Christian Music and Bookstores

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Verse of the Day
Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Col. 3:16 NASB)

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Fide-O has a couple of really good posts re: Christian music. This one and this one. I can't remember the last time I went to a "Christian Bookstore"...I think it was during the release of Left Behind: Part XXVIII or something like that. If you bought two or more copies, they threw in a "Prayer of Jabez Steak Knife Set" and a pack of "TestaMINTS" gum. Pretty good deal if you ask me.

Now, don't get me wrong; I enjoy all kinds of music, even some "Gospel/Christian", but a lot of the newer music and artists just don't do it for me. I discovered Christian radio in the early 80's, back in the early Amy Grant, MW Smith, The Imperials (who remembers those guys?), and Petra days. THAT was good music! But nowadays, everything sounds the same...you know, those "breathy", slurred lyrics that just kinda drone and moan about someone that COULD be God or could be someone's wife/girlfriend. It all sounds like the stuff I hear on the "indie" radio station that my son listens to.

It also seems to me that Christian Music, and Christianity in general, has become more commercialized. I can purchase a "Purpose-Driven" (PD) journal, write in it with my PD pen, and cruise the internet using my PD mousepad. Books like Joel Osteen's Your Best Life Now (available in hardback, or cassette or CD audiobook, along with Your Best Life Now Journal) and Rick Warren's PDL take up a majority of the Christian bookstore; the remainder is packed with "Praise and Worship"/Contemporary Christian CD's and cassettes, and Thomas Kincaid Bible covers. What commentaries they have are stuck in the back of the store next to the small shelf containing a half dozen books about the reformation. Thank God for the internet and places like Grace Books International.

And just for the record...I don't buy any books by Warren or Osteen. I've got all the doorstops I need.