The Cult of Christian Pop Music

Summary

Podcast Summary: Sounds Like A Cult – "The Cult of Christian Pop Music"

Episode Date: August 26, 2025
Hosts: Amanda Montell & Reese Oliver
Guests: Joelle Kidd (author, Jesus Land), Juliana Glass (ex-Christian pop singer, founder, This Is What Happens When Women Read)

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Overview

In this episode, Amanda and Reese delve into the world of contemporary Christian pop music, exploring its history, cultural impact, and "culty" characteristics. Joined by author Joelle Kidd and former Christian pop artist Juliana Glass, the discussion unpacks how Christian music functions both as ministry and industry, its appeal beyond religious circles, and the deep personal and societal effects it can have on performers and fans alike. The conversation moves from lighthearted nostalgia to a serious critique of the genre’s manipulative tendencies, gender dynamics, and intersections with politics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Journeys into Christian Pop

• Joelle Kidd describes her culture shock moving to an evangelical Christian school in Canada, discovering a parallel world of bands and pop stars unknown in the secular mainstream.
  • “It was really its own separate subculture, and it was kind of my only way to try and make myself fit in. … It does have that little culty vibe, like, very separate from the rest of culture and its own little mirror universe.” (24:14)
• Juliana Glass shares her experience as a Christian pop singer basked in ideological control, describing her indoctrination and eventual departure after recognizing the harm in prevailing messages, especially regarding gender and sexuality.
  • “For me, it didn't feel like a subculture. It felt like a calling. ...The lens through which you see the world. And so for me, it didn't feel like a subculture. It felt like a calling.” (25:03)
  • On her break from the faith: “I couldn't imagine telling my son that he was evil and depraved and separate from God, which… is the bedrock of all of the messaging.” (25:45)

2. Origins and Industry of Christian Pop

• Amanda and Reese outline the rise of Christian pop:
  • 1960s–70s: Jesus music, Dove Awards, culty roots (e.g., Maranatha Music as a Calvary Chapel offshoot) (08:49–11:16).
  • 1990s: Mega-church boom, popularization of collective worship music (e.g., Hillsong, Rich Mullins). Christian pop often replicates secular sounds but with an evangelical message.
  • Reciprocity: Secular pop borrows from Christian worship structure for emotional effect (e.g., Coldplay’s “Fix You” follows a church-song structure despite not being explicitly religious).
    • Amanda: “I can sense that [Coldplay] is copying the Christian music playbook...but without that tortured undertone of ‘I am a worthless worm, Jesus save me.’” (14:11)

3. Christian Pop’s Modern Resurgence: Social Media & Mainstream Blurring

• Christian pop is gaining popularity among younger listeners (rising from 39% millennial or younger in 2021 to 45% now); NPR and Vox data cited (16:20).
• The genre’s increasingly "secular-friendly" sound flies under the radar as TikTok and playlists normalize it alongside standard pop, enabling “barstool conversion rock” (e.g., Jelly Roll, Brandon Lake).
  • “Christian artists… are having an easier time than ever finding listeners, evangelizing to them, and sometimes converting people who don’t even necessarily know that what they’re listening to is Christian.” (16:20)

4. Cult Dynamics: In/Out Group, Emotional Manipulation, Ritual

• Joelle and Juliana cite the “in/out” mentality intrinsic to both cults and Christian music:
  • Joelle: “It's just that strange confluence of the sacred and the profane... You have to believe what they believe or you’re gonna be roasting in hell.” (29:47)
• Juliana highlights the physical rituals of worship (raising hands, swaying) as deliberate group-bonding mechanisms, analogous to psychological studies of military marching (30:23).
• Fans’ relationships to Christian pop stars are heavily parasocial, viewing them as spiritual leaders rather than entertainers.

5. Gender & Power: Control and Excommunication

• Christian pop perpetuates strict gender hierarchies; women are taught submission, men are offered redemption via self-abnegation and authority.
• The music industry enforces intrusive moral codes: artists are shunned for divorce, “sinful” behavior, or breaking from dogma.
  • Juliana: “To be on the receiving end of that kind of excommunication is so horrendously violent. … When you are actually kicked out of that cult… they will turn on you with guns blazing. …It’s spineless love.” (46:14, a signature quote of the episode)
• Fans (“good people who want to do what is right”) are easily weaponized by political or religious leaders through fear and in-group loyalty. (35:52)

6. Cult Leadership: Who’s in Charge?

• Discussion on whether the artists, the industry, or the broader environment (social platforms, pastors) play the “cult leader” role.
  • Juliana: “Anyone in a leadership position, a pastor that's standing on a stage and teaching the doctrine of depravity to groups of people ... Those men, because they are largely men, are held responsible and they know what the fuck they are doing and they need to be held accountable for it.” (41:17)

7. The Fan Experience: Spiritual Parasociality

• Fans invest not just admiration but spiritual agency in stars; “How are you?” is a spiritual audit, not a casual greeting.
• Intense fan scrutiny mirrors secular “stan culture” but is amplified by eternal stakes—fans can be both worshipful and punitive.

8. Christian Pop’s ‘Flavor’ and Cultural Moment

• The 2000s: Christian pop was “cool,” adapting pop trends for youth outreach; enforced group cohesion and profit incentives aligned with political objectives (34:41).
• Today’s rise in bro-ish male pop stars with Christian-coded music reflects cultural anxiety, aiming to provide a sense of belonging and identity particularly to young men.

9. Language and Lingo

• Christian pop relies on recurring motifs: oceans, storms, fire, wretchedness, self-abasement.
  • Juliana: “We can use wretch in a song in Christian music, and no one bats an eye. …We have these really strange comparisons that we attach ourselves to.” (58:30)
• The irony and humor in Christian pop’s aesthetics (“breathy but tortured” singing, modest but trendy fashion, “Jesus freak” mugs) are simultaneously delightful and disturbing.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The sinners walk so that the Christians can walk on water.” – Amanda Montell (06:04)
• “It all just sounds like Toyota commercial music to me.” – Reese Oliver on Christian pop’s sound (12:00)
• “The stakes are so high for something so casually consumed.” – Reese Oliver (40:56)
• “When you are actually kicked out of that cult because it is a cult, they will turn on you with guns blazing. And that's how you know that they don't actually have the grace that they're singing about. … It's spineless love, dude.” – Juliana Glass (46:32)
• “We want to be set free. Everyone wants to be set free...whether that’s just wearing sparkles at a Christian pop concert.” – Juliana Glass (58:10)
• “Music is just supposed to be something that’s so self-expressive and so personal, and to have it not only policed by like those above you, those below you, but even your peers…on no level are you allowed psychological privacy.” – Reese Oliver (47:20)
• “If Taylor Swift started saying she could put you in touch with God, you better believe people would fall in line.” – Juliana Glass (52:35)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Intro to cultic nature of Christian pop: 01:17–4:50
• History of Christian pop and worship music: 08:49–13:37
• Christian music’s feedback loop with secular pop: 13:00–15:48
• Rise of “bro Christian” acts & TikTok evangelism: 16:10–20:19
• Guest introductions and perspectives: 23:42–29:26
• Most “culty” aspect of Christian pop: 29:44–31:26
• Physical/psychological community strategies: 31:26–33:19
• 2000s Christian pop’s mainstreaming and politics: 33:19–36:47
• Who are the cult leaders?: 37:06–41:17
• Excommunication and loss for leaving industry: 43:35–47:09
• Gender, patriarchy, and fan spiritual parasociality: 48:12–51:29
• Christian pop lingo segment: 58:30–59:57
• Male “bro” stars and cultural swing: 60:44–64:26
• Outro judgments: “cult” rating: 72:15–74:20

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Flow & Tone

The episode blends humor, nostalgia, and critical analysis. Amanda and Reese’s banter keeps the conversation accessible, but the guests’ honesty and depth inject weight and urgency into the issues. The hosts never lose sight of the playful “cult” conceit, but they allow the conversation to go deep as guests recount trauma, loss, and the struggle for autonomy.

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Final Takeaways & Cultiness Judgment

• Christian pop music's cultiness lands somewhere between "watch your back" and "get the fuck out," depending on degree of involvement and exposure to its toxic extremes (72:15–74:20).
  • “I think it's a tentative get the fuck out, but get the book out until we can steal some shit on your way out.” – Amanda Montell (74:05)
• The genre’s widespread presence, appealing sound, and “corniest” qualities often mask a profound and sometimes dangerous manipulativeness, especially regarding gender roles and community policing.

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Music Recommendations (End Segment)

• Sufjan Stevens – “He Woke Me Up Again”
• Plum (P L U M B)
• Juliana Glass – “Alive” (noted as reclaimed as a queer anthem)

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Where to Find the Guests

• Juliana Glass: Instagram @julianaglass, @thisiswhathappenswhenwomenread
• Joelle Kidd: joellekidd.com, BlueSky, book Jesus Land, out August 12th

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End Note:
The episode is a must-listen for anyone curious about how faith, pop culture, commerce, and social belonging intersect in modern life—and how even the most infectiously catchy music can play a sinister role in shaping beliefs and behaviors.

Transcript

[Amanda Montell]

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[Amanda Montell]

Views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only.

[Juliana Glass]

When you are actually kicked out of that cult because it is a cult, they will turn on you with guns blazing. And that's how you know that they don't actually have the grace that they're singing about. They don't actually have the mercy that they preach. It's spineless love.

[Joelle Kidd]

The number one Billboard song right now is a Christian song called Ordinary. There are so many of these white bros singing Christian music in the Billboard top 100 right now, singing about being a wretched worm for Christ. It's this kind of like masculine Christianity that I think is becoming popular again as there's this bit of a rightward shift in culture at large and a bit of a toxic masculinity resurgence happening right now. I feel like that's really tied to what's happening in Christian music at the moment.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Top 40 is always such a sign of the times and this is a sign of these culty times. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm your host Amanda Montel, and I'm an author.

[Reese Oliver]

And I'm your co host Reese Oliver. Sounds like a cult's resident rhetoric scholar.

[Amanda Montell]

Every week on the show, we discuss a different fanatical fringe group or or guru from the cultural zeitgeist from roller derby to Dave Ramsey. To try and answer the big question.

[Reese Oliver]

This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? And if so, which of our cult categories does it fall into? A live your life, a watch your.

[Amanda Montell]

Back or get the fuck out.

[Reese Oliver]

After all, cultishness is in the eye of the beholder. And not every culty looking group these days is equally bad. The point of this show is to analyze how culty behaviors show up in everyday life, including places you might not think to look and especially some places you'd never think to listen, like the Country Music Awards or the car radio before you realize what the station is on and fumble to enable your carplay. Uh, yeah. Today we are getting into all things Christian pop. Good, bad and unholy.

[Amanda Montell]

Ooh, something unholy. So sorry, I have a confession. This is so uncharacteristic and I don't know what this is about me because A, I'm an atheist and B, much of my job now is to critique religion, but I love Christian pop music.

[Reese Oliver]

That seems like a fun fact I could have guessed about.

[Amanda Montell]

Wait, why?

[Reese Oliver]

Because growing up you were not at all religious and went to church with your best friend just for funsies, for the vibes. Like, that's why.

[Amanda Montell]

Well, it's just so haunting. Let me clarify. I love it the way that people who are scared of sharks love Shark Week. You know, like the way that people are fascinated by things that terrify them. But yeah, when I was in middle school, I loved Switchfoot, Reliant K, Flyleaf. Get a little bit older. I'm out here stomping and clapping to Mumford and Sons. I don't know if that shit is totally Christian, but it's at least Christian coded. What?

[Reese Oliver]

Yes, yes, Christian coded.

[Amanda Montell]

I'm out here obsessed with Sufjan Stevens, with Julian Baker. I just love how the tunes are so tuneful and catchy and ear wormy and the lyrics are so disturbing and tortured.

[Joelle Kidd]

They are.

[Reese Oliver]

And I realize that I. I don't have a long history with Christian pop, but as an adult I realize I probably now listen to more Christian music than I ever have. You mentioned Julian Baker, who is someone I listen to, but like I would never think like, oh yeah, Christian artist, but like that's religious music. And then same goes for Ethel Cain. I'm a huge Ethel Cain fan. All of that super inherently Christian music. But I do think it's funny how different that is from the image of Christian pop that I have. When I think about going into today's episode and just, you know, the diversity of music, it's beautiful.

[Amanda Montell]

I mean, are we shocked that evangelical Christianity has been clever about disseminating their gospel through catchy, trendy pop music? No. That's, like, what they do. And every type of establishment or institution or entertainment that exists in the secular world, you know that there is probably an even more aesthetic analog in the Christian world.

[Reese Oliver]

Oh, yeah. And we'll get into this a little bit more. But it's because they're always, like, watching what the secular world is doing and then five steps behind doing it in their own version of perfect for themselves. So they get the benefit of getting a trial run. And all of the sinners out there.

[Amanda Montell]

Yeah, the sinners walk so that the Christians can walk on water.

[Reese Oliver]

Literally.

[Amanda Montell]

It has been a while since we recorded one of these religious deconstruction themed episodes. We had our purity rings rerun earlier this year. But it is so high time. And I mean, I keep saying, like, the consumerist episodes are my favorite, the fandom episodes are my favorite. But no, this Christianity and pop culture stuff, it feeds me.

[Reese Oliver]

It's truly, I think, the most pure, unadulterated form of cult meets culture in its most prime example.

[Amanda Montell]

And this episode is exciting, y'. All Listeners have to stick around because we have two incredible guests, an author and a former Christian pop star who both have such incredible insights on the whole world of Christian pop music. But two, like, represent this topic in a meme. It just makes me think of that TikTok that I know we've showed on the Sounds like a cult feed at some point of this former Christian being like, not me growing up in mega church culture thinking that I was so obsessed with Jesus. And then I went to my first Harry Styles concert and I was just like, oh, no, I just love live music.

[Reese Oliver]

My seventh grade boyfriend, hey, he really tried to evangelize to me. He really, really wanted me to convert to Christianity because his family, like, really loved me. But yeah, I was our little religious 13 year old and that was not okay. So he was like, will you come to my, like, Wednesday night little youth group thing with me? And I was like, I guess. And I went with him. And it was so strange. It was like a baby version of a megachurch. Well, I guess a church. A church, you would call that, but it had very megachurch vibes. A mini church, a mini version of.

[Amanda Montell]

A mega church is just a church.

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah, you could just call it a church.

[Amanda Montell]

That's like that other meme that I saw. I swear I'm not this extremely online, but like some man the other day was like, you know what people should do? Have like an IRL podcast. No microphones, just topics. And I was like, you mean like hanging out with your friends?

[Reese Oliver]

Literally, like talking? No, actually. And that was how I felt when I walked in, because there was like little service portion, I think there was like laser tag. It was like some kind of event. And then there was a silent disco moment where you put on your headphones and then they. And I was like, I feel like you guys just need to like go to concerts or have fun regularly without.

[Amanda Montell]

The like dogma and the threat of eternal damnation and all that stuff.

[Joelle Kidd]

Yeah.

[Reese Oliver]

And like, why are we posted up in the community center at 8:30pm on a Wednesday? Like we could be playing Mario Kart in my living room and getting equally as fulfilling a community bonding experience, in my opinion.

[Amanda Montell]

Ugh. You ate of the fruit of knowledge early, Rhys.

[Reese Oliver]

I spat it out and you were.

[Juliana Glass]

Like.

[Amanda Montell]

Anywho, let's get a little bit of background on the cult of Christian pop music. And then.

[Joelle Kidd]

Oof.

[Amanda Montell]

I'm sorry. So excited for this interview. So contemporary Christian music as we know it began with the sort of folksy Jesus music of the 1960s. Okay, are we surprised? It's this peak cult era that we keep returning to. And over the following decades, it expanded. Early developments included the establishment of the Dove Awards by the Gospel Music association of 1969, same year as the Manson family murders. A lot was happening. And then soon after, Maranatha music was established, a Christian music label that actually started as a culty little offshoot of the Calvary Chapel in 1971, which was an association of charismatic Christian evangelists. So we're in the 60s, we're in the 70s, a lot of experimenting is happening socio spiritually in the United States, and the Christians are trying to get in on it. So over the next 30 years, Christian culture and secular culture, including pop culture, became increasingly enmeshed. And in many ways, the products of Christianity became less fringy. So for example, the explicitly religious Christian bookstores and TV channels and radio stations that might have once alienated a Jesus loving kid from his classmates discussions were no longer the only place where said kid could find belongings, because now Christian music was spreading its wings. And secular kids like me didn't even question it because that shit was catchy. Evangelicalism's decision to, I guess, mainstream their ministry in the form of their version of contemporary pop music Wasn't an accident. It was a way to bring secular people into the fold. At least secular people who were okay with slightly gimmicky, slightly bottom shelf versions of the pop music they had so far been listening to the top 40 charts. Culturator and religious historian Kristin Kobez Dumas had a conversation with Vox's reporter, Asia Romano for a piece titled How Christianity conquered the Hot 100. And in it she said, quote, there was a lot of money to be made in distinctively Christian merchandise. But of course, it wasn't presented as a business. It was presented as ministry and as evangelism. The kind of joke about Christian culture is that they just copy what's happening in secular spaces and then produce things of lower quality. Wow. So what does that say about my taste level?

[Reese Oliver]

So as the megachurches of the 90s are beginning to cook, they are bringing up with them all of this worship music that has been popularized in decades prior by Christian contemporary music giant Rich Mullins, who, quote, modernized the the classic Protestant hymnal structure by combining it with the aesthetics of modern black gospel, emphasizing a soaring, anthemic rock chorus everyone could sing along to. This structure has come to define praise music ever since.

[Amanda Montell]

Ugh. That's the shit that gets me.

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah.

[Amanda Montell]

Dare you to move, Dare you to move. Rhys doesn't know. This song is so insane.

[Reese Oliver]

It all just sounds like Toyota commercial music to me.

[Amanda Montell]

That's fair.

[Reese Oliver]

Not that that makes it bad. I just think like the drama of it all. It very. Which gives car commercial a little.

[Amanda Montell]

Yeah, but imagine if a Toyota commercial was not selling you a car, but salvation.

[Reese Oliver]

O see, now maybe I'm interested.

[Amanda Montell]

Sing along.

[Reese Oliver]

Right now my hands are waving my flashlights out if it's a slow one.

[Amanda Montell]

Exactly. I love it.

[Reese Oliver]

So it's the 90s. Pants are getting bigger, songs are getting bigger. The Christian conferences and mega churches of the 90s and the early 2000s and the establishment of the iconic Hillsong Music from Hillsong Church in 1991 in Sydney, Australia, ensured worship music got poppier and more communal in its sound and solidified the megachurch sound, baby. And then somewhere in this whole cocktail of these private little bookstores, these super separate nooks and crannies, now a wee little thing called the Internet happened. Don't know if you've heard of it.

[Amanda Montell]

Yeah, yeah, right.

[Reese Oliver]

And of course, Christian pop was never the same. With the Internet and its rise in popularity came a new platform for boundless evangelism. You don't even need to go knock on people's doors. This was a scary time. And as an actual Christian artist, you out of necessity would need to engage with the seculars on the Internet. Christian artists of the younger generation who grew up super heavily influenced by the hillsong sound. Now we've come from far enough along that those little children have grown up to be Chris Martin. And they made Fix you by Coldplay, which changed the landscape of music forever.

[Amanda Montell]

Wait, is Coldplay literally Christian?

[Reese Oliver]

My understanding from this article is that Chris Martin grew up religious, listening to religious music, and he took the formula that makes the Christian music you love so addictive, and he just made a regular pop song with it. Which is why Imagine Dragons happened and why all of these songs that sound like they could be church songs but aren't really. It's because regular people who made them grew up listening to church music.

[Amanda Montell]

That's fascinating. And you know what's so weird? And I don't know what this says about me, but, like, I can't stand Coldplay. Sorry.

[Juliana Glass]

I love.

[Amanda Montell]

I don't want to yuck anyone's yum. But the thing is, I feel like I can sense that it is copying the Christian music playbook, or like, those tools, but without that, like, tortured undertone of I am a worthless worm. Jesus save me. I'm like, suddenly not interested.

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah. With Fix you, what they talk about in the article is the sense of scale, where the song starts out really small and it's very intimate, and then it becomes very grandiose and very all encompassing and like a spiritual experience. Which, by the way, I didn't know that song was about Gwyneth Paltrow.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh, yeah. Okay, okay, okay, okay. So I get it. For me, I'm just like, Chris Martin, you're being so dramatic. Like, if you're not singing about Satan, shut up.

[Reese Oliver]

And that's why Coldplay feels so dramatic, because it was religious music structure being used to talk about the founder of goop.

[Amanda Montell]

I did not know this. Wait, that's all very sounds like a cult coded.

[Reese Oliver]

It's also sounds like a cult coded. So now we have come full circle. Instead of the Christian music makers taking notes from the pop girlies, now the giant music overlords are taking notes from the church.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh, and it's all just diluted. So it's like the Christian people took notes from the secular pop world, made it cheesier and higher stakes at the same time. And then the secular world went and was like, ooh, how do I get people to throw their hands in the air like that and sway and cry? What if I made it sound like worship music, but it got filtered so many times that in the end, to me it's like really corny. So corny.

[Reese Oliver]

I do think the ultimate consequence of it is Love island music, which is all just dramatic sounds and physically no lyrics.

[Amanda Montell]

Okay, so now where we're at with Christian music is that it's being clipped for little kids on TikTok in bite sized 30 second segments, which is making.

[Reese Oliver]

It ultimately really popular, even relative to normal pop songs, because it's just getting thrown into the same TikTok stew that all popular music is.

[Amanda Montell]

I had no idea until we started putting together materials for this episode that Christian music was on the mainstream rise in this way. According to a piece in NPR titled Christian Music is Experiencing a pop breakthrough, only 39% of contemporary Christian music listenership in 2021 was made up of millennials or younger. Today that number has risen like Jesus himself to 45%. End with signs of growth. This is happening alongside the growing numbers of traditional young Christians, specifically young Christian men overall, in the United States right now due to pew research, which is something that we do discuss more in depth with our guests, but it's just all a little backwards and spooky, but at the same time futuristic. As we've discussed in our momfluencers episode and in our mission trips episode and so many other sort of like internety cults on this show, social media has proven not just to be a tool of fame and virality, but a religious evangelization tool the likes of which we've really never seen before. And as the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, the algorithm works its magic. It's dark magic. There is a contemporary Christian music tune to go in the background of any IG reel you might ever want to make, no matter your taste. And because contemporary Christian music can sound like anything, Christian artists are having an easier time than ever finding listeners, evangelizing to them, and sometimes converting people who don't even necessarily know that what they're listening to is Christian. In that same Vox piece that we keep referencing, Asia Romano describes the work of artists like Jelly Roll, Brandon Lake and Thomas Rhett as, quote, barstool conversion rock, one of many contemporary Christian music adjacent genres.

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah, I think that's really the kind of like bro Christian tune that we were hopping on earlier, where it's kind of picking up where country music left off and making it a little poppier, a little more miserable for the Gen Z man. As you noted, Amanda, Christian music is having a bit of a breakthrough moment into the mainstream charts. More pop influenced and less overtly religious, but undoubtedly contemporary Christian music inspired Former ex Mormon Benson Boone's Beautiful Things. You've seen it, you've heard it. And Alex Warren. That's his name, Alex Warren. We're going to call him Alex something later. His name is Alex Warren. No disrespect, Alex Warren's Ordinary are both songs that have skyrocketed through the charts and they represent contemporary Christian music's most powerful and most ubiquitous offspring. Hence us being pretty sick of it. These really dramatic building ballads that could be religious if you kind of squint, but most of the time are just about like needing to go to therapy and not really wanting to. To quote again from that NPR article, Christian music is experiencing a new pop breakthrough. This new and evolving embrace of secular messaging arguably explains why so many Christians are warming up to and pushing up the charts. Country and rock artists who, despite referencing Jesus here and there in their lyrics, would have once been viewed by them as morally dubious.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh my God, like Justin Bieber.

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of like hypocrisy because in trying to mitigate the image management while still trying to be a good Christian of it all. And this contradiction kind of serves as the essence of barstool conversion rock. Moral messages coming from spurious messengers. So yeah, last year, still reading from npr, contemporary Christian music had its biggest streams on Spotify, where the genre experienced a 60% growth rate globally over a five year period as artists reach beyond the confines of the Christian market to occupy sparsely held mainstream space. I'm wondering if the rise in Spotify curated playlists that tend to just throw whatever's popular on them have anything to do with that. Because if you're listening to just what's popular and a couple of those songs happen to be Christian, are now counted as a Christian music listener. And what does that. What's the implication of that?

[Amanda Montell]

Oh my God, I'm probably counted as a Christian music listener.

[Reese Oliver]

I feel like at this point you definitely are.

[Amanda Montell]

Is it good that I'm throwing off their numbers? I don't know, but I do love it. Like I'm so shook by my revelation about Coldplay and why I don't like it. It's because the stakes aren't high enough. I just love how self sacrificial and intense this music is. If you really pay attention to the lyrics, like, oh, I love it. Anyway, I'm gonna stop singing, I promise, because we have serious business to get to and that is our amazing interview this was so enlightening. We are thrilled, honored, proud and filled with worship to introduce you to our two guests today. The first is Joel Kidd, author of the new book Jesus Land, a collection of essays exploring Christian pop culture of the early 2000s, and Juliana Glass, former pop singer and evangelical Christian turned philanthropist who just recently launched her organization called this Is what Happens When Women Read. We were able to talk to both of these women at the same time and get these sort of dueling perspectives on the cult of Christian pop. And it was so juicy.

[Reese Oliver]

After the break, we are so blessed to deliver you this interview.

[Amanda Montell]

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[Juliana Glass]

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

[Joelle Kidd]

Yeah, thanks for having me.

[Amanda Montell]

We've got quite the multi talented caucus here today to discuss a topic that I feel my soul has Been singing out for quite some time. First, I just wanted to ask if each of you could describe your individual journeys with Christian music and how those journeys might mirror a cult experience, whatever that means to you. Joelle, maybe you could go first.

[Joelle Kidd]

Yeah. I came from a Christian family, but my family lived overseas for a few years. And when we moved back to Canada, it was like double culture shock, because I was suddenly in this evangelical Christian school. And not only did I not really know what was going on in Canada, but I had no idea. It was this whole other world of pop culture, like, all these bands I'd never heard of, these Christian artists. And that was like, the thing that actually kicked off me writing about Christian pop culture because it was really its own separate subculture, and it was kind of my only way to try and make myself fit in. And so I've always found it weird and fascinating, and it does have that little culty vibe, like, very separate from the rest of culture and its own little mirror universe.

[Amanda Montell]

Juliana, tell us about your story.

[Juliana Glass]

Yeah, Joelle, thanks for sharing, because I think we're going to balance one another and that you were kind of thrust into it. And I was raised in it, so I actually was a Christian pop singer for 11 years. I was indoctrinated deeply into the religious institution. And so for me, it was all I knew. Right. It was ubiquitous. It would be like you asking a fish to describe water when it touches every corner of your life. It's really the lens through which you see the whole world. And so for me, it didn't feel like a subculture. It felt like a calling. So I was a pianist and a classical performer, but I knew that I was called to serve women and to serve God by converting people to Christianity by means of my gift, which was music. So sang, performed for women for 11 years, wrote three different books, performed at the National Prayer Breakfast Weekend for Donald Trump in 2017, because I was, like, right wing Republican, Christian, anti gay, anti women's rights. Again, this is the framework through which you see your world, and not only the way that you see the world, but you believe that you are on a mission to save people from eternal damnation. So while it is kind of funny and jokey, it's also fucking dangerous because this system is built on this ideology that there's a separation of in and out, and not just in and out. Like, I love how you use Amanda, like the example of Soul Cycle, which for me, like, if you've missed Soul Cycle for a day, no one's coming in, like, calling you to repentance, right? We're like publicly shaming you. Hopefully, yeah, hopefully not. Might not be a great look for the brand, but in music, you know, for me, 11 years of just really being indoctrinated in that world and serving that world and loving the women. And then I had my third child and I was like, I don't think I could tell my daughter that she is inherently lesser than a man or that her proximity to God is in direct correlation to her proximity to a man. And then I couldn't imagine telling my son that he was evil and depraved and separate from God, which is when you listen to Christian music, is the bedrock of all of the messaging. Like, you are evil, you are separate, you do not have value in and of yourself. So you have to have this higher power. And it's a very strange psychological abuse, I believe. And so for me, when I met my first gay couple and I fell in love with them and I was like, they lied. You're not single handedly destroying American democracy. Like I've been told my whole life. I literally, they saved my life. The queer community saved my life and then started reading books. And as I read books, then the world became super threatened that I was in and everyone from my management to my label to my publishing, because all of these businesses require a statement of faith to be signed. And so it's not just, oh, I'm good at singing and so I'm going to perform for this crowd of women. It's like, no, you sign on a dotted line. And not only could I lose and did lose my publishing deal, for instance, they could require I pay it back for no longer aligning to these beliefs. So anyway, I digress, but I come from like a very different perspective and have since completely left it and went back to school and started this is what happens when women read. Because the day that I told a man in the church that I was pro queer community, pro women's rights, he said, this is what happens when women read. And I was like, oh, this is what happens.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh my God, I want a cheon sign hanging in my house. I know that's says, this is what happens when women read.

[Juliana Glass]

All the merch is coming for you.

[Joelle Kidd]

Good.

[Amanda Montell]

Thank you so much. I think it's really important that listeners hear that story because yes, it is easy to have a laugh about how much we listened to Switchfoot growing up and like deconstructing that or whatever, but there are really high stakes here. And when you listen to pop music, that means a lot to you that that's secular. Especially when you're a young person, it can have this transformative, almost religious seeming effect on you. But when those same chord progressions are infused with the highest stakes you could ever encounter, that being your entire worldly community, but also the afterlife, some seriously culty manipulation can be introduced into the picture, and it is not easy to step away from that. So we're both super grateful to be talking to both of you today.

[Reese Oliver]

Oh, yes. I mean, we just kind of dove right into the deep end there. And I mean, how culty Christian pop music is, I feel, eludes none of us. But if each of you could maybe just sum up a little taste of the number one cultiest thing about Christian pop music, if you had to choose.

[Amanda Montell]

Maybe something that people didn't even realize.

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah.

[Joelle Kidd]

Well, I'd love to hear your insider take, Julianna. I was gonna say similar to what you were talking about, Amanda. It's just that strange confluence of the sacred and the profane of, like, capitalism and religion kind of butting heads where you have this kind of, like, goofy sounding music. But then it's also like, so life or death, they're singing about eternity. Like, you have to believe what they believe or you're gonna be roasting in hell. So there's something very strange about those two things layered on top of each other that I find very culty, very in and out, very sharp line drawn.

[Juliana Glass]

Ye, Yeah, I agree with you entirely there. And I think I would add to it in just the physical movements, too, that are expected, especially of worship leaders and of people such as myself. Like when I was performing, if there was a slower song, there was an expectation to lead in worship, and that largely would be like hand positioning, praying, like hand on chest, even like the swaying, right? Or this physical kind of bonding that takes place. Alexander the Great was the first one that came up with marching, and we now understand that as psychological muscular bonding, because he realized that his warriors would be much more effective if they were all in lockstep. And I see Christian music and worship music largely the same because they are using these similar movements and these similar motions, and that is bonding the group together psychologically, even without them knowing it. I find that really fascinating now as an observer that's outside of it to witness. It's like you don't even really understand what it is, how deeply they are ingraining these ideologies and theologies into your system, even in a physical manifestation.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh, my God. Yeah. That's like a whole body experience when you're engaged in this extremely conformist, but at the same time, I can imagine really fulfilling physical gesturing and choreography. You're also singing with your whole self these, like, really powerful lyrics.

[Joelle Kidd]

There's literally words put into your mouth.

[Amanda Montell]

Yeah, I actually was just rewatching some switch Foot performances the other day, I guess, like psyching myself out for this recording and speaking to that juxtaposition that you were noting Joelle about. It's not just like spirituality and capitalism. It's also like, I am nothing, but I'm also performing on a stage better than everyone else. Yeah, there's a lot of tension going on. And I had never really noticed at the time when I was listening to this stuff how present that is even in the delivery. Like, I find that when Christian pop singers are performing on stage and also when like Christian YouTubers are like, testifying in a video or whatever, they all have this very similar delivery that's super passionate but also strained. Also, like holding back, but singing out, but holding back. There's so much tension that I think has a real psychological parallel. And we wanted to ask, like, you know, I did not grow up Christian. I grew up atheist, sort of Jewish. So not in this world. But my middle school best friend was in the megachurch world, and I was fascinated by this. So I was wondering if you could kind of reflect on that early 2000s era of Christian music and what you think gave that style of music at that time such a distinct flavor, and why do you think it appealed even to non Christians like me?

[Juliana Glass]

Oh, man. I will say that in the trajectory of the growth of Christianity, especially in the United States, Christianity was having like a cool moment. So we were following like the Beth Moore's of the world, which Beth Moore was known as a teacher in the conservative Christian world, but she was very, very conservative. But I think that women, and Christian women, even women like myself, we were wanting some more freedom. Like, we were watching the rest of the world. We were feeling what I call simmers. Like, we were simmering a little bit. We were like, okay, I don't want to be a Beth Moore that's like super staunch and won't even sit in a room alone with a guy, but I still want to love Jesus and make my songs. And so it was like, how can we stay within the guid rails of scripture, stay within the guide rails of the church, but get to the edges of them? And so for at least for me, that's what it was. It was like, hey, I'm going to pull from Radiohead, I'm going to pull from Imogen Hebrew, I'm going to pull from these incredible artists. But I'm not doing anything wrong because my words are still super, super submissive and very godly. So it's fine. So it's like, I think we were all like, in this moment of great music, number one, fun music, but realizing that we didn't want staunch Christianity, we wanted more fun, playful Christianity. And so the idea having pop, it was cool at the time, the idea of taking these old hymns and redoing them in a more modern way was popularized because I think we were stretching the limits a little bit, at least from my perspective. That's what I would say.

[Joelle Kidd]

Yeah, I think that's so right. And to be a little bit more cynical about it as well, I also think the 2000s was really like the peak profitability for the record industry and the bookstore industry, which was where all this Christian music was, was disseminated through these Christian bookstores that had this really strong network at the time across the US And Canada too. And so that was like such a profitable area for Christian publishers to get into. It was also right at the time when the religious right figured out a lot of ways and loopholes to get into American politics. And that also became a great funding source for these publishers because now they had another message to spread along with the religion, which was all these trappings of, like, politics that went along with it. So I also think that what Juliana was talking about feels so true to, like, my memory of it too. Like, as a kid who was interested in music at the time and writing, I remember feeling that way, like, oh, I can be Christian, but I can bring it into my art. And then I think there was this sort of push from the top towards a very specific type of right wing Christianity and making that profitable and pouring money into it.

[Juliana Glass]

I would agree with that completely. And I think that religious people are often, and I don't mean this in any kind of pejorative manner, but like, they want to do good. And so policyholders and politicians can take advantage of that quite quickly because these are good people that want to do what is right. So the only thing you have to do is instill fear in them, which they know intimately and truly is the reason why they believe what they believe. So you perpetuate that fear and then they do your work, work for you. And so to your point, Joel, I think that kind of coercive nature of politicians to use sort of this low hanging fruit of the Christian culture of which there are 47 million self professing American evangelical women in the United States alone. And if they were anything like me, they didn't have voting autonomy. You voted the way that your husband instructed you to vote because he's your spiritual head. And so I think you're entirely right to shine a light on the fact that it was much more coercive than probably what I understood at the time. For sure.

[Amanda Montell]

It is so chilling to hear you reflect, reflect on this early 2000s conflation of pop culture, Christianity and far right politics. Because look where we are now.

[Joelle Kidd]

A little familiar.

[Amanda Montell]

Yeah. Now it's so omnipresent that it's like. Yeah, it's horrifying.

[Juliana Glass]

It's horrifying.

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah. I think these two conversations are becoming more and more the same conversation. And it really just makes me wonder like if there is is one leader of the Christian music cult, who is it? Like, is it Jesus? Is it Instagram reels? Who is it?

[Joelle Kidd]

I haven't listened to Christian music in so long and I was listening to a lot of it this last week, knowing this was coming up and I was like all these songs that I was hearing in the grocery store and going like, are they playing worship music? But they are. It's Christian music and it all sounds like Coldplay now. Maybe my hot take take. You would think that the musicians themselves would be the cult leaders, but in a way I almost wonder if it's the fans or if it's the record companies that are distributing this music. Because when I was thinking about it, I think that a lot of. And maybe Juliana, you can speak to this more. But I think a lot of Christian musicians are really being surveilled on both sides by some pretty strict codes of conduct and presentation of yourself and your music. Music. So it's almost like the most visible people are not leading this cult.

[Reese Oliver]

So true.

[Amanda Montell]

That's so often the case in the cults that we cover on this show.

[Juliana Glass]

Yeah, I suppose it's an astute observation and I think I would add to that not being familiar with like the actual artists that are out there performing right now. But I think a mistake that I'll say we, knowing that we're all new friends here, but the mistake that I see many, like feminist groups or leftist groups, Democrats making is that they're trying to approach dogmatism with more dogmatism. And what that does is it just further perpetuates the issue. It makes them louder. I remember when the MeToo movement was happening and I was scared of the Feminists. That was not inspiring to me. I didn't feel called to, like, yes, wave a flag. I felt like, oh, no, no, no, that's scary. I will never be that. I mean, lo and behold, hello now. Now, here we are.

[Amanda Montell]

You know, my work on cultish influence and cognitive biases over the years would lead me to agree with you there. When we feel beyond our ideas being threatened, our community is being threatened. When someone challenges us, we tend to backfire and double down with, like, even more intense beliefs. So like we say on the show all the time, nobody likes to be told that they're in a cult and that they're brainwashed. It's not effective. But I am just curious, how was the MeToo movement framed as something scary to you at the time?

[Juliana Glass]

Oh, to see women in their full power, to see women marching and being loud and using their voices and clearly not being submissive to their husbands and saying the thing that no one was supposed to talk about like that for me was threatening to this ideology that I was trying to maintain. So the work that we're doing now and that I'm doing is like, I'm working on a curriculum right now with a professor of clinical psychology at Berkeley, and we're working on a curriculum that will help a woman leave religion in a gracious way and recreate a meaning making system in her life. Because all of these ideals from love, you know, love to me used to mean telling the gay community that they were in sin. So you have to reframe. What does love mean to me now? What does justice mean to me now? What does it mean to be a woman now? So anyway, we're working on a curriculum that hopefully we will be able to get into the hands of millions of these women here around the United States to help aid them. Not be afraid of liberation, but to be inspired by it and to know that liberation can come and that they can do it in a way, beautiful way.

[Amanda Montell]

Wow, that is amazing, I have to say. First of all. And second, it is really fascinating to hear you explain all of that, because, I mean, Christian pop music might sound like a small ingredient in this whole recipe, but because it is so consumable, and yet the message of all these songs is still, you are nothing. You do not have individual power.

[Reese Oliver]

The stakes are so high for something so casually consumed.

[Amanda Montell]

Yeah, exactly. I can easily see how mainlining that into your veins from a very young age could frame feminism or female empowerment as highly threatening to everything you've ever known. Juliana, who do you think might be the cult leader here.

[Juliana Glass]

Well, the leader of the cult. I mean, I think anyone in a leadership position, a pastor that's standing on a stage and teaching the doctrine of depravity to groups of people and then telling them that their worth and value is not inherent but needs to be found elsewhere. Those men, because they are largely men, are held responsible and they know what the fuck they are doing and they need to be held accountable for it because women are suffering. Women have agency in and of themselves. They have autonomy in and of themselves. They are intrinsically good, intrinsically worthy, intrinsically made by love and for love. And to teach them anything other than that is perpetuating a system of hierarchy and of patriarchy that oppresses and represses women and has been doing for millennia. Thank you very much.

[Amanda Montell]

That's what I thank you.

[Juliana Glass]

Thank you.

[Amanda Montell]

Thank you.

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[Juliana Glass]

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[Juliana Glass]

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[Amanda Montell]

Okay, so the music industry all on its own. The secular music industry is. Is so culty, so exploitative. The most artist unfriendly entertainment subcategory I can think of. And yet how is the Christian music industry even cultier in terms of like the hierarchy or any of that?

[Joelle Kidd]

Well, I do think that moral component really adds another layer. I think you already see that in current secular culture when you talk about like Stan culture or these sort of intense fan communities where artists are held to some really high standards and it's a different morality. But within Christian music, I think musicians have always been held to these really, sometimes arbitrary, but really intense moral standards by both their fans and their management. I was just talking to my partner who grew up in Ohio, grew up really conservative, evangelical and they had this friend who was like, follow a blog that would keep tabs on all their favorite musicians and switch foot once. The rumor was that they had puked on stage. And so therefore they were all drinking and they were hungover, and that's why. And so they were fallen from Christ's and turned out they had food poisoning or something. But I feel like there's that kind of, like, rabid fan behavior that it's just got a little extra twist of those high stakes we were talking about.

[Amanda Montell]

Of eternal damnation.

[Joelle Kidd]

Eternal damnation, exactly.

[Juliana Glass]

I remember having a really difficult moral dilemma around having shows on Sunday because I wasn't supposed to work on Sunday. You're supposed to recognize the Sabbath. And I remember fans asking me, like, how could you have a show and be working and making money on a Sunday? So there was that component for me, definitely the morality. Joelle, what you're talking about. Oh, my God. I remember not listening to Amy Grant when she got a divorce. I was like, well, she's living in sin. It's over. She was over for me. Like, you could not be a godly Christian individual and be divorced. Those two things were incongru. So, like, that is wild to me. And to be on the receiving end of that kind of excommunication is so horrendously violent. When I left in 2019, I lost everything. I lost all of my work, and I went through a divorce. My divorce was very public, and I had hate mail. I had death threats. I had incredibly violent rape messages sent to me by Christians. Like, this was the Christian community that came out at me with such vitriol and this Machiavellian posture that was unlike anything I had ever experienced. And it was so disorienting because you had been taught grace your whole life and grace and love and forgiveness and joy and all of these beautiful attributes. But when you are actually kicked out of that cult because it is a cult, they will turn on you with guns blazing. And that's how you know that they don't actually have the grace that they're singing about. They don't actually have the mercy that they preach. It's spineless love, dude.

[Amanda Montell]

I had not, like, fully processed how intense the combination of, like, secular Stan culture and Christian fundamentalism, how intense that conglomeration would be like, holy shit. I'm so sorry.

[Juliana Glass]

I am too. Listen, no one should ever deal with what I dealt with. But the reality is that people do, and they do it on a daily. And this is not. Not just in the United States. This is Global. Like any woman, my scholars that I have at the University of Oxford, when they choose to not get married in their arranged marriage, and they choose to educate themselves and they choose to come to the university, they will lose everything. Their family, their funding, their community, their reputation, all of it. Because they are daring to self actualize and they are daring to become who they can imagine they can become. And that's the risk that every woman takes when she says, I know who I want to be and nothing's going to stop me from becoming it.

[Amanda Montell]

Wow. What you just said is giving like rage. Rachel Platten lyrics like, let's go. She's like songwriting in real time.

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah.

[Joelle Kidd]

For real.

[Reese Oliver]

That's so empowering. And I think especially what makes the overlapping centers of control so especially vile is that music is just supposed to be something that's so self expressive and so personal and to have it not only policed by like those above you, those below you, but even your peers and like those, those around you for not even the subject matter of the songs themselves. Like, on no level are you allowed psychological privacy. And it's truly chilling. So I'm wondering how that plays out in terms of like peer to peer dynamics. Are Christian artists who tend to play it a little riskier and appeal to a wider, more secular audience, kind of shunned by those who color within the lines a little more?

[Amanda Montell]

Yeah. Like, is it satanic to have fans who are atheists like me?

[Juliana Glass]

Yeah.

[Reese Oliver]

Your comment about not being able to listen to the artist Juliana, who got divorced, I was like, oh, wow. So even within it, there are so many subcults within this sub cult based on how hard you're writing.

[Juliana Glass]

Yeah. I mean, no, you love having non Christian fans because you are called to convert them. And so the more the merrier. Like the bigger and louder you can be, the larger your platform, they would consider that God blessing you because you are preaching his word.

[Joelle Kidd]

Yeah. I can't believe you didn't become a Christian, Amanda. After all that switch foot lesson.

[Juliana Glass]

I know. You weren't.

[Joelle Kidd]

It didn't work.

[Amanda Montell]

Didn't work.

[Joelle Kidd]

You're meant to live for so much more.

[Amanda Montell]

Don't even get me started, Joelle. I will burst out. I know every word. Well, you know, I was. I was reading. I was reading books.

[Juliana Glass]

No, don't do it. How dare you?

[Reese Oliver]

So, Stan, culture obviously is something that is so hot and just like such a high pressure environment. And being a fan of anything nowadays is impossible to do casually, especially music artists. You know, the barrier to entry. It's so Expensive. There's so much time you need to dedicate. And then obviously, Christian pop music adds a whole new layer to that. So what makes the fans of Christian pop artists, Artists. Cultier than those of normal pop artists?

[Juliana Glass]

Well, I love this question because I love them. Like, my heart is for these fans. I love these women so much. I served them for so many years. I spent so much of my life singing and writing for them and teaching them. And so I adore them with my whole heart. I think what makes it cultier is that they're looking to you as a leader. And not just a leader, like a mentor or someone to look up to, but actually a spiritual leader. And that's a problem, you know, for any one individual to usher out their agency. You're not going to do that sexually or psychologically or intellectually. You have autonomy over those parts of your life. Why do we usher them out spiritually? We need to reclaim spiritual autonomy. Reese, to your point, spiritual privacy, like, what a notion to not have to divulge for the world or fillet oneself out for everyone to see. Like, in the Christian world, and in that, in the Christian pop fandom world, how are you? Is a loaded gun. It's how are you before Christ? And who are you witnessing to and what are you struggling with? Right. And like, what do you need to repent of? What do you need to confess? So these are very deep, internal, sort of existential questions that it's too much weight for any one woman to carry. It's too much weight for any Christian pop fan to carry, and it needs to change.

[Joelle Kidd]

Yeah, that's so true. It's so heavy. And I think it's like the parasocial relationship that people have with celebrities or with their favorite musicians. But again, it's got that extra level of spirituality, which this is kind of a beautiful idea. Like, people have literally probably sung your songs and felt like they were having a spiritual experience and have had, like, a really deep religious connection to it. But it also takes on such a weight in terms of this relationship that they have with someone they've never met and maybe never will talk to in real life and don't really know, no matter how much people think that they know each other within Christianity, because you are supposed to lay your soul so bare and kind of like, confess all your sins, you know?

[Amanda Montell]

We released an episode on the Cult of Rave Culture earlier this year, and Rhys made a really good point where she was like, the raves are getting churchier and the churches are getting raven. Yeah. And we Talk a lot on this show about how secular spaces are being infused with more religiosity as just like Americans, relationship to spirituality is changing. And actually though Pew Research wrote reflects that a lot of young Americans are returning to traditional Christianity in a big way, which could be the result of anything from rebelling against their atheist parents to looking for community in disconnected times, to our right wing government. But your commentary here is important to hear as a perspective shift because ultimately, like, you could have the most hardcore Swifty. And odd odds are that person doesn't actually think that if they master being the perfect Swifty, they'll get to talk to God somehow.

[Joelle Kidd]

Exactly.

[Juliana Glass]

Well, props to Taylor Swift for not claiming that she could. If she came out and started saying that, you better believe people would fall in line.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh my God, a hundred percent. The first time I ever went to a Robin concert irl, I was like, if this woman wanted me to vote against my own interests, I would consider it. We really, we worship in scare quotes, these artists, but when it comes to Christian pop artists, those scare quotes go away.

[Joelle Kidd]

That's so true.

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah. And what really kind of scares me is how much our culture loves to scrutinize celebrities and like find things that they do wrong. Whereas this also almost feels the other way where it's like, we can't see you doing anything wrong. And to exist in the eye of both of those forces is a really paralyzing way to live as a Christian pop star, I imagine.

[Amanda Montell]

Yeah.

[Juliana Glass]

Such a great observation. And I think you're totally right. It's like the opposite side of the same coin. Right. And I think we observe it in our culture right now. This what I consider to be the most anti intellectual movement that there is, which is cancel culture. And the Christian world is built, built on this in and out mentality. And so when a pastor ends up just being a dude. My dad was a pastor. He's just a guy. You know, when I decide to change my life and to get a divorce and go back to school, it's like threatening their system. And so this idea of canceling people is really frustrating to me because it shows that we are not evolutionary beings. When we are, we're supposed to, supposed to be able to map our progress. We should be able to look back 50 years and go, oh, we got that wrong. But like, yay, we got it wrong. That's why I love science so much, because science exists to prove itself wrong and to know more and to know more and to know more. And when you live in this very binary way of believing in belief system like Christianity, then there is no movement, there is no evolution to being certain the system continues to exist. Exist because the certitude is there.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh my God. Come on now. The poetry of evolution. I'm like trying to worship you right now.

[Reese Oliver]

I know. I feel like people thought this was going to be like a fun, light hearted episode and the listeners are getting like a thorough awakening right now.

[Amanda Montell]

Literally, I'm like, let's talk about evolution.

[Reese Oliver]

You know what?

[Juliana Glass]

I saw the questions and I told my team, like, oh, God, I'm going to throw a wrench in this because I've lived it and it's, there's, there's like some scariness to it.

[Amanda Montell]

No, this is the tone. This is exactly right. You two are perfect and yet perfection doesn't exist. I want to know from both of your perspectives what makes a perfect Christian pop star. So far we know it's someone who's not divorced. But if you could help build us a perfect Christian pop star. What does this person look like? What merch are they selling? What beverages are they serving in the lobby? Like, where are they performing? What does their Instagram font look like? You know, like, paint us a picture.

[Joelle Kidd]

Not to offend any Christian music fans, there's something a little bland about Christian music and I think it's a mass market kind of genre. So I feel like you have to be pretty, you have to be, you know, attractive, but you have to be sort of like acceptable to anyone. And there's like a little bit of a middle of the road vibe. It's like Benson Boone, right? Like he does backflips and he still seems kind of bland. Like I don't know what it is.

[Amanda Montell]

That is so true. He could be like walking on water in like little androgynous heels and everybody would be like, bland. Love him.

[Reese Oliver]

So bland.

[Joelle Kidd]

Throw him on in the background.

[Juliana Glass]

I definitely agree. There's like, you have to be cute, but like not too cute. And you have to be fashionable but modest at certain level. But mod. Oh, I mean, modesty for sure. So, like, I think that's great. The floral thing. Oh. One really interesting piece of it is the pitch of the voice. Like when you are a Christian pop singer and you are here to talk to the women and to worship with you and to pray with you. Like there is just this really sweet tone and like breathy and airy. That is so fucking weird.

[Amanda Montell]

No, it is. It's breathy, but it's tortured.

[Juliana Glass]

It's tortured?

[Amanda Montell]

Yes.

[Reese Oliver]

It's repression.

[Juliana Glass]

There is a book called A well Trained Wife by Tia Lens Weddings. Who. She's.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh, I know. We had her on the show. Okay.

[Juliana Glass]

I'm so happy. She's a friend of mine. But she talks about this too. Like, the expectation of where your voice is. I mean, perfect pop star has kids. Or they'll dress in, like, very consistent. Not fashion forward, but like long and flowy or like kind of Nashville monochromatic, flat build hat, skinny jeans, white on white on white. And like, the merch is like the cup that has the one flower that has, like, Jesus freak on it or something. Or, like, like, I love to cuss and I love Jesus. Like, something like that. My fans were that we were the Christian drinkers. We kind of quietly dubbed ourselves. And these women, you guys, you're gonna love this. This is why I'm obsessed with these women. There was this one time, this group of women came up to me and they were dressed, like, in sparkles and kind of loud. And I was like, oh, my God, you guys look amazing. Although I probably said it like this. Oh, my God, you guys look amazing. So happy that you're here and there. I was like, I love what you're wearing. You look outstanding. And they said, oh, we changed in the car because our husbands never would have let us wear this. So we went shopping together. We hid these clothes. We got changed in the car on the way, and then we'll get changed on the way back. Oh, my God.

[Amanda Montell]

It's like something a teenager would do.

[Juliana Glass]

We want to be set free. Everyone wants to be set free. Listening to your heart. Damn, you want to be set free. And we'll find any way to do it, whether that's just wearing sparkles at a Christian pop concert.

[Reese Oliver]

Okay, what are some of your favorite Christian music specific phrases or pieces of lingo?

[Juliana Glass]

I love, like, the constant need to talk about, like, ocean and I'm in a storm or in God is the ocean, or, like, the fire of this. There's. There's this elemental part of Christian music that definitely appeals to nature, which, I mean, is mystery and all of those things. But when you're trying to, like, articulate something that's mysterious that we. We apparently can't know or. And you're just grabbing for these certain words. So I am always kind of amused by, like, how many times the ocean can be used in a Christian song. And even, like, one of the oldest hymns, Amazing Grace has these really fascinating words. We can use wretch in a song in Christian music, and no one bats an Eye. We can use the word in a Christian song and no one bats an eye. We can use like. Like I am a whore or I. Or I am a worm. Or like we. We have these really strange comparisons that we attach ourselves to that are just really odd when you see them written down.

[Amanda Montell]

Why do I want so badly to collaborate with Reese and create a Christian girl pop duo and write a song?

[Joelle Kidd]

Please do. Please do.

[Reese Oliver]

Wait a minute. I think it would be too good. I think our power would be too strong. But we should. Oh, no.

[Amanda Montell]

I am obsessed with this. But again, it is very fcked up. But that's the problem is that there's so much delight in all of this that, like, it can so easily mask the most nefarious, dangerous shit.

[Joelle Kidd]

Well, music is so straight to the heart. And it's also like, there's a reason why you sing mnemonic rhymes to remember things. Like, it really worms its way into your brain and into your constant everyday thought patterns and it stays with you. I still know every lyric to like a Reliant K song I listened to a lot in high school or something. You know, like, it's just in there.

[Amanda Montell]

So true. Again, I wish the climate scientists would get better at rhyming.

[Joelle Kidd]

Yeah, where are those songs?

[Juliana Glass]

Honestly though, it's not a bad idea.

[Reese Oliver]

So thinking about women participating in the Christian music space, I guess I'm wondering on the other side of the coin, the what Christian pop has to offer to the young men of today, religious and otherwise. What's Benson Boone offering?

[Joelle Kidd]

Well, I did go on a little bit of a rabbit hole because I did not realize. I don't know if you guys are more up on this, but the number one Billboard song right now is a Christian song called Ordinary. And I've already forgotten the guy's name, but there are so many of these white bros singing Christian music in the Billboard top 100 right now. We're got Morgan Wallen, we've got Alex something, we've got Benson Boone, Jelly Roll. Everyone's out here singing about being a wretched worm for Christ. And I feel like it's really bringing me back to the early 2000s because it's this kind of like masculine Christianity that I think is becoming popular again as there's this bit of a rightward shift in culture at large and a bit of a toxic culture masculinity resurgence happening right now. I feel like that's really tied to what's happening in Christian music at the moment.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Top 40 is always such a sign of the times. And this is a sign of these culty times.

[Juliana Glass]

No, I think you're totally right. It's a sign of the times. And it's something that historically we can see that there's always a pendulum swing. When something has gone too far one way, then we tend to culturally swing back the other way. And I would say that in the movement of feminism and feminist progress, we are at the time where it's time to include the men, it's time to include the boys. It's time to have healthy discourse, try and cultivate unity without requiring uniformity, be patient with each other, listen to one another, because if we don't, if someone doesn't feel heard, then they're going to try and find a place to identify. I think that's what we tend to do as humans is like, we want belonging. Amanda, to your point earlier, like, we want belonging, we want community. And when you are feeling ostracized, well, where is the easiest place to go and find it? A church, because it's already set up and it's been set up and maintained for so long. So that's why I think men are falling back into this, because their sense of worth and value is being challenged, because women have risen, and instead of finding it in themselves, they're finding it in this supernatural being that conveniently cannot be proven or disproven, that apparently is required to understand and be saved for eternal life. So I think it's an identity crisis that we're seeing in men.

[Joelle Kidd]

Yeah, I think it offers a sense of comfort, too, for people who are feeling like they're left on the back foot in this kind of culture, in this climate. But I don't know, it doesn't actually offer what I think a more progressive vision of the world would offer men.

[Juliana Glass]

So, yeah, I agree. I do think that there is time. I went on a listening tour for about a year in preparation for my case study. And I was interviewing women from all around the world. And it was really interesting because a lot of migrant women found themselves being religious or like, wanting to hold a cross because they were on the process of journeying somewhere new. Or like even black women in America, a lot of them were deeply religious because there was this obvious struggle of finding identification because their dignity was being stripped from them constantly. And so in that respect, I think it can offer something beautiful for a time. I don't think it's sustainable. And then I think fundamentally it's harmful when you observe globally, the seedbed of all inequality is religion. Is this Weaponization of a godhead. Why? Because it can't be proven. And so it's just super convenient. It's like the most powerful weapon in the world. So I think when we see this observation of men flooding to Christian pop music and flooding to church and flooding back, we have to ask ourselves the larger question, which is why? Why do they feel like their identity has been stripped of them and how do we keep that from happening, happening even in our own conversations? Because that does not benefit the well being of humanity at large.

[Amanda Montell]

I'm so glad week after week to continue having these culty conversations because we are communalists as human beings and our ability to find belonging and identity and solace or whatever. And solace or whatever is being compromised in a big way right now. And we do need, need something to give us hope and even answers that don't exist. But the reason why I think that this podcast is an important place for me to keep coming back to, in addition to just like a fun place, is because I too am on this like, daily quest to find how I can make the best of cultishness while avoiding the worst. And yes, we make fun of these groups sometimes, or poke fun, I'll say, because the humor, like, makes it a little more accessible and takes the edge off of some pretty heavy subject matter, I think. But like, at bottom, I do think that having these conversations is significant because it allows us to think about how do I want to find meaning and belonging these days in a time when like, there is so much exploitation and there are so many sinister, power hungry figures more than willing to take advantage of, of us. And that's why we have our live your life, watch your back, get the fuck out system, you know, to be able to tell what's what.

[Reese Oliver]

Participate at your own risk and for your own benefit.

[Juliana Glass]

Yeah, yeah, you guys do such important work in bringing people together and listening and asking thoughtful, provoking questions and really being willing to approach difficult and somewhat taboo subjects as well. Right. Like cults inevitably have this sort of taboo nature about them. Even the word as you know, Amanda, like, it's difficult to even define. And so I, I love what you're doing. I think it's really important and just important for every, everyone to continue thinking about.

[Amanda Montell]

That is so nice to hear, especially from someone with your background, because we do sometimes get some like, pretty intense, almost like gatekeepy sort of criticism where people be like, how dare you throw around the word cult this way? And we're obviously not the only people doing that like every other article you see in like Business Insider or any publication that you see is like the cult of who it is America. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. The cult of American Apparel. Like that's literally a Netflix documentary. So we're not the only people.

[Reese Oliver]

We're just talking about human behavior like it's. Yeah, people get so cagey.

[Amanda Montell]

Anyways, we have a couple more questions for you two delightful humans.

[Reese Oliver]

Dewal, you touched on this a little bit. What do we think the swing towards Christian and or generally religious flavored music is telling us about where we are as a society and where we're going?

[Joelle Kidd]

Yeah, I mean, I just. It's like time is a flat circle. I just really feel like we're back in the Y2K era sometimes. I think it is like these things we've been talking about. I think right wing movements have gained popularity when people are scared and people need that comfort and that security of this status quo that might not even have existed, but that they believe they could get back to some kind of nostalgic paradise that didn't really exist. Hence Make America Great again as a slogan. So I think that's like part of what we're living in right now. And Christianity is really primed for that because evangelical Christianity is really built on that kind of myth of a very picture perfect, patriarchal, heteronormative vision of what society could look like. And that's just never really been the case. It's totally a myth. But I think that's what people are kind of grasping at right now. And that's where I kind of see it coming through in, in the pop culture of music and, and these kinds of religious inflected products that are being marketed now.

[Juliana Glass]

I think that's exactly right. I think people in our most primal state want to feel safe. Safe. And if they don't feel safe, religion is a very easy structure to go, okay, I'm safe now. I'm safe in my community. I'm safe with my little Bible and I'm safe with my God. It's almost like my kids when they were little always carried around a little blankie with them when they'd go to bed. And it's adorable, right? They don't need it to fall asleep, but they don't feel safe. And so they hold this thing. So to me, people want to feel safe. And so how do we create a community in a world, an environment where everyone can feel safe and if that.

[Amanda Montell]

Safety comes to with some juicy ad nine chords like hello can't be judged for that. Truly, one last Question for the both of you. Can you please just recommend three Christian songs that, like, aren't that toxic that we can all just, like, jam out to later?

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah. I'm truly such a noob. I've heard, like, close to nothing.

[Juliana Glass]

No, I can't. I don't know. I'll send you some of my old music. Actually, there's a song that I wrote called Alive that. Called Alive that I actually just performed at the New York Public Library with a set of four drag queens. So we, like, reclaimed the song that used to be very Jesusy. And actually, I found out after I left the church that the LGBTQ community, so many people were like, we thought that was a gay anthem. And I was like, oh, my God, it was.

[Reese Oliver]

You just didn't know it yet.

[Joelle Kidd]

Beautiful. Yeah, exactly.

[Amanda Montell]

Perfect.

[Juliana Glass]

I'll send you that.

[Amanda Montell]

Oh, please do. We would love to put it on one of our Instagram reels. Gorgeous.

[Joelle Kidd]

I actually just did this exercise because I made a little playlist to go along with my book, and so I was sorting through some 2000s Christian music. So my earnest recommendation is Sophia Stevens. I mean, anything is great, but I used to listen to the song He Woke Me Up Again, which is from his album Seven Swans, which is a very Christian album. And that used to be, like. I used to just have a transcendent experience, you know, to that song. And I still do it, just as. Not as religiously inflected anymore. Yeah. So that's my earnest recommendation.

[Amanda Montell]

Whenever Sufjan Stevens sings about Jesus, I like to imagine he. He's singing about his boyfriend.

[Joelle Kidd]

Yeah.

[Reese Oliver]

It's an easy, easy.

[Juliana Glass]

So you remember the artist Plum P L U M B? She was like a rock artist. She was awesome. I loved her music. You should listen to Plum. And then there was an R and B artist that would talk about purity. It was, like, very, very sexy. Talking about temptation, but like, father, help me not cross the line. I'm gonna find that one. I'm gonna send you that one too. Father, help me not cross the line as a hand on my body soaking music.

[Joelle Kidd]

Wow, that's. That's just hotter.

[Juliana Glass]

I know. It's actually very sexy. And she is sexy. It's a whole thing. I wasn't allowed to listen to her, so I don't remember her name.

[Amanda Montell]

But also listen, you know, it's good.

[Joelle Kidd]

Yeah.

[Amanda Montell]

You two came correct with answers to that question.

[Reese Oliver]

Absolutely.

[Amanda Montell]

Thank you so much for doing this interview with us. Could you each please let the listeners know where they can keep up with.

[Juliana Glass]

You and your work? Yeah, absolutely. For sure. On Instagram. Juliana Glass. And if you want to follow the work that I'm doing for women globally, it's. This is what happens happens when women read Instagram all the places.

[Joelle Kidd]

And I'm not super online, but I'm on Blue Sky, I think, under my name. And My website is joelkidd.com and I have book coming out, Jesus land coming out August 12th.

[Juliana Glass]

So exciting. Congratulations.

[Amanda Montell]

Heck, yeah.

[Juliana Glass]

I'm gonna go get it. Thank you so much, you guys.

[Amanda Montell]

Reese, out of our three cult categories, live your life, watch your back, and get the out. Which do you think the cult of Christian pop music falls into? If you call to get the out, I'm literally gonna leave this room.

[Reese Oliver]

She could tell I was thinking about it. She could tell I was thinking about it. I was just thinking about all the inspiring work Juliana is doing for all of these women that have been ser. Seriously harmed. No, it's more just like there is so much other good music out there that, like, part of me feels like you have no excuse.

[Amanda Montell]

I don't like Coldplay. I won't be listening.

[Reese Oliver]

I'm not saying it has to be Coldplay. I think I'm gonna call it a watch your back, because I think enough people are listening to it that clearly are not affected by it at all and don't even really know what the vibes are. I don't know. Like, Benson Boone, watch your back.

[Amanda Montell]

Yeah, I think it has to be a watcher back, because even though there are. Wait, no. Now I'm thinking because, like, the most extreme version of this is so bad, but that's only because of evangelicalism in general in this country right now.

[Juliana Glass]

Yeah.

[Reese Oliver]

Like, I don't know if it's necessarily worse than either of the individual cults. It's comprised of either the pop industry or.

[Amanda Montell]

But is it. It's pretty bad. It is pretty bad. God damn it. Well, yeah, I guess. Okay. As long as I don't have to give up Sufjan Stevens or Julian Baker, then I'm comfortable calling it a get the fuck out. There's a lot of suffering and disempowerment going on here. Maybe you're right.

[Reese Oliver]

And I think a lot of subpar music being pushed to the top of the charts.

[Amanda Montell]

So true.

[Reese Oliver]

Yeah, I. I think, bro. Country needs to be held to a higher standard.

[Amanda Montell]

That for sure. Okay, so it's a tentative get the fuck out, but get the book out until we can steal some shit on your way out. If secular pop music can just raise the stakes a little bit, then.

[Reese Oliver]

Can we just get a little more grandiose with it? Let's have a little fun.

[Amanda Montell]

Exactly.

[Joelle Kidd]

Great.

[Amanda Montell]

Well, that's our show.

[Reese Oliver]

Thank you so much for watching, for listening.

[Amanda Montell]

Stick around for a new cult next week, but in the meantime, stay culty.

[Reese Oliver]

But not too culty.

[Amanda Montell]

Sounds Like a Cult was created by Amanda Montel and edited by Jordan Moore of the Pod Cabin. This episode was hosted by Amanda Montel and Reese Oliver. This episode was produced by Reese Oliver. Our main managing producer is Katie Epperson. Our theme music is by Casey Cold. If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave it 5 stars on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It really helps the show a lot. And if you like this podcast, feel free to check out my book Cultish the Language of Fanaticism, which inspired the show. You might also enjoy my other books, the Age of Magical Notes on Modern Irrationality and Word A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language Language. Thanks as well to our network studio 71. And be sure to follow the Sounds Like a Cult cult on Instagram for all the discourse at Sounds Like a Cult Pod. Or support us on Patreon to listen to the show ad free at patreon.com sounds like a cult.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

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