Pilgrims Covenant Church - Article in the Observer

Over the past several years, I have written quite a bit about the "Christian" carnival called Cornerstone Festival and spoken of it on my "Heart of the Matter" program. This year during our witness in front of Cornerstone, I was interviewed by a reporter from the UK paper the Observer. Below you will find the lengthy but very revealing article he wrote. Considering the man was far from being a Christian brother, it is significant that he even seems a bit taken aback by some of the sights and sounds of Cornerstone. It is worthwhile to take the time to read the entire article as it just more and more reveals the corrupt, ungodly, and dangerous nature of so-called Christian contemporary music.

I do want to correct several mistakes with regard to the paragraph about our PCC witness. The sign he writes of stated, "Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness. Psalm 29:2." It did not say, "Worship the Lord and the beauty of holiness." Also, in my quote, he has me saying cruel when in reality I said crude.

Another important point I want to make is that the writer could not be more wrong when he states, "CCM offers a safe alternative to secular music, a toned-down imitation without any challenges to Christian doctrine or swearing." CCM songs may not have curse words in them, but our experience is that some CCM fans certainly do! Of course, CCM is filled with corrupt doctrine; and our experience is that many CCM fans even despise sound doctrine, especially the function of the law, sanctification, separation, and especially salvation only and completely by the blood and righteousness of Christ alone. I say this based in no small part upon our many hours witnessing and preaching to the large number of Cornerstone fans which always crowd around us, zealous to defend their rock and roll gods.

And perhaps this is overkill, but I will mention that my "baseball cap" was simply a standard cap with a bill. I am not a sports fan, to put it mildly.

These Christian rock concerts and festivals are begging for a Christian witness. At them, multitudes of young people are being made merchandise of by the likes of "Jesus People USA." For that reason as well as for the glory of our Lord and the good of His Church, such events cry out for a Christian witness. By the grace of God, we of PCC intend to be back at Cornerstone next summer. If some of you who are sound in doctrine and sincere in motive would also like to minister there, I would be happy to coordinate things so that we can cover it more days and not all show up on the same day.

O come all ye faithful

Night has fallen, and a full moon is rising above the treeline as a five-piece band called Flyleaf launch into their set at Cornerstone, a Christian rock festival in rural Illinois.

Their sound is a squall of ferocious, churning guitars - and at the eye of the storm is the band's diminutive front-woman, Lacey Mosley. Dressed in ripped jeans and a black dress, she cuts a tiny figure against the wall of amplifiers, but she dominates the stage, her voice switching mid-song from fragile whisper to banshee howl.

Beneath the stage, there is a heady atmosphere of devotion: teenage fans mouth the words to every song. Some punch the air in jubilation, others raise their open hands as if in prayer, and - bizarrely - a good few raise the heavy metal salute of the horned god.

The emotional climax comes with a tribute to Cassie Bernall, a victim of the Columbine school shooting who in death became a heroine to American evangelicals. In one version of the events - rejected by official investigators - the two killers challenged her to deny her faith before they opened fire.

'Do you believe in God? Say yes to pull the trigger,' sings Mosley - and two thousand fans join in the triumphant refrain: 'I. Will. Say. Yes!!!!'

It's a powerful moment: the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and around me several fans are in tears. One of them is Courtney, a 15-year-old pastor's daughter from Mississippi, who after the show tells me that Flyleaf saved her life. 'I was going through a really bad time at high school and I became suicidal, but Lacey's songs gave me the strength to keep going. If she survived what she has been through, I can get through anything,' she says.

I meet Mosley on the band's tour bus, and she tells me her story - a narrative of despair and redemption as bleak as anything Johnny Cash ever sang. Now 25, Mosley grew up on welfare, in a family setting she describes as a 'war zone'. Already using drugs by the age of 10, she suffered a mental breakdown at 16 and was planning to kill herself when her grandmother begged her to go to church. There, she experienced what she describes as a miracle: 'God showed up,' she says with a smile. 'I understood that nothing compared to God's love. I saw how impure I was - how selfish, hateful and ungrateful.'

That notion of human imperfection lies at the heart of Mosley's lyrics: though rarely explicitly religious, they paint a profoundly Christian vision of a fallen world in which human sin can be redeemed by divine grace alone.

'Our music is honest,' she says. 'We're struggling with the fact that we live in an evil world, and that we've been evil people and we have evil tendencies - that we're in need of forgiveness from whoever set the moral law.'

There are few musical genres which provoke such reflexive contempt as Christian rock. If not dismissed out of hand, it is routinely traduced as the work of guitar-strumming vicars or proselytizing hair-rockers. Ignored by the mainstream (and largely unknown in the UK), Christian rock- or contemporary Christian music (CCM) as it now prefers to be known - has over the past 20 years become one of the most successful genres in popular music. While total music sales have dropped over the past five years, Christian music has steadily grown, now selling more than jazz and classical music combined. Meanwhile, it has built an infrastructure so large that it is no longer accurate to call it a subculture: it is a parallel world, with its own network of clubs, church venues, radio stations, record labels, and summer festivals.

Now Christian rock is starting to cross into the mainstream: Flyleaf have toured with secular bands such as Korn, and Christian bands such as POD have seen their albums go platinum on the general market. Major record labels including EMI, Sony and BMG have launched religious imprints or bought shares in Christian labels.

The roots of the genre lie in the Jesus movement - the Christian hippies who emerged from the West Coast counterculture of the 1970s, and sought to spread the gospel through rock'n'roll. Initially viewed with distrust by mainline denominations, rock music went on to become a regular part of American Christianity: the 'worship music' which has replaced hymns in many churches is essentially soft rock with Christian lyrics, says Doug Van Pelt, the editor of the CCM monthly HM: The Hard Music Magazine

'Rock'n'roll was birthed out of gospel and the negro spiritual. Now Christian rock is bringing the whole thing back home - music that started in the church is coming back to the church,' he says.

Not everyone is happy to see it there: plenty of believers still hold that rock'n'roll of any kind is still the devil's music, and that Christian rock is the first step on a slippery slope to perdition.

On the first morning of Cornerstone, protestors gather outside the main gate, brandishing signs that read 'Worship God and the Beauty of Holiness', and 'Cornerstone Dishonours God' at the stream of traffic heading into the campsite.

The leader of the demonstration is Pastor Ralph Ovadal, a self-described 'fundamentalist' in a baseball cap, who tells me that he is deeply concerned about what goes on at the festival. 'We believe Cornerstone dishonours God because the music itself is dishonourable. It's not reverential - it's raucous, worldly and cruel,' he says. 'Cornerstone is a worldly carnival that will corrupt the hearts and minds of God's people.' He wishes me a good day, and as we part, hands me a tract entitled: 'How can ye escape the damnation of hell?'

Cornerstone is not the biggest Christian rock festival in America - this year around 18,000 people attended, whereas some other festivals attract audiences of more than 100,000 - but it occupies a special place in the Christian circuit. While other events concentrate on the identikit pop and airbrushed stadium rock which dominates the CCM market, Cornerstone looks to the margins.

In one sense, it's an incredibly diverse gathering: just about every youth culture is present - emo kids, skateboarders, crusties, frat boys, hippies, metal fans, punks and goths. In another, it is overwhelmingly homogenous: they're all evangelical Christians, and they are almost all white.

Founded and still run by the Jesus People, a Christian commune in Chicago, Cornerstone has retained a non-corporate atmosphere: there are no perimeter fences around the stage tents and no security guards patrolling the campsite.

And there are none of the excesses usually associated with secular festivals: judging by the number of 'Virginity Rocks' T-shirts, there is very little sex going on, alcohol is banned and drugs are out of the question - which is perhaps why there is none of the low-level aggression often encountered when thousands of people gather in a muddy field to listen to loud music.

The non-threatening environment of the festival mirrors a central feature of Christian rock itself: for many fans - and their parents - CCM offers a safe alternative to secular music, a toned-down imitation without any challenges to Christian doctrine or swearing. Sitting by the main stage one afternoon, Cody, a 16-year-old from St Louis, Missouri, says: 'My mom won't let me listen to non-Christian bands, and I really appreciate that. Secular music tempts you to sin.'

His friend Jacob, 17, agrees: 'There are so many negative messages in secular music, but Christian bands are really uplifting - they help us to walk in God's path.'

This doesn't mean that Christian rock is all about bland affirmations of faith. Later that afternoon, I catch a set by a death metal band from Georgia. Becoming the Archetype are all thrashing guitars and inexplicable changes in time signature, and their vocalist Jason Wisdom sings in a guttural roar like a dustbin dragged over broken concrete: 'The world awaits its own demise and all creation cries out/ Unleash your devastation like a pestilence throughout the land/ Bring utter desolation/ Let your judgment fall.'

Many eagerly await the Rapture - the moment when millions of the faithful will disappear from the earth, miraculously summoned to Christ's side in heaven. Unbelievers will be left behind to live through a horrifying seven-year period of torment known as the Tribulation, during which the Antichrist will seize power before the final apocalyptic battle between good and evil.

Theologians may dispute the scriptural basis for these doctrines, but dark prophecies of the End Times have proved hugely popular in Christian popular culture, inspiring bestselling novels, movies, video games - and Christian rock songs.

'There is definitely going to be a Tribulation, with all the plagues and all the wrath of God poured out on the world. This world will come to an end, and there will be a new world and a new heaven,' Wisdom tells me later. 'It's cliched to think Christianity is only about sunshine and rainbows. Our music isn't just so that you can raise your hands and say "hallelujah". It's so you'll realise that this is all true.'

The band's latest LP is a concept album about Hell - a real place, according to Wisdom, who, like most evangelicals, believes in the literal truth of the scriptures. 'Just like the Bible says, [Jesus] is the only way to the Father, and hell awaits those that don't accept him,' he says.

The worldview reflected in these songs allows little room for doubt or ambiguity: this is music which draws up the line of battle and demands the listener take a stand: 'It's life or death,' growls Wisdom in one song. 'Now make your choice/ Whose side are you on?'

It's a theme echoed by many of the bands at Cornerstone. One of the big names this year is Pillar, a hard rock outfit in the vein of Audioslave or Incubus, whose anthemic tunes are peppered with military metaphors. At the main stage a sea of clenched fists goes up as vocalist Rob Beckley sings: 'Everybody, with your fists raised high/ Let me hear your battle cry tonight/ Stand beside, or step aside/ We're on the frontline.'

When I meet Beckley he describes his songs as a spiritual call to arms: 'They're saying go out there and be a soldier for Christ,' he says. 'Ultimately, the enemy is Satan. I know people don't want to hear this, but Satan has control over a lot of people in this world. This is a war against Satan, it's against the world, against those that don't believe.' Beckley, a former soldier, insists that he is talking about spiritual struggle, not actual violence - but he also believes that there is a parallel with the conflict in Iraq. 'What it boils down to is that there are a lot of radical people that live their lives to kill Christians,' he says.

Of all the Christian summer circuit, Cornerstone is without doubt the most liberal event: a daily seminar programme includes sessions on sustainable development and racism within the church, and while other festivals allow the US Marine corps to set up recruiting booths, Cornerstone has several stands run by pacifist organisations which oppose the war.

But despite the trappings of rebellion - facial piercings, flesh plugs, dreadlocks and tattoos - the underlying philosophy is one of deep social conservatism. It's a total belief system, spelled out in the T-shirt slogans in every moshpit: they describe a worldview which substitutes faith for science ('Question evolution'), opposes sex education ('I'd rather be a prude than have genital warts'), holds gay people in contempt ('Jesus loves homosexuals - he has compassion for those who are looking for love in all the wrong places') and virulently opposes abortion ('Abortion is Murder').

Many of those anti-abortion T-shirts come from a group called Rock for Life, a subsidiary of American Life League - one of the most militant US pro-life organisations, which opposes contraception, IVF and abortion in all circumstances.

At Cornerstone, the group's display stand is manned by a former heavy metal guitarist called Erik Whittington, who tells me that music is the ideal tool to reach their target audience. 'If young people really love music, they'll listen to the lead guy in their favourite band rather than any politician,' he says.

On its website, Rock for Life maintains a list of pro-life bands - all of them Christian - and another of 'pro-abort' bands - mostly chosen for supporting anti-Bush voter-registration campaigns. It encourages music fans to send back any CDs they own by bands on the second list, asking: 'Who wants to listen to a band that promotes killing babies inside the womb anyway?'

It seems unlikely that many bands on the list - the Circle Jerks, for example - would even notice an evangelical boycott. But for artists who depend on the Christian market, losing the trust of that audience can be disastrous - as one band at Cornerstone recently found out.

At first glimpse, it is hard to believe that the six members of Showbread are teetotal virgins who lead regular missionary trips to developing countries and started the band to sing worship songs at their local Baptist church in the Deep South of Savannah, Georgia. Daubed in make-up and tattooed all over, they create a pandemonium of screaming vocals, squelching organs and garage guitars which ends in the ritual trashing of the keyboardist's keytar. The lyrics are a surreal mash-up of B-movie imagery and candid religious devotion - a combination which has proved unacceptable to some Christians.

Songs on the band's most recent album Age of Reptiles fall into two broad groups: one built on reptilian imagery drawn from the Book of Genesis, and the other inspired by the zombie movies of George Romero. Soon after the CD was released, the outraged mother of one young fan posted a message on a home schooling blog warning that Showbread were promoting ungodly horror films. A Christian talk radio host took up the cause, launching a campaign against the group who she described as a 'Satanic rock band ... clearly in utter rebellion to God's Word'. Before long, the group were receiving hate mail, and Christian record stores started returning their CDs - a potential catastrophe for a band that still makes most of its sales from the Christian market.

The controversy petered out after the band's singer Josh Porter released a statement arguing (not unreasonably) that Christians can enjoy secular art, even if they do not share the beliefs of its creator. But when I meet him after their set, he says that he still takes flak for some of his songs.

'We have one song about a Jesus lizard which tries to run across the water and sinks. It's a metaphor about trying to emulate Christ, but we get all these angry letters saying "How can you call Jesus a lizard? What in the world are you talking about?"' he says. 'We're more outspoken than the average Christian band, but we still get complaints that we don't speak about God enough.'

Showbread happily call themselves a Christian band, and perform most of their gigs at Christian venues, but there are groups here who bridle at the term - and actively avoid the Christian scene.

All four members of the Philadelphia band mewithoutYou are churchgoers, and their songs wrestle with ideas of faith and lack of faith, but when I meet guitarist Michael Weiss, he tells me they dislike being defined by their religion - either by non-believers or fellow Christians.

'If you're pigeonholed as a Christian band some people just write you off - they think you want to ram Jesus down their throats. That's ridiculous - but it's just as ridiculous that someone would listen because we are Christians. Jesus is part of our life but we don't want to make him part of how we sell our music.' That night they unleash a euphoric performance, waves of distorted guitars crashing against tinny trumpet lines, nostalgic accordion and a classical harpist.

Drenched in sweat, Michael's brother Aaron plunges headlong from one song to another, spitting out dense, allusive lines of verse - half-sung, half-spoken and steeped in a sense of religious mystery. Instead of offering fist-punching certainties, his lyrics reach for the unknown: 'The material world seems to me like a newspaper headline/ It demands your attention/ And it may even contain some truth/ But what's really going on here?'

After the show, Aaron sits half collapsed on the drum riser. 'I have a pretty simple point of view, which is that God is love,' he says. 'I'm not trying to convert anyone or say this is the way to heaven. What I believe is that there is one thing that is eternal, and we call it love, and the source of that love is God - and we should put that love into practice.'

'Most Christian bands suck. They're just weak,' says Justun Palencsar, the peroxide-blond singer with the Last Hope, a punk band from Pittsburgh. Tattooed, pierced and full of the love of Jesus, Justun and his fellow Christian punks constitute the sub-culture of a sub-culture - and as such, they're used to feeling left out.

'We don't fit the Christian stereotype, but when we go to the punk scene they say you can't be punk if you're Christian,' says Last Hope drummer Neal Leventry. 'You just have to be real - I guess I'd rather be hated than ignored.'

Justun nods: 'Christ said don't follow the world, which is just what punk rock is all about.'

Watching the Last Hope onstage is a bewildering exercise in cognitive dissonance: all the signifiers of punk anomie are present - crunching guitars, dead-eyed gaze, strangled vocals, scissor kicks - but the message is an earnest affirmation of belief, and the throaty refrain is just one word: 'Re-demp-tion! Re-demp-tion!'

The set ends in a chaos of stage diving and feedback, before Justun picks up the mike from where it has fallen, and in an instant, the tent is transformed from broiling moshpit into place of worship.

Bowing his head, Justun leads the audience in a rambling prayer: 'God's not out to scare you - he's there to love you. Ask God to come into your heart: the truth will set you free.'

Meanwhile, a couple of men have carried a plastic drinks cooler slopping full of water to the centre of the dancefloor. Next to them is a 10-year-old boy with a blond crew cut and an expression of nervous anticipation. Bandon is the son of a fellow punk, and he has decided that he is ready to accept Jesus as his saviour.

A reverent hush descends as a ring of punks forms around the boy: they help him into the cooler where he sits, wide-eyed, in the water. Outside, waves of bass vibrations wash through the darkness, and there is a dull roar of distant applause.

The ceremony is stripped to its barest simplicity: Justun and a couple of others speak a few words before an older man dressed in black raises his hand to the boy's head and leads a brief prayer. 'Lord, come into our hearts - throw out the cobwebs in there. Lord, we know you have great things in store for this young man - you are always working through all of us, and for that we give thanks.'

The man pauses for a moment, then says: 'We're going to baptise Bandon in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit', and he pushes the boy under water. For an instant, there is total silence - then he emerges, gasping from the cold, and tattooed arms reach out to lift him from the water. Someone wraps him in a towel, and he stands there, soaked, shivering, born again.

Larry Norman
Californian singer whose 1969 LP Upon This Rock launched the Christian rock movement.

Stryper
Absurd Eighties hair-metallers who took Christian metal into the charts.

Amy Grant
Wholesome American singer-songwriter rejected by many Christians after scoring hits.

Jeremy Camp
Singer-songwriter and ordained minister, a mainstay of Christian radio and award ceremonies.

U2
Deeply religious lyrics, but many Christian stations play U2 songs only when covered by other Christian bands, because Bono and co smoke, drink and swear.

POD
Born-again nu-metallers whose singer Sonny Sandoval sparked a new fashion by naming his daughter Nevaeh - 'heaven' spelt backwards.

Evanescence
Melodramatic goths boycotted by evangelical market when they sought to distance themselves from their Christian rock past.

Switchfoot
Alternative rockers with thinly veiled Christian lyrics; often featured on TV soundtracks.

David Crowder Band
Peppy guitar-driven worship music mixing pop- punk guitars with explicitly religious lyrics.