Is ‘Christian’ Music Truly Christian?

Christmas is a peak season for Christian worship music in the United States, with billions of streams on platforms like Spotify and a massive presence on Billboard’s Hot 100 and Holiday charts. Even outside the seasonal spike, Christian and gospel worship music is becoming more popular. According to industry data and analytics company Luminate’s 2025 Midyear Report, two contemporary Christian music songs—Frank’s “Your Way’s Better” and Lake’s “Hard Fought Hallelujah” with Jelly Roll—broke through the Billboard Hot 100’s all-genre Top 40 list for the first time in 11 years. This places these two songs in direct competition with mainstream artists.

Does this mean America is getting closer to God?

“It is one of the most surprising music stories of the year,” the Associated Press reports in “How Christian Artists Are Winning Over Listeners and Entering Pop’s Mainstream.” “While streams of new music—releases from the last 18 months—were down from last year, one genre is on the rise: Christian and gospel music, according to industry data and analytics company Luminate’s 2025 Midyear Report. Jaime Marconette, Luminate’s vice president of music insights and industry relations, said the shift is led by acts like Forrest Frank, Brandon Lake and Elevation Worship, who are connecting with a ‘younger, streaming-forward fan base’ that’s 60 percent female and 30 percent millennial.”

This sounds like a positive development, but when you dig deeper, you find the rise in Christian music’s popularity is largely due to Christian music becoming more worldly, not because worldly people are becoming more Christian.

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“Christian music (is) unlike any other genre that’s defined by a sonic component. Christian music is defined by its lyrical component,” says Holly Zabka, the president of Provident Entertainment, a Sony Christian music subsidiary. “It’s not limited to a narrow definition. It’s a lyrical component that can appeal to anyone’s musical preference.”

The idea is that God needs to meet people on their level, wherever they are, and adapt His ideas to suit their preferences. In yesterday’s Trumpet Brief, I described how Nicki Minaj, a hip-hop star famous for rapping profanity and overt sexuality, is now the darling of Turning Point usa. Somehow her immoral brand is now part of America’s “religious resurgence.”

Zabka told the Associated Press that she is interested in pursuing artists who “don’t have to fit within that narrow lane of Christian bookstore and Christian radio. It can be rap, hip-hop, it can be rock, it can be country, and that’s appealing to a broader audience because it’s what they’re already listening to.”

In other words, if Christians can make their music sound more like worldly music that is already popular, they may be able to convince more people to acknowledge Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.

The problem with the strategy is that Christ called His followers out of this world (John 17:16). He did not invite the world into His Church.

“I think there really is a revival happening in America right now where people are being re-presented the gospel in a digestible way,” Jelly Roll (real name Jason DeFord) said. “And it doesn’t seem as finger-waggy. … I really don’t care when the organized religions wave their finger at me. I’m just glad to see the message, the gospel, getting presented.”

What gospel is this man talking about? Jesus Christ’s gospel message was, “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). Jesus did not self-righteously wag His finger at people, but He did emphatically point out sin that needed to be repented of and the urgency of believing and obeying God’s laws. That is not the message of “Hard Fought Hallelujah.”

Many Christians today have been seduced by the idea that Jesus’s love for them while they were yet sinners (Romans 5:8) means they can remain sinners. In fact, many Christians today don’t even really know what sin is.

PJ Media published an article today titled “The Joy of Christmas,” which states: “Every human relationship is built on trust, and that trust depends on having faith in the inherent goodness of people. That ‘goodness’ is spiritual in nature, and cannot be produced by the inanimate laws of the universe. Again, atheists will argue that our ‘goodness’ is self-interest masked as altruism. Hence, we don’t break the law not because we’re ‘good,’ but because it isn’t worth risking the consequences. We take care of our children not because we’re ‘good,’ but because it is hard-wired into our biology to successfully propagate our species. But again, this argument only goes so far. If the propagation of the species drove every act of our goodness, this wouldn’t explain why we help homeless people.”

Is this true? The Bible tells us that “there is none good but one, that is, God” (Matthew 19:17), so the point about “goodness” being a spiritual quality that cannot be produced “by the inanimate laws of the universe” is valid. But the point about “the inherent goodness of people” is absolutely false. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Human beings have no inherent goodness apart from God.

From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible reveals that there is good and there is evil; they do not change, and they do not overlap. It establishes that sin—even when it seems appealing—is always destructive and that human beings, with God’s help, must resist it at all costs. The Bible says each of us must repent of sin, be baptized, and begin using God’s Holy Spirit to believe and obey God.

The fact that the editorial team at PJ Media does not know this goes a long way toward explaining why American Christians want to blend God with the world. They think human nature is “inherently good”; therefore, they don’t see the need for repentance. Their religion is about the emotional feeling they get when they hear a Christmas song about Jesus, but they do not actually want to heed the message that Jesus preached: “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

We must believe not only in Jesus as Savior but also the gospel He preached—the gospel of the soon-coming Kingdom of God. Here, then, is the Bible’s formula for becoming a true Christian: repentance from sin, belief in Christ and His gospel message, and baptism, an ordinance symbolizing faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

Once these conditions are met, God stands bound by His promise to put within the repentant believer His Spirit of love, faith, understanding, gentleness and goodness. It is the down payment of our eternal inheritance. Yes, Jesus Christ is the true and only Savior, and we must worship Him and God the Father the way they have revealed in the Bible, not our own way.

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