Religion and the Popular Arts

The Christian Arts.

With the growth of the Pentecostal and Evangelical movements a new segment of commercial entertainment appeared. In 1979 people could order directly from the Born Again Christian Catalogue or learn the latest in the music world from Contemporary Christian Music. New Christian music carved out a body of listeners that overlapped but did not cover those who listened to traditional gospel music. Christian artists like Bill Gaither won not only the commercial industry's Grammy Award year after year but also the Gospel Music Association's Dove Award. Maranantha! Music, established in 1972 in Costa Mesa, California, developed a small empire in providing products for the expanding number of Christian-music buyers.

Fiction.

There were Christian romance novels for women interested in that genre of fiction, which was popular in the decade. The religious publishing house, Thomas Nelson, joined...

[The entire page is 1182 words long]

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