When frontman Michael Tait left the Newsboys suddenly, he wasn’t the first.
In 1997—long before Tait’s recent departure and subsequent confession—John James abruptly left one of the biggest acts in contemporary Christian music (CCM).
At the time, the Newsboys said James was returning to Australia to preach. That was not the truth. The truth, as James later said publicly, was that he was getting drunk before noon, spending hundreds of dollars on cocaine, and wrecking his marriage with serial infidelity. He left the Newsboys because he couldn’t hide the disaster of his life anymore.
When James has talked about this in recent years, he has not blamed the Newsboys or CCM more generally for what he did. He made his own decisions. He is responsible for his moral failures.
At the same time, James raised questions about the industry.
“The industry has the ability to expose defects in your character,” he said in 2024.
And it does little to provide direction or offer meaningful accountability.
In 2007, James told a journalist that no one in Newsboys or the CCM industry tried to stop him from straying from the straight and narrow until it was way too late. He said there were no real moral guardrails.
“The success, the fame, the money, the screaming girls, the autographs. It’s like, how do you deal with that? How do you process that?” James said. “There wasn’t anyone mentoring or helping me to deal with this, mentally or emotionally. It’s like, you’ve got people that surround you and help you to become successful but no one really mentored us in regards of how to keep our heads in check.”
Tait’s scandal is re-raising questions about corporate culpability. Cory Asbury, known for his song “Reckless Love,” said “everyone knew” something was going on behind the scenes at Newsboys. The band’s lead singer, Adam Agee, said they heard lots of “rumors over the years” but they couldn’t be confirmed.
Performers may face audience backlash (especially in the internet age), but the Christian music industry doesn’t seem to have a reliable way to check artists’ misbehavior.
There have been inconsistent attempts to create accountability systems for Christian musicians over the years. For example, some bands—including DC Talk and Newsboys—have brought “road pastors” on tour to try to provide spiritual guidance.
John Cooper, frontman of the veteran Christian rock band Skillet, isn’t convinced that’s effective.
“If you’re not committed to living in the light, you can just lie,” he told CT. “It’s about the culture of the band.”
An unusual corporate structure shaped the culture of the Newsboys. Despite the group’s band-centric image and its plural name, the Newsboys operates more like a traveling Broadway show or circus than a typical rock band. The performers are employees or independent contractors.
“The Newsboys is a brand,” said John J. Thompson, founder of the Christian-music magazine True Tunes. “Wes Campbell created a show, and the show is the priority.”
Once just the band’s manager, Campbell registered the trademark for the Newsboys in the US in 1994. Since 2009, when founding member Peter Furler left, Campbell has also been sole head of the company. As owner, he has worked to keep the Newsboys going despite major disruptions.
The Newsboys transitioned from James to Furler in 1997, moving Furler up as frontman, and from Furler to Tait in 2009, with Furler literally handing his microphone to Tait during a live performance.
When Tait stepped down, it didn’t take Campbell long to find a new face for the Newsboys. He brought on another singer, Adam Agee, a CCM veteran who previously played in Christian rock bands Stellar Kart and Audio Adrenaline, which Campbell has also managed since 2012.
Campbell wrote in a letter to the Gospel Music Association leaked on the internet last week that “each band member has personal accountability procedures in place,” such as a road pastor, a manager, and a traveling companion. Tait joined the band with an “established accountability infrastructure,” the letter says, and those people were responsible to take care of him.
Campbell has been involved in the management of a roster of other Christian musicians—including Tasha Layton, Cochren & Co., Rhett Walker, and 7eventh Time Down—through a management company he cofounded.
This corporate model can contribute to a group’s longevity, according to True Tunes’s Thompson. He compared the Newsboys to The Imperials, a Southern gospel quartet formed in the early 1960s and still actively performing, retaining its name while frequently changing the roster of performers.
The model allows a single successful band to live in its own ecosystem. Campbell cultivated the Newsboys’ close connections with nonprofits and formed two limited liability companies, Thriving Children Advocates and Thriving Charity Advocates. They function as broker agencies between the Newsboys and nonprofit organizations seeking to sponsor events or promote child-sponsorship programs at concerts.
Campbell also developed and maintained the brand’s relationships with labels and publishing companies. He oversaw the band’s close affiliation with the God’s Not Dead film franchise, including the group’s appearances in three of the five movies.
Campbell benefits from the success of the Newsboys’ music on radio and streaming platforms and with church-licensing providers. He holds songwriting credits on over 40 Newsboys songs and publishing rights on others.
Neither Campbell nor his lawyer returned requests for comment for this article, but Campbell has denied any knowledge of inappropriate behavior by Tait.
Steve Taylor, former Newsboys producer and songwriter, told CT he believes it “utter nonsense” that Campbell didn’t know what was happening. He said Campbell is involved in every aspect of the Newsboys business.
Taylor said CCM includes many “upright and honest” people, but in his experience, Campbell was “not a trustworthy person or a particularly ethically minded person.”
CT spoke with others within CCM who said they feared speaking out would lose them business or lead to lawsuits. Sheena Hennink, a concert promoter in Canada, said a lawyer representing the Newsboys sent her an intent-to-sue letter in response to an Instagram video she posted explaining why she canceled a series of concerts following Tait’s departure.
While the corporate structure of the Newsboys is unusual, it’s not clear to industry experts that other approaches provide more accountability. CCM historian Leah Payne, who wrote the book God Gave Rock & Roll to You, said some industry attempts to enforce moral standards for Christian musicians have not been successful.
“A lot of Christian record labels have had morality clauses, but the only real guardrail is the marketplace,” Payne told CT. “The dollar is the governing body.”
If performers’ behavior shocks audiences, they stop buying albums and attending concerts. That’s the most serious check the industry has—the possible damage done to an individual’s reputation and the economic fallout for the label and management.
Several high-profile CCM artists are calling for industry-wide reform in the wake of the Newsboys scandal. John Cooper, the Skillet frontman, said it may be discouraging for listeners to hear, but the industry doesn’t care whether an artist is a good Christian or even a good person.
He told CT there’s a temptation to trust people in CCM because they’re Christians or because they’re making faith-oriented music. He’s had to learn through experience that CCM industry professionals aren’t necessarily more principled than their secular counterparts.
“Sometimes you let your guard down when you’re dealing with Christians and assume we’re all dealing with a particular set of principles,” Cooper said. “People are just going to lie and steal and cheat sometimes.”
With the rising popularity of worship music, more artists are selling themselves as not just performers but worship leaders. Even with performers who pray and lead worship songs during their concerts, Cooper said, it’s not safe to assume that everyone is being transparent or that the persona the audience sees on stage is consistent with the off-stage individual.
Many fans are likely aware of an element of artifice to CCM. Artists project and perform spiritual fervor, night after night, show after show. Christian listeners generally know the figures on stage aren’t perfect, but when fans resonate with the music, they want to believe—or at least hope—that the musicians are earnest people of faith.
That belief, said Cooper, is what makes it so disappointing when a Christian artist has a public scandal. He does not think CCM is more morally corrupt than the mainstream but about the same.
“And because it’s not supposed to be the same,” Cooper said, “it feels worse.”
