{"id":650,"date":"2006-11-06T13:12:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-06T13:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/when-is-jesus-band-not-jesus-band.html"},"modified":"2006-11-06T13:12:00","modified_gmt":"2006-11-06T13:12:00","slug":"when-is-jesus-band-not-jesus-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/when-is-jesus-band-not-jesus-band.html","title":{"rendered":"When Is a Jesus Band Not a Jesus Band?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The question used to be, can a Jesus band ever not sing about Jesus? These days, the question, asked by The Denver Post’s Ricardo Baca, has become<\/a>: Can a band sing about Jesus without being called a Jesus band?<\/p>\n

Baca sympathizes with Michael Nau, lead singer for Maryland soft rockers Page France, who says he’s tired of the presumption that he’s preaching. The group’s new album<\/a> does have songs titled “Jesus” and “Bush” (as in “burning”) but they are hardly an altar call. “Jesus will come through the ground, so dirty \/ With worms in his hair and a hand so sturdy,” Nau sings on “Jesus.” If Sabbath growled those lyrics, no one would think twice.<\/p>\n

As Hanna Rosin points out in a round-up of recent books about Christian kids on Slate, evangelicals no longer demand a clean-cut Christian decorum from its youth culture. Neither, increasingly does the broader audience. Sufjan Stevens, Pedro the Lion’s Dave Bazan, and other rockers-who-are Christian may get pigeonholed, but it matters less and less to anyone.<\/p>\n

But we’re still in transition. In the same piece, Baca quotes Andrew Beaujon, author of “Body Piercing Saved My Life<\/a>,” about modern Christian rockers, who says, “It’s a really big choice for a lot of Christian musicians: Are we a Christian band or are we Christians in a band.” But artists like Nau are giving the lie to statements like that. The only real question anymore is: Are they good?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The question used to be, can a Jesus band ever not sing about Jesus? These days, the question, asked by The Denver Post’s Ricardo Baca, has become: Can a band sing about Jesus without being called a Jesus band? 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