T
Theophilus777
Guest
CCM is an evangelical protestant phenomenon. John Michael Talbot was CCM, or rather, his first two albums were. By the time he’d been converted to Catholicism and released “The Lord’s Supper,” he’d developed a following as well as already having a contract with Sparrow/Birdwing Records, and well may have been the only practicing Catholic musician to ever be signed by them. If you look at the history of CCM, you’ll find that all the key players, such as Larry Norman, Randy Stonehill, Phil Keaggy, et al, were all Protestant evangelical and as the genre grew, it stayed within those boundaries. Keith Green was probably the first of the Christian Contemporary artists to put out openly anti-Catholic literature(The Catholic Chronicle series of pamphlets), that is, before he died in a tragic plane crash only a few years later.
What happened was that as CCM grew as a cultural force, protestant church groups and in some cases, entire denominations, threw as much weight(and financial resources) into it as they could, and thus record companies and distributors were formed and birthed. It’s odd but Catholics have not been as militant a force in the growth of the Christian music industry, perhaps because of whatever prevailing anti-Catholic sentiment exists within evangelical circles, but perhaps because the Church herself hasn’t really embraced it as much more than a peripheral phenomenon. I’m not saying that is a bad thing. But that it is what has happened.
Consider the whole idea of having a CCM concert at your parish. In a Protestant church, they would put it right there in the “church building” and it would be promoted as a time of worship and entertainment. The whole nature of Protestant worship facillitates that, but Catholic worship really wouldn’t facillitate it because the nature of Catholic worship is much different.
Believe me, I could write reams about this but I’ll try to be brief. There is a vast gulf between Protestantism and Catholicism, not only in terms of doctrine and belief, but in terms of cultural norms and differing perspectives about things such as what is sacred and what is secular. A “Bible” church has nothing sacramental in their perspective of life and thus they live as if the sacred and the profane were interchangeable. So they don’t make much of a distinction between music and entertainment and music and worship. Certainly they understand the difference between entertainment and worship, it’s just that they don’t believe that the two must necessarily be separated. And it’s because CCM is so interchangeable in Evangelical circles that it has become so alll pervasive. Whereas the Catholic Church has a long history of ancient music that is sacred, the Protestants music is much more current–let’s remember that Protestantism isn’t very old, and many denominations can’t trace their lineage back beyond the past 100 to 400 years.
What happened was that as CCM grew as a cultural force, protestant church groups and in some cases, entire denominations, threw as much weight(and financial resources) into it as they could, and thus record companies and distributors were formed and birthed. It’s odd but Catholics have not been as militant a force in the growth of the Christian music industry, perhaps because of whatever prevailing anti-Catholic sentiment exists within evangelical circles, but perhaps because the Church herself hasn’t really embraced it as much more than a peripheral phenomenon. I’m not saying that is a bad thing. But that it is what has happened.
Consider the whole idea of having a CCM concert at your parish. In a Protestant church, they would put it right there in the “church building” and it would be promoted as a time of worship and entertainment. The whole nature of Protestant worship facillitates that, but Catholic worship really wouldn’t facillitate it because the nature of Catholic worship is much different.
Believe me, I could write reams about this but I’ll try to be brief. There is a vast gulf between Protestantism and Catholicism, not only in terms of doctrine and belief, but in terms of cultural norms and differing perspectives about things such as what is sacred and what is secular. A “Bible” church has nothing sacramental in their perspective of life and thus they live as if the sacred and the profane were interchangeable. So they don’t make much of a distinction between music and entertainment and music and worship. Certainly they understand the difference between entertainment and worship, it’s just that they don’t believe that the two must necessarily be separated. And it’s because CCM is so interchangeable in Evangelical circles that it has become so alll pervasive. Whereas the Catholic Church has a long history of ancient music that is sacred, the Protestants music is much more current–let’s remember that Protestantism isn’t very old, and many denominations can’t trace their lineage back beyond the past 100 to 400 years.
Matt Maher is amazing! Alive Again has been my personal RCIA themesong as I move towards Easter vigil! Now I know why I have loved Chris Tomlin music so much through the years. Not Catholic but music that fuels my life is Casting Crowns- pretty much anything by them!