No Other Name? Authenticity, Authority, and Anointing in Christian Popular Music

What is it about?

This article investigates the role that celebrity plays in a Christian culture industry where authenticity and identity are always understood in relation to spiritual authority. In evangelical Christian (sub)culture, discourses of intention frame musical practice and arise from a historical Protestant emphasis on individual authority that is expressed in a highly-mediated consumer culture in which celebrity is a resource for identity and lifestyle. These discourses are reflexively activated through the evangelical concept of anointing, which fuses individual and institutional authority with spiritual authority. Exploring the ways in which this unfolds offers interesting ways for scholars of popular music to think about the relationship between popular music, celebrity and the culture industries in a variety of other contexts.

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Why is it important?

Evangelical Christianity has emerged as a major global social force in the past century, largely through its deft use of media of which music is an important component. Exploring the ways in which evangelicals concomitantly engage with music and belief informs our understanding of broader trends exhibited in global Christianity.