I know of the joy they inspired amongst the multitudes of Waterfront Park. I have learned of the deep love they all profess for the Lord, and I've come to believe that love is real and true. Verily they do. According to the Gospel Music Association, the 871 Christian titles released in the first six months of 1999 moved a staggering 20.5 million units, an increase of 21 percent over the same period in 1998. That fact has given once-dowdy Christian music a new face.
Slick labels sell the music.
The Dove Awards, a mutual-appreciation lovefeast every bit as gratuitous as the Grammys, honor the hitmakers. As in the mainstream pop market, Christian genres and subgenres swarm like a plague of locusts. There's the Christian swing of the W's, the Christian techno of Revelation, the Christian death metal of Warlord, whose menacingly titled new album, Rock the Foe Hammer , spins in my player even now. In fact, no matter what kind of music you're into, it's a good bet that the Christian community can serve up a reasonable pastiche, purged of all that icky secular humanism. While this depressing state of affairs holds across the board, Luis Palau managed to bag a particularly unchallenging quartet of big names and a flock of pulse-deadening smaller acts.