I told you about my friend/colleague Daniel Radosh, who alerted me to the new songs added to the Rock Band offerings – all from Christian bands.
Daniel, who penned the very funny and thought provoking book “Rapture Ready,” raises some good questions about Christian music and mainstream games. Here are his thoughts:


Christian music and Rock Band
by Daniel Radosh
Daniel Radosh.jpgI’ve always thought that Christian rock downloads for a “mainstream” game like Rock Band made a lot more sense than those entirely separate music games for Christians, which pander to parents’ fears of secular music and games, and which only build the ghetto walls higher.
People who play Rock Band and love all types of music should have the option to buy Christian rock without giving up secular music. And Christian artists should be forced to compete with everyone else in the Rock Band store, so they’re really succeeding on the quality of their music, not just skating by on name-dropping Jesus.
It is a little weird, though, that Rock Band never identifies these artists as Christian. It’s pretty cool if it means that they won’t be “shelved” separately from everybody else, the way Christian music usually (and pointlessly) is in CD stores or on iTunes. I know lots of bands don’t even like to be identified that way, often for good reason.
But by releasing all these songs together, Rock Band is obviously hoping to attract the interest of the Christian marketplace, so why not throw the word Christian into the announcement as one selling point among others? It’s almost like they’re trying to sneak that fact past non-Christian audiences who might automatically dismiss Christian rock without listening to it, or even think that having Christian rock in the game makes the entire platform less cool by association.

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You can learn more at Amazon.com about Daniel Radosh and his book “Rapture Ready”, which is now out in paperback.
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