“Christian music is everywhere–whether you realize it or not.” That headline was not produced by a Christian publication. The Wall Street Journal ran it on November 8, 2025.
According to the article, popular Christian music is the fastest growing genre in the entertainment industry. In other words, Christian music has gone mainstream.
A couple of weeks ago, I attended the opening show of TobyMac’s (born Kevin Michael “Toby” McKeehan in Fairfax, Virginia) brief “Heaven on My Mind” tour. TobyMac has been producing and performing popular Christian music since the 1980s. He attended Liberty University and formed the band DC Talk with a fellow classmate while still in school. They added another member of the band and had several Christian radio hits in the early 1990s. But Christian music was still a niche genre without much mainstream exposure.
DC Talk went their separate ways in 2001, and TobyMac began his solo career.
I was only vaguely aware of his music, but a couple of my family members love it so we picked up third row seats, and I tagged along for the show.
I was impressed. Unlike many artists who perfect the studio but fail to deliver live, TobyMac and his band “Diverse City” sounded better live than in the studio records I heard after the show.
It was also a moving experience. TobyMac relayed stories of pain and hope. Many people in the audience openly wept as he shared his struggle with grief and loss. His son died in 2019 and not long after one of his long time band mate’s succumbed to cancer. His recent albums take the listener on this cathartic journey of faith and redemption. He talked about asking God to “change his mind” when met with life changing events. He said that might sound pretentious, but he brought it back to fatherhood. “If you told your son or daughter no, and they came back so sweetly and asked you to change your mind, wouldn’t you reconsider? The answer still may be no, but you wouldn’t mind the question.” The audience–young, old, black, white, Protestant, Catholic–sang, danced, and praised. It was truly a wonderful family friendly experience.
Traditionalists might not like the modern feel to the music. It isn’t your Appalachian or Delta Gospel or your Sunday organ hymnal. But it is bringing Christianity to the masses.
More than anything TobyMac and the artists making Christian music popular again are offering a new Amazing Grace moment. He even made a reference to salvation through faith and grace alone during the show. As the subtitle of his hit song “a lil Church” explains, “nobody’s too lost”.
Most of these Christian artists are from the South. And they are all consciously Southern. TobyMac quipped that one of his band members was from Ohio, but he didn’t hold it against him. The music is in the mud. TobyMac mixes gospel, blues, rap, rock, R&B, and country into a seamless journey of joy and faith. Other popular Christian artists share the same eclectic and rich musical tapestry, and other than the category “Christian” it would be difficult to pigeonhole any particular musical style among the dozens of artists who are regularly considered Christian acts.
But it might be surprising to The Wall Street Journal readers or most Americans who have never listened to Christian music that Christian music was the original “popular” music, particularly in the United States.
Southerners “Singing” Billy Walker and Benjamin Franklin White revolutionized the world with their collection of hymns titled The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion and The Sacred Harp respectively. Walker’s version of Amazing Grace is the most recognized song in the world.
Everyone consumed “popular music” at church through their songs and arrangements. Secular themes in popular music came later, but everyone went to church at least on Sunday and knew the lyrics and melodies to the dozens of hymns, most of them popularized by Walker and his brother-in-law White.
In other words, the revival of Christian music has brought the music industry full circle. Christian artists are chipping away at the secular themes of the modern era, and people are embracing the promise of love, hope, happiness, and redemption in an increasingly dark world. This doesn’t mean that TobyMac or any Christian artist is poised to overtake Taylor Swift on the mainstream music charts in the near or distant future. But it does mean that people are becoming deeply aware that something is broken in modern society and want answers on how to fix it, just as their ancestors did when they went to church and sang “Amazing Grace” or “I’m Going Home.”
They want the promised land. If you get a chance, see TobyMac on tour. You won’t be disappointed.
as a raleigh native, ultimately, god music was this for me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR0cEOTpYSk couldn’t understand it but the venue, eh. i know there were numerous hymns in churches….as a kid it sounded like noise to me.