• Jeremiah 13:23 “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.” 
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The church I was saved in at the age of 14 received a new pastor shortly thereafter. Our new pastor was a godly preacher who wanted to change the low music standards in our church. New songs were to be checked and “okay’ed” by authority. A number of people were upset. I submitted one of my CCM songs to our pianist one day to be sung by me as a solo. I figured if anything needed cleaned up, she could do it since she was so skilled at the piano. She hesitated, played a few notes, and stopped. She then kindly explained to me some basics about CCM and Southern Gospel and how the music couldn’t just be changed. 

God through Jeremiah gives this picture of evil people and their works trying to be changed and made clean. It seems man is always trying to make their bad good. Friends, you can’t take rock music and try to make it godly, which is exactly what CCM and Southern Gospel do. Both genres openly admit taking rock, jazz, pop, rap, easy listening, country, etc… and trying to make them fit for God’s people while at the same time palatable for the unsaved. It can’t happen, friend. An Ethiopian’s (African) skin cannot be changed. A leopard’s spots can’t be changed. Satan’s music is rotten to its roots and can’t be changed. Some common CCM and Southern Gospel songs you will hear in independent, fundamental, Baptist churches that believers like “cleaning up” are:

– Amy Grant (“El Shaddai”, “Grown-Up Christmas List”, “Thy Word”) Grant is a very sinful woman with multiple divorces, unfaithful romps, public nudity, foul mouth, etc….

– Andrae’ Crouch (“The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power”, “My Tribute/To God Be The Glory”, “Soon And Very Soon”)

– Bob Carlisle (“Butterfly Kisses”)

– Carman (“The Champion”, “Lazarus, Come Forth”)

– Cathedrals (“Champion of Love”, “Wedding Music”)

– Dallas Holm (“Rise Again”)

– Jack Hayford (“Majesty”)

– Mark Lowry (“Mary Did You Know?”) Lowry’s parents were fundamentalists, but Mark wanted to get as far away from their holiness as possible and became a comedian and singer for Bill Gaither.

– Michael Card (“Heal Our Land”, “El Shaddai”)

– Michael English (“In Christ Alone”) Unfaithful to his wife with another singer from an entertainment Southern Gospel group. Left CCM to make it in the secular world of music and continue in sin, but returned to CCM only because his secular career crashed.

– Michael W. Smith (“Friends Are Friends Forever”, “Above All”, “Our God Is An Awesome God” )

– Ray Boltz (“Shepherd Boy”; “Watch the Lamb”; “Thank You”; “I Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb”, “The Anchor Holds/The Storm”, “The Altar”) Boltz was a sodomite while writing, singing, and recording all of the above listed songs. After their popularity, his sodomy was revealed.

– Sandy Patti (“Via Dolorosa”) Unfaithful to her husband with her producer while recording one of her CD’s.

– Stephen Curtis Chapman (“His Strength Is Perfect”, “Be Still and Know”, “Cinderella”, “I Will Be Here”)

– Steve Green (“People Need The Lord”; “Broken and Spilled Out”, “Find Us Faithful”, “God and God Alone”) Some try to point out that Steve’s parents were Baptists. However, they overlook that Steve himself is not. He left their beliefs, and is now a neo-evangelical as seen  by songs like “Let the Walls Come Down”, association with Promise Keepers, etc….

– Twila Paris (“He Is Exalted”, “We Will Glorify”, “Lamb of God”, “We Bow Down”, “How Beautiful”)

– Wayne Watson (“The Touch Of The Master’s Hand”, “Watercolor Ponies”, “Our God Is An Awesome God”)

– William “Bill” and Gloria Gaither (“He Touched Me”, “Because He Lives”, “The Longer I Serve Him”, “The King Is Coming”, “It Is Finished”, “Jesus, There’s Something About That Name”) The Gaither’s were able to become mainstream thanks to Elvis Presley’s support and his singing and recording of Gaither’s first songs like “There’s Something About That Name” and “He Touched Me”, during the same years Elvis was also performing his other filthy songs and dances. A number of entertainment Southern Gospel bands actually gained their popularity by singing at Elvis’ filthy concerts: Imperials, Jordanaires, Sweet Inspirations, Blackwood Brothers, JD Sumner and The Stamps Quartet.  Presley also admired and sang with The Statemen who themselves are known to have greatly impacted early rock ‘n roll with their wide audience appeal, jazz, ragtime, and rock.  The Gaither’s have published different materials celebrating Elvis. Bill Gaither and his band also recorded and published secular rock ballads entitled “Love Songs” in 2023. Many of the singers in this list got their start by singing with the Gaither band: Amy Grant, Sandy Patty, Twila Paris, Steve Green, Michael English, Mark Lowry.

– Stuart Townend and Keith and Kristyn Getty of Getty-Townend Music (“How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”, “In Christ Alone”; 8 of their songs are in Majesty’s Rejoice hymnbook and 29 of their songs in Fred Coleman’s/Steve Pettit’s Heart Publications.) Keith Getty collaborated with Roman Catholic Margaret Becker in the song “Jesus Draw Me Ever Nearer” and with Roman Catholic Máire Brennan in writing “With the Early Morning.” In July 2012, the Gettys joined Stuart Townend and Roman Catholic Matt Maher, who prays to Mary as the Queen of Heaven, on NewsongCafe on WorshipTogether.com. They discussed their song “The Power of the Cross,” which was co-written by Getty-Townend. The program also promoted ecumenical unity. The Getty’s “fuse the music of their Irish heritage with the sounds of Nashville, their newly adopted home.” The Getty’s and Stuart Townend state that they are “crossing the genres of traditional, classical, folk and contemporary composition.” Their leavening and mixing of bridging “the gap between traditional and contemporary” is what has pulled in, deceived, and lulled many fundamentalists with their music. Yet the Gettys are hard rockers, as seen in their concerts, who promote hip hop musicians such as rapper Trip Lee in the Getty’s Sing! 2019 Conference and rapper Shai Linne at the Getty’s Sing! ’22 and ’24 or CCM artists like Steven Curtis Chapman at Getty’s Sing! 2020.  Keith Getty has called Bono, U2’s lead rock ‘n roll singer, a brilliant theologian and heaped praise upon him, even though Bono is extremely immoral, claims no form of religion, rarely goes to church and when he does those churches are the worst ones that support sodomy, and Bono often criticizes many parts of biblical Christianity. Keith and Kristyn Getty list the Beatles as a major influence in their music. Keith has spoken positively of wicked Sting and sodomite Elton John. Stuart Townend was interviewed as saying about what Jesus would be singing today, “I think he would be doing thrash metal or hip hop or something where we’d go, ‘He can’t do that!’ Because I think he would be challenging our comfortable perceptions. I don’t know what he would sing or whose songs he would sing, but I believe he would do it in a way that would surprise and probably shock us.” In October 2012, the Gettys joined hands with the deceiver Leonard Sweet at the National Worship Leader Conference in San Diego. Sweet has taken New Age and blended it into Christianity and calls it the New Light.

Note: None of these are independent, fundamental, Baptists. They are a mix of Catholics, Pentecostals, Reformed Theology, and neo-evangelicals.  Their lives, stands, and beliefs are so watered-down that they never face any criticism or persecution from the world which is always an indication of a true believer in Christ (II Tim. 2:15) and actually often mingle freely with the world.

For more, check out David Cloud’s free ebook, Directory of Contemporary Worship Musicians.

By the way, there are many more reasons why you shouldn’t “clean up” CCM and Southern Gospel.

• • – Bad example. If you are playing and singing CCM, others assume you listen and enjoy CCM. I Thess. 5:22 “Abstain from all appearance of evil.”

  • – It is a potential bridge to full CCM and Southern Gospel. It just takes one puff of a cigarette or one sip of alcohol to get someone hooked. I, for one, can readily attest to this. So many times as a teen I tried to free myself from my addiction to CCM and Southern Gospel. Just as soon as I was close to being free, someone would sing or play one of those songs “cleaned up” and I was pulled right back in. Just like any other addict, the “cleaned up” sin only pulled me in more fully. “Cleaned up” cigarettes only pull the addict into smoking the real sin. For this reason, Solomon told his son in Pro. 4:15 “Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.” Don’t mess with CCM and Southern Gospel. Get far away from it. (See “Music Addiction”)

  • – Dumpster diving taints you. You do get dirty when you wallow in the filth. The person “fixing” the song is having to delve a little or a lot into fixing the musical issues. Even the best of us is a sinner, and are pulled towards sin. Gal. 6:1 “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”; Jude 1:23 “And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.” Believers should pull sinners from their sin, but nowhere in the Bible does God tell believers to pull sin out of sin. Don’t “clean up” the sinful song. Leave it, and write a clean, “new song”.

  • – Desensitization. You become desensitized to what makes the music so bad. It gets harder to discern good music from bad music. Banks don’t train their clerks to discern fake money by giving them fake money. No, they train them with the real thing. Otherwise, the fake money would desensitize the clerks. Even those who endorse wicked music have pointed out how it desensitizes you to feeling the “natural” (correct) style of music.  “…yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.” Rom. 16:19

  • – “Cleaning up” CCM and progressive Southern Gospel begins a downward slide that doesn’t stop. Allowing any kind of CCM, even “cleaned up” CCM and entertainment Southern Gospel, into a church or home consistently leads to lower standards in other areas eventually resulting in a compromised, worldly, fleshly, neo-ecumenical home and church. I Cor. 5:6 “Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?”

  • – One CCM song always leads to more. If you allow just a little crack, people always push for more. Gal. 5:9 “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.”

  • (Please check out the rest of both the Music series and the CCM and Southern Gospel series.)