As worship leaders increasingly collaborate with artists outside the Church, Kenny Klinglesmith asks how much the character and beliefs of a songwriter should matter when their words become the prayers of God’s people
When a group of leaders from the Austin Stone Community Church walked into the room in 2024, there was a palpable tension in the air.
Many of these leaders were in the room when the church’s worship pastor Aaron Ivey was fired after allegations of abuse and sexual misconduct emerged.
Ivey had co-written the majority of songs produced by Austin Stone Worship over the past decade. Because of the nature of the allegations, the leadership had come to ask Ivey to willingly revoke his rights to the songs.
He refused.
In response, the leaders decided to pull the entire song catalogue from streaming services and to stop singing any song on which Ivey had a songwriting credit. Songs that had ministered to many people were gone overnight, including one I had co-written.
A dangerous indifference
Last month, I sat in a conference for academics writing on worship in the Church. The conference began with an industry panel discussing trends in Christian music. The growing collaboration between Christian and country music artists was noted during their discussion, celebrating how worship leaders are building relationships across genre lines and pointing to examples such as the Christian songwriter Brandon Lake leading a Sunday morning worship event at the mainstream Country Music Association (CMA) Awards.
It was this growing crossover that prompted a question I had been wrestling with.
When it was time for open Q&A, I shared my concern regarding how these genres are colliding. My question was this: “If a country artist who does not profess the Christian faith writes or co-writes a worship song, what responsibility does the Christian music industry have to consider who is writing the songs Church sings?”
Ryan Dahl, CEO of PraiseCharts, immediately responded: “None. It is impossible to think we could monitor the 1,000+ artists we represent.” Another panellist chimed in, “It is hard to tell someone who didn’t grow up in the Christian space that they aren’t qualified to talk about Jesus. We don’t want the Christian music industry to live inside this whitewashed box.”
There is a difference between building a friendship with someone on the fringes of faith and inviting them to shape the theological truths that the church sings
While I took the point, I was concerned his answer seemed to suggest that the character of the songwriter was ultimately irrelevant.
It made me wonder – what about a professing Christian whose life is unrepentant and at odds with their faith? Do we care if they are writing, recording and releasing worship songs? Is character really irrelevant to the Christian music industry?
Can we separate the words the Church sings from the person who wrote the song?
While it would be challenging for the Christian music industry to monitor thousands of songwriters, there is actually precedent for this. In 2020, multiple Christian publishers removed the songs of Catholic composer David Haas following allegations of sexual misconduct. MennoMedia, a Christian music publication, justified their reasoning by arguing that continuing to sing his songs could retraumatise those who survived his abuse. The rationale was similar to Austin Stone’s decision to pull Ivey’s catalogue.
When songs become theology
Monitoring thousands of artists is undeniably a massive logistical hurdle. Yet, complete abdication of responsibility by the Christian music industry here feels like a commercial answer to a theological problem. Pastor Tony Merida has described worship songs as “portable theology.” If true, then Christian songwriters are creating theologically formative content. In other words, they are creating art that is teaching the church.
James 3:1 warns, “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” James is not merely concerned with who is qualified to talk about Jesus. He is warning about the weight of teaching God’s people. If worship songs function as portable theology, then songwriters deserve at least some of the scrutiny that we apply to those who teach God’s people.
The answer lies somewhere between complete indifference and Pollyanna perfectionism. Songwriters cannot be morally perfect, and we are wrong to put that expectation on people – Christian or otherwise.
The Psalms are an excellent case study here. David is the most glaring counterpoint to my argument. He was a murderer and committed grievous sexual sin, and yet, we have not pulled his Psalms from the canon. Although David expressed genuine repentance, his story proves that moral failure does not always erase someone’s ability to shape the songs of God’s people… and that is an uncomfortable tension.
Complete abdication of responsibility by the Christian music industry here feels like a commercial answer to a theological problem.
Nevertheless, while we cannot demand sinless perfection from our songwriters, we also cannot afford to pretend that character is irrelevant. To claim that the character of those writing the prayers for the church is irrelevant lacks the pastoral wisdom and nuance needed in this cultural moment, but to claim that character is everything would miss the mark, too.
Reaching across genre lines is worthy of celebration, especially whenever artists outside of traditional Christian spaces encounter God’s love. However, there is a profound difference between building a friendship with someone on the fringes of faith and inviting them to shape the theological truths that the church sings.
When we reduce songwriting for the church to mere content creation, we abandon the sacred weight that songwriting has in forming disciples. We must be proactive and ask the uncomfortable question before the next hit worship song reaches the lips of God’s people. Who gets to write the church’s prayers?
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