Live Interactive Talk Radio on the Internet

By Brent Thomas
www.ColossiansThreeSixteen.com

Some time ago I wrote a piece entitled Who Says What’s Christian Music? in which I briefly examined the sad fact that the actual content of music has little to nothing to do with what is actually classified as “Christian” and “secular” music. Artists like Sufjan Stevens openly express their faith with artistic excellence but won’t be purchased in your local Christian bookstore because they dont play the marketing game. Meanwhile, Phillips, Craig and Dean, who openly deny the orthodox view of the Trinity are in every “Christian” bookstore because they do play the marketing game. Marketing rather than content determines what you can buy and where you can buy it.

Yet, even while marketing is the determining factor, many often implement misplaced boundaries, arguing that they will not listen to anything that is not “Christian.” More often than not, they mean that they bought it in a “Christian” bookstore, not the actual content of the material. The place of purchase determines the purchase rather than the content. The label tagged to the product becomes their discernment rather than applied Scripture.

The result is tremendous confusion. On one hand, we have “Christian” businesses determining what will and will not be sold in bookstores based on pure marketing rather than content. On the other hand, these stores are filled consumer who implicitly trust the fact that they purchased the item in a “Christian” store and they are determined to listen to nothing other than “Christian” music. The problem is larger than anyone seems to notice.

There is a tremendous disconnect in which a segment of population has lost all discernment, trusting marketers who don’t care about discernment, much less orthodoxy. As the marketers chase the dollar, their boundaries widen. As those boundaries expand, the consumer’s Scriptural discernment by necessity lowers because they are trusting people who care more about money than Scriptural fidelity.

The creation of a “Christian” sub-market has been devastating to the Church in America. Surrounded by a market-driven economy, we’ve never stopped to consider its devastating effects on the typical Christian life. By necessity, marketing appeals to the lowest common denominator. Marketers don’t want to alienate their consumers by making them feel dumb, so the bar is drastically lowered to a level where everyone can get it. Products are not longer actually comparing themselves, they are simply trying to evoke better emotions in advertising.

But what are the effects of such a culture on a segment of the marketing in which the content of a product is actually a matter of life and death (eternally)? What if the wrong content could actually lead people to hell rather than heaven, or vice versa? We might hope that in such a scenario, the marketers would be the most Scripturally discerning gate-keepers of us all, realizing their role in eternal perspectives, trying to protect their customers rather than milk them, striving for Scriptural integrity lest they should be found guilty. We might hope that, but that is certainly not what we find.

By creating a Christian sub-culture, marketers have positioned themselves exactly as the sort of gate-keepers just pictured. But the reality is that they simply ask for the magic marketing password rather than anything remotely Scriptural. They don’t care what you bring through the gate as long as you use some of the right words and line their pockets.

All the while, they have convinced many otherwise well-intentioned people into believing that since a book or an album was purchased in one of these stores that it must be safe. As the gate-keepers allow more and more travelers through, the consumers have lost sight of the fact that there is actually a difference between orthodoxy and heresy. While Benny Hinn and John MacArthur may be purchased in the same store, there is little else that would otherwise unite the two. But we’re increasingly finding consumers who not only don’t know the differences of beliefs between the two, they’re being told that those differences don’t matter; the two authors are just writing to different demographics.

While we certainly cannot blame the poor state of most of the American church on “Christian” marketers, most are certainly not helping the situation. Many are caught in the vicious circle of attending dead churches and being taken advantage of by money-hungry marketers. The marketers suck the discernment out of them and the churches do nothing to counter the attack, and everyone drifts farther from the Gospel, floating along on the dollar.

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