Talk of the Nation

I discovered this morning via Only Wonder Understands that yesterday on Talk of the Nation, NPR's Neal Conan focused on CCM. (Scroll down to listen.) Jim Bryson, the keyboardist for Mercy Me, appeared, but his main guest was Jay Howard, co-author of Apostles of Rock: The Splintered World of Contemporary Christian Music, who ran down an interesting "socio-cultural mapping" of three possible theories of the relationship between music and culture for Christian musicians. Sort of a Christ and Culture thing: separational, integrational, transformational.

Jay Swartzendruber, managing editor of CCM magazine, was also on. His quite thoughtful explanation of what "Christian music," as opposed to "CCM," is, included a few remarks about U2 -- to which Neal Conan replied, "Hmph."