a shrug and a request to turn it up. As a result, pop music is becoming one place in the media culture where &#8220;Christian&#8221; is no longer a dirty word.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christian rock\/rapper Toby Mac&#8217;s &#8220;Alive and Transported&#8221; was not to be denied this year, at the Dove Awards this Spring or at the Grammys last night, when he took home the award for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album. Toby&#8217;s comeback album hit a nerve with young Christians with its message of inclusion and diversity&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-music","category-movies"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Future of Christian Rock<\/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\/2009\/02\/the-futures-of-christian-rock.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Future of Christian Rock\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Christian rock\/rapper Toby Mac&#8217;s &#8220;Alive and Transported&#8221; was not to be denied this year, at the Dove Awards this Spring or at the Grammys last night, when he took home the award for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album. Toby&#8217;s comeback album hit a nerve with young Christians with its message of inclusion and diversity&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/the-futures-of-christian-rock.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-09T10:52:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/tobymacpic.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Paul O&#039;Donnell\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Future of Christian Rock","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/the-futures-of-christian-rock.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Future of Christian Rock","og_description":"Christian rock\/rapper Toby Mac&#8217;s &#8220;Alive and Transported&#8221; was not to be denied this year, at the Dove Awards this Spring or at the Grammys last night, when he took home the award for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album. Toby&#8217;s comeback album hit a nerve with young Christians with its message of inclusion and diversity&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/the-futures-of-christian-rock.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2009-02-09T10:52:58+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/tobymacpic.jpg"}],"author":"Paul O'Donnell","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/the-futures-of-christian-rock.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/the-futures-of-christian-rock.html","name":"The Future of Christian Rock","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/the-futures-of-christian-rock.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/the-futures-of-christian-rock.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/tobymacpic.jpg","datePublished":"2009-02-09T10:52:58+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-09T10:52:58+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/a59300d59ee976fd192c2fce579ee2b9"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/the-futures-of-christian-rock.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/the-futures-of-christian-rock.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/the-futures-of-christian-rock.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/tobymacpic.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/tobymacpic.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/the-futures-of-christian-rock.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Future of Christian Rock"}]},{"@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\/a59300d59ee976fd192c2fce579ee2b9","name":"Paul O'Donnell","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/bdd\/bdd9d0254f1398197f333149ab55e3f1x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/bdd\/bdd9d0254f1398197f333149ab55e3f1x96.jpg","caption":"Paul O'Donnell"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/podonnell"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2593","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\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}