At the time his book was written (2006) Christian rock culture was booming, not only with bands but with extreme teen Bibles, skateboarding ministries, Christian tattoo parlors, paintball parks, coffeehouses, and nightclubs,encouraging kids to form their own communities apart from the mainstream. Profiling such successful Christian rock bands as P. O. D. , Switchfoot, Creed, Evanescence, and Sixpence None the Richer, as well as the phenomenally successful Seattle Christian record label Tooth & Nail, enormous Christian rock festivals, and more.
Spin journalist Andrew Beaujon lifted the veil on a thriving scene that operated beneath the secular world's radar. Revealing, sympathetic, and groundbreaking, Body Piercing Saved My Life (named for a popular Christian rock T-shirt depicting Christ's wounds) is a fascinating look into the hearts and minds of then enormous, and growing, youth culture.
He works with a distinction found in Jay Howard and John Streck's book Apostles of Rock: The Splintered World of Contemporary Christian Music: Separationist; Integrationist; and Transformational. Seperationist artists 'create Christian music primarily for other Christians', Integrationist artists 'try to translate their faith into mainstream music or, at the very least, offer a wholesome alternative to what's in stores and on the radio', and Transformational artists are those 'who struggle with their faith but still attempt to bring "salt and light" to the world'. Although he explores all three expressions of CCM, Beaujon's interest tends towards the latter category.
John Davis: John Davis has been in a constant state of record production since 1994. He is founding member of Superdrag, The Lees Of Memory, The Rectangle Shades & Epic Ditch. He is also 1/4 of astronaut pushers. He walked away from Superdrag in 2003 but has remained prolific across myriad Bandcamp-abetted projects, including his shoegaze-oriented outfit the Lees Of Memory, the psych-country combo Rectangle Shades, and a handful of Christian-themed releases under his own name. David Zahl writes that 'John Davis found in the Gospel the permission to go deeper, rock harder, sing prettier – freedom in other words – and we’re all the better for it'. Astronaut Pushers, the one-time Nashville supergroup, consists of Sam Ashworth (Grammy and Academy Award-nominated songwriter), John Davis (Superdrag, The Lees Of Memory), Lindsay Jamieson (Ben Folds, Departure Lounge) and Matt Slocum (Sixpence None the Richer). Their four-song EP, originally self-released as a CD on a limited basis, showcases a wide diversity of styles performed by musicians at the top of their creative game. It was reissued on vinyl by Lost In Ohio in 2022.
Among the performers he mentions that were new (or newish) to me are:
David Bazan: Danielle Dietze writes that 'For thirty years, David Bazan has been writing about what it means to believe in something-and what it means when those beliefs fray. When Pedro the Lion released It’s Hard to Find a Friend in 1998, Bazan was already a keen observer of moral and existential conflict, capturing minor human disappointments with devastating attention. By the time Control came out, his writing had sharpened, slicing through suburban politeness and the American dream with pinpoint precision. For over a decade, he built Pedro the Lion into one of indie rock’s most quietly radical projects, chronicling doubt, faith, guilt, and the messy pursuit of grace in a way that felt both deeply personal and universally resonant. Then, in 2006, he retired the Pedro the Lion moniker, as if setting down an old burden. Bazan kept writing, releasing the synth project Headphones and five solo albums that were blunt and revelatory in their own right, but the decision to retire the name felt definitive. Until, suddenly, it wasn’t. In 2017, after being dormant for more than a decade, Pedro the Lion was back. The deeply autobiographical albums to follow, Phoenix, Havasu and Santa Cruz, marked a return to the places that shaped him literally and metaphorically, tracing the lines of the past to understand the shape of the present.'
The Ocean Blue: Getting their start as teenagers in the late ‘80s in Hershey, PA, The Ocean Blue released their self-titled debut on the famed Sire Records label that launched many of their most beloved bands in the U.S., including the Smiths, Echo & the Bunnymen, and the Pretenders. Embraced by alternative radio and MTV, the band quickly made their mark with early singles “Between Something And Nothing,” “Drifting, Falling” and “Ballerina Out of Control,” each Top Ten hits on U.S. college and Billboard’s Modern Rock Radio charts. Early success set in motion a run of four major label albums— The Ocean Blue (1989 Sire), Cerulean (1991 Sire), Beneath the Rhythm and Sound (1993 Sire), and See The Ocean Blue (1996 Mercury). The band continued with string of independent releases in the 2000s, including Davy Jones Locker (2000 March), Waterworks (2003 W.A.R.), Ultramarine (2013 Korda) and Kings and Queens/Knaves and Thieves (2019 Korda). With eight albums and several EPs under their belt, the band continues to perform and record around the world, with work underway on a new album, and shows in cities throughout the U.S. in 2025.
Poor Old Lu: Poor Old Lu was a pioneering alternative Christian band based in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Their name was taken out of the first book in C.S.Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe. The band experimented with a variety of sounds and genres, particularly grunge, funk and psychedelic rock. Poor Old Lu put out four full-length records and an EP before breaking up in 1996; they reunited for a well-received comeback album, The Waiting Room, in 2002; since that time, they have released only a single song, “The Great Unwound,” in 2013. The band evolved from a funky/jangly alternative sound early on into a much moodier, refined indie rock powerhouse fully realized on their magnum opus Picture of the Eighth Wonder. They hit at the height of the Christian indie scene in the 1990s, and formed a core unit of alternative rock bands that included The Prayer Chain, Plankeye, Starflyer 59 and a handful of others. Hailing from the Seattle area, the band also had close ties with others in the scene like Pedro the Lion, Damien Jurado, Blenderhead, and even Sunny Day Real Estate (vocalist Jeremy Enigk provided guest vocals on one POL track).
The Psalters:The Psalters are a genre unto themselves, defying easy categorization. A Philadelphia Weekly writer describes them thus: 'I’m…watching the Psalters celebrate rootlessness and internationalism, mixing radical Christian propaganda with multiethnic polyrhythms and neo-Dickensian refugee ragamuffin chic. The woman next to me wears a full-on Middle Eastern burka, from which protrude long, electric green dreadlocks…The tall dude at the sound desk in the leather pants and the crazy pirate-looking mother in the front row are all members of the…Psalters–the crusty-punk, multiethnic, radical Christian equivalent of the anarchist Chumbawamba: part traveling circus, part live-by-example anti-patriotic slap in the face to the ticky-tacky Christianity peddled by millionaire preachers obsessed with their congregation’s genitalia.' The Atlantic says “Psalters mounts an ululating, multi-drum offensive against the capitalist hegemony. They dress the part, too—if you saw this lot coming on a dark night, you’d run.” They’re a communal NGO, partnering with refugee populations and indigenous groups in the work of radical justice through the art of worship. Vocalist Scott Krueger’s view is that “our Christian walk is supposed to affect every aspect of our lives. So as artists, we want to have that shape our art.”
Marsha Stevens: 'If Larry Norman is to be called the father of Christian Rock, then Marsha Stevens certainly deserves to be known as the mother of contemporary Christian music, a title that Christian Century and others have bestowed upon her. She was the leader of what is considered to be the world's first contemporary Christian music group, Children of the Day, and she has continued as a solo artist to produce albums of worship-oriented and edifying adult contemporary pop. As such, she remains the progenitor of what, by 2002, would become the single most popular genre in the contemporary Christian music market… Stevens became the first (and as of 2002, the only) major singer in the contemporary Christian music subculture to identify herself publicly as a lesbian…Christian Century Magazine has said that Stevens became “conservative Christianity's worst nightmare - a Jesus-loving, Bible-believing, God-fearing lesbian Christian.' - Excerpt from "The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music", Sept. 2002. Marsha, alongside her spouse, Cindy, are working between tours to continue their music ministry training school for those in Christian outreach to the GLBT community. An outreach of Balm Ministries (Born Again Lesbian Music), the program is called upBeat!. They have produced a Praise and Worship album with 14 singers and 10 songwriters.
Derek Webb: Musician Derek Webb, who started out with the band Caedmon’s Call in the 1990s, has “spent a career gnawing on the hand that feeds me in the evangelical Christian world,” as he told Sojourners. Caedmon's Call was a contemporary Christian band which fused traditional folk with world music and alternative rock. From his time in Caedmon’s Call to his work as a solo artist for the past 20 years, Webb has outlined a winding and vulnerable journey of doubt, love, grief, and freedom. Most recently, Webb has been reckoning with his evangelical past, writing what he calls his “first Christian and Gospel album in a decade.” In his April [2023] album, The Jesus Hypothesis, Webb demonstrates his ever introspective and thoughtfully provocative lyricism with lines like, “Maybe black sheep are not lost oh, they’re just pioneers / Just brave enough to wander off and find what’s past our fears.”
Denison Whitmer:Denison Witmer is an American singer-songwriter who has been crafting introspective folk music for over two decades. Born and raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, he began his journey in recorded music at the age of 19 with his first album, My Luck, My Love - recorded originally as a high school English project and released on 250 cassettes. His official debut album, Safe Away, followed in 1998, setting the foundation for a prolific career. Over the years, Witmer has released a series of acclaimed albums, including Of Joy and Sorrow (2001), Philadelphia Songs (2002), and Are You a Dreamer? (2005), with the latter, produced by Don Peris and featuring Sufjan Stevens, earning critical praise from outlets such as Pitchfork and Entertainment Weekly. Witmer's discography continued to expand with Carry the Weight in 2008, followed by his first release on Sufjan Stevens' Asthmatic Kitty Records, The Ones Who Wait (2012). His subsequent albums, the self-titled Denison Witmer (2013) and American Foursquare (2020), also released on Asthmatic Kitty, continued to showcase his evolving artistry.
For more on music and faith see my co-authored book 'The Secret Chord'.
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