I gave up on Christian radio a long time ago because it was the sugary and sappy equivalent of Top 40 radio. The same song over and over. The same lazy games and quizzes over and over. Boring!!!

As I began to think that being a Christian means being creational, of doing something new, different, and beautiful, Christian radio seemed like it was Christian in name only. Music is primarily about art, not about a "safe family environment." Good Christian music made by artists, not pop music copy cats, are about as far apart as the Metropolitan Museum of Art is from Disneyland. Disneyland is so contrived and pop induced it is gag worthy.

My father made a similar, equally justifiable comment when we toured the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. He posed the question to me of whether Warhol created art at all. I offered that my father's reaction was the whole point of Warhol's work: consumerism had devalued art so much that people were finding artistic value in his paintings of soup cans, but it is hard not to just accept that it wasn't really art at all but cool copy-cat derivatives. People liked his art because he was a celebrity, not because he necessarily made amazing art work. He was contriving the contrivers, and people got a kick out of seeing beautiful consumer goods. Warhol captured the modernist paradox of the lowest common denominator: the devaluation of art into something so bland it can be marketed to every demographic. Lamentably, I think Christian radio has gone the same way.

Not to be alone, Chad Hall wrote a great essay on why he is Tuning Out Christian Radio. A great quote:

"I’ve noticed Christian radio becoming, for me, a sort of faith vending machine. Need some encouragement? Just push a button! I suspect that too frequent exposure to otherwise fine music hackneys that music and causes spiritual satisfaction to become one more commodity in my life. This makes real corporate worship feel like an imitation of the canned radio versions of the songs. Plus, it keeps me from developing truly nourishing habits. After all, who needs real corporate worship and challenging formative disciplines when I can just tune my radio dial and get a quick God fix?"

What is so destructive about Christian radio and TV is the wall built between congregation and individual. The whole media of worship as radio or TV disconnects one from the body. Paul has written that we are tied together as one body in community, and these ties should be made of hand-shakes, holy kisses, hugs, tears, singing, prayer, silence, and communion. None of those things happen over the radio or TV.

Media is a tool that can be used in a corporate setting. But when media forms a barrier between relationships and fellowship, when it becomes a "little bird" in our ear telling us what we want to hear (like in Fahrenheit 451), then media begins to distort reality and encapsulate us in our own contrived, individualistic worlds. ... more