When you stumble, you get back up again

I remember a D.C. Talk song a few years back called What if I stumble. It was an examination of what happens when celebrity and Christianity collide.

The guys wrote, "What if I stumble? What if I fall? Is this one for the people? Is this one for the Lord? Or do I simply serenade for things I must afford? You can jumble them together, my conflict still remains; Holiness is calling in the midst of courting fame. 'Cause I see the trust in their eyes though the sky is falling. They need your love in their lives, compromise is calling."

I was thinking about that this morning after a did a cursory look at the religion news wire.  Derek Webb, who entered the business as part of the group Caedman's Call before going solo, will soon be a divorced voice. Webb and Sandra McCracken, sort of a power-couple of current Christian musician marriages, announced within the past two weeks that they are ending their 13-year marriage after he had an affair. He becomes the latest in a long line of persons who have introduced "scandal" into the Christian music field.

The question is what effect will the divorce have on Webb and McCracken's career in the manner in which other scandals have affected Christian artists in the past, usually ending their careers for all intents and purposes or are the times changing in this area like they are in many, many others. Heck, just recently,  Jars of Clay lead singer Dan Haseltine stirred up evangelical ire recently when he expressed his support for same-sex marriage and for a need to engage in open dialogue on the issue. The response was about what anyone would expect: borderline hysteria. Jars of Clay, which I've seen in person, was one of the first groups I ever heard in the field. Loved them then, and now.

In the past 40 years, we've seen Marsha Stevens, the woman who has been called the mother of Contemporary Christian Music, who penned the popular song "For Those Tears I Died," revealed the fact she was a lesbian in 1979. She was essentially banned from the part of the music field she helped create. She would be but the first who revealed his or her sexuality. Jennifer Knapp, another personal favorite, is gay as was James Cleveland. Ray Boltz, a Dove Award winning male vocalist of the year more than once, shocked the industry when he announced he was gay.

But scandal doesn't restrict itself to gay-straight. No, sir. In 1992, queen of Contemporary Christian Music at the time, Sandy Patty, was divorced from her manager/husband John Helvering after she admitted -- to her church congregation -- she had had an affair with one of her back-up singers.

In 1994, just after having left the Gaither Vocal Band, a solo record entitled Michael English won two Dove awards for Male Vocalist and Best New Artist. But just one week after the Dove Awards, English learned that Marabeth Jordan, which whom he had had an affair, was pregnant with his child. English was pressured by his record company to make a public apology, and he was eventually dropped. Christian radio stations pulled English's songs off the air. He returned his Dove Awards. English and his wife Lisa, who were married for 11 years and had a daughter, divorced.

Solo singer-songwriter Clay Crosse, who made such an impact on my journey that I named my first book in part because of a song he did called Saving the World, admitted an addiction to pornography. A Dove Award winner in 1997 as male artist of the year, his career hasn't been the same since his admission.

When Amy Grant, my favorite early Christian contemporary Christian music artist, was divorced in 1999 (has it really been that long?) and married country singer Vince Gill a year later, the public breakup rocked the Christian music industry, pretty much derailed her career and raised questions about the personal lives of prominent Christian artists.

An article I read this morning about Webb and McCracken said the fallout about their divorce would be different than, say, Grant's because of the change in the music industry but also because there is a growing sense among evangelicals that divorce -- while disappointing -- may be inevitable for some marriages.

It seems to me that being on stage or in the audience or being behind the pulpit or in the congregation all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Nothing we've done makes us any different than the other.

Jesus said come as we are. Broken as we are. Scarred as we all are. Damaged as we all are. In need of new life as we all are. All need to be saved by a perfect God.

There's no such thing as perfect people. No such thing as a perfect life. We simply are in need. All of us.

By the way, it's the Christian music, not the Christian musician, that we listen to to the glory of God. My son, Jason, plays all over the South during the week in clubs (that we used to call bars). On Sunday morning and evening, he leads worship at two different churches. He's the same person at the different venues. The music he's playing is different.  He's a Christian who happens to be a musician. As are all of the above.

But famous or not, there's always hope. Toby Mac, one of those D.C. Talk writers before they broke up, wrote these words: Wide awake in the middle of your nightmare; you saw it coming, but it hit you outa nowhere. And there's always scars when you fall that far. We lose our way, we get back up again. It's never too late to get back up again. One day you gonna shine again.