There is more the church can do to support artists in the Christian music industry who are struggling with their faith, say James Mead and Jon Micah Sumrall of the Christian rock group, Kutless.
“I think in general we’re not doing a good job of welcoming our brothers and sisters in their doubt to spend time with the Lord anyway and trust him and strive with them through that season, however long it may be,” said vocalist and guitarist James Mead in a recent interview with The Christian Post. “There’s a lot of things that are pretty damaging about church culture that are significant issues that do need to be addressed, and I understand that people would get hurt by that and choose to walk away.”
Kutless Through the Years
Kutless released its first, self-titled album in 2002, and in honor of their 20 years together, the band has released an EP called “Twenty,” which has three reimagined songs from that initial album. Said Mead, “We’re very grateful and humbled by the fact that we’ve gotten to be doing this for 20 years, and our fans mean the world to us. So we wanted to do this fun celebration with them of our first record.”
At the beginning of Kutless’ journey, it was common for the band to experience opposition from people in the church. “When we first started,” said Mead, “we were still told all the time, ‘Rock music is evil, you shouldn’t have drums in your music, you guys are Satan worshippers.’” People would picket and say “evil things” about them. This conflict meant the members continually had to find their identities in Jesus. “We just knew we needed to keep pressing on because we had a message to share,” said Mead.
The band’s call from God was impressed on the members by the events that happened the day Kutless auditioned for Tooth & Nail Records: Sept. 11, 2001. “Throughout the day we found ourselves united with everyone through the nation in grief and in mourning, but we knew God had a direction for us,” said Mead. The band members sensed God commissioning them to share his love with the world. “It was very clear to us what we had to do. And so as people came against us…we just kept going.”
Mead and Sumrall, the band’s lead singer, agreed that church hurt and the challenges of the Christian music industry can certainly influence some artists to leave the faith. Sumrall grew up in Christian culture and his father was a pastor. “I didn’t realize how much baggage I had from all of that,” he said, explaining that he came to realize some beliefs he thought were right were actually damaging. Even good aspects of Christian life can be painful when others have used them for harm.
“When things like prayer and the Bible have been weaponized to control you, now you’re like, I can’t trust the Bible,” said Sumrall, calling the experience “really confusing.” He said he has a lot of grace for people in the industry who deconstruct, such as former Hillsong worship leader Marty Sampson or former Hawk Nelson frontman Jon Steingard. The Christian music industry, said Sumrall, is a “pressure cooker because we are treated with the same kind of standards as a senior pastor would be, like, you’re a leader in the church and a leader looks like x, y, and z.” After a while, it’s difficult not to conform or rebel against the expectations that musicians should look and act a certain way.
But Sumrall is hopeful for Christian artists who have deconstructed, saying he has more grace for them now than he would have in the past. Ten years ago, he would have been “lobbing Scriptures at them.”
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