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Not that it's all bad news for the Christian music world, but Newsweek is supposed to be a news magazine, isn't it? Ali's article is full of wonderful details of the Christian music festival—a blasé roadie laments the crowd-surfing capabilities of Christian music fans, kids voluntarily pick up trash after the show, almost everyone comes with a church group or parents—but simply attending such a party gives a skewed impression of the Christian music world. Ali should have spent a little more time reporting.

A sidebar on the rest of the $4-billion-plus Christian retail industry gets broader and deeper, noting that Christian music's popularity is only the forerunner of the rest of the Christian pop culture boom. The eye-popping success of the Left Behind series and The Prayer of Jabez are leading many publishers to shift their plans and aim for the mainstream market instead of just Christian bookstores, Inside.com reports. And Jerry Rose, president of the Total Living Network and executive producer of Encounters With the Unexplained on PAX-TV says Christian television is moving toward a softer sell. "One of the things we've got to get past is the need to pack the church buses full to make something successful. That's still a Christian product oriented to a Christian audience," he tells Newsweek. "The idea is to take the time and the trouble to make programming that brings all people in and give them an objective look at the moral and spiritual values in their lives." Newsweek responds, "Still, it raises the question that has faced most minority groups: when does crossing over become selling out?"

Indeed as Ali writes, "There's something about the ethos of alternative rock—staying true to your beliefs, never bowing to mainstream pressure—that is oddly simpatico with conservative Christian culture." If Christian culture becomes less of an alternative to the culture, if it does bow to mainstream pressures to win more listeners, why bother with exclusively Christian festivals at all?

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July (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45