This is an OPINION piece regarding aspects of the Christian music industry and the potential impacts of doctrinal alignment.

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The Industry

In 2018, music industry revenue in the US was about $20 billion. Assuming that all our favourite Christian artists are combined into the same genre of “Religious”, this accounts for about 2.9% of total song consumption, which equates to approximately $580 million in revenue.

These revenues should take into consideration licensing, multi-platform sales sources and ad-revenue through YouTube views. To put things into perspective, streaming and digital downloads accounts for about 87% of total revenue ($17.4 billion). Where am I going with this?

The Songs

Admittedly, Hillsong and Bethel have some of the most talented musicians and best produced songs in the industry. Taking a page from The Berean Test and analysing song lyrics against the Bible, an increasing number of songs pass the “Biblical smell test” (Goodness of God; O Praise the Name (Anastasis); This I Believe (The Creed); King of Kings; What A Beautiful Name). In other words, many songs written and published through Hillsong and Bethel are filled with theologically-sound lyrics and themes, rather than simply relying on building an atmospheric, emotional experience.

The Christian Copyright Licensing Inc. (CCLI) database contains around 100,000 songs available for licensing by churches and worship leaders to use in their services. Whenever a worship leader or church wishes to play or utilize a song, they must log their CCLI licence number to attribute usage and proper licensing, which then leads to the respective publishing houses receiving licensing revenues. Combined, Hillsong Music Publishing and Bethel Music Publishing account for over 3% of the songs published and licensed through CCLI.

If you look at the CCLI Top 100, you’ll notice many songs which seem familiar; you’ve most likely sang one this past Sunday, or you may even be bopping to a few of them while reading this.

There are many songs you wouldn’t have naturally associated with Bethel Music Publishing (Living Hope, This Is Amazing Grace, Build My Life, The Lion and the Lamb, ), but due to the nature and publishing power of artist collectives there can be a lot of blurred lines and hidden associations.

The Revenue

Credit to where credit is due, Hillsong readily provides their annual financial reports on their website! Bethel, not so much.

From the 2018 Hillsong Church Annual Report (PDF),  “Music” accounts for about 14% of the $100 million in revenue for the church; that’s pretty much $14 million. I can sometimes math.

According to a business directory listing, Bethel [Redding] has annual sales revenue of $23 million. Based in Northern California, Annelise Pierce writes a bit more in-depth about Bethel over a 3-part series of posts, delving into the annual revenue of Bethel (part 1), the leadership (part 2) and some church intricacies (part 3). From her copy of the annual report, Annelise provides insights that Bethel TV and Bethel Music generated a combined “sales, service and royalties income, which makes up 38% of Bethel’s overall income, or just over $23 million.”

However, much of this revenue may not be seen by everyone involved in the creation or performance of the song recording. According to The Fader,

Some — but not all — Hillsong band members receive a salary from the church for their service; many work as volunteers. Every recorded song has two copyrights: a “mechanical” royalty for the music and lyrics (think: sheet music), and one for the actual performance of the piece (what you hear being played). For every Hillsong creation, the songwriter receives a royalty because they legally must, but the performance royalty goes to the church. That means that when you play Hillsong songs on Spotify, the songwriter gets paid (just as he would if it was a YouTube cover), but only the church gets paid for the actual playing of the song.

…

The lead singer of “Oceans,” Taya Smith, will never see a dime of the songs royalties (though she may be paid by the church separately), but the men who wrote the song — Joel Houston, Matt Crocker, and Salomon Ligthelm — will. If Smith ever were to leave the church, she would no longer get paid for her work even though it was generating revenue.

The Fader also points out an interesting point that Hillsong does not charge churches performance license fees if songs are used in the context of a worship service. However, remember there’s still the “mechanical royalty” for the lyrics and chords. A part of me feels that Hillsong Music Publishing still gets paid at the end of the day.

The Issue

With more information about the mega dollars each megachurch brings in, we can now make things more complicated (or less complicated) by addressing their doctrinal beliefs. Primarily, the idea supported by these churches that “if we are faithful to God, that he will deliver security and prosperity”; this is known as The Prosperity Gospel. You may have also seen it referred to as “The Health and Wealth Gospel” or “Word of Faith”.

This is a false doctrine; we are not entitled to health, wealth, security or prosperity! If anything, we are entitled to the full wrath of God, for all have sinned and fall short of his glory (Romans 3:23), and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Yet, in his infinite grace and mercy, God sent his perfect Son Jesus to redeem us by being the full atonement of our sins (Romans 3:25) by taking our place on the cross! If anything, Christians are promised suffering in this world because Jesus himself was persecuted (John 15:20). There are many Christian scholars and theologians who do a much, much better job at explaining the prosperity gospel, why it is false, and how it is damaging.

One notable resource is an interview between Justin Peters and Todd Friel of Wretched Radio, titled “Why Your Church Shouldn’t Play Bethel and Hillsong Music“. At 15:04, Peters introduces a thought which caused me to start thinking more critically about this and my stance toward the issue:

If I may illustrate absurdity by being absurd a little bit: Let’s just say Planned Parenthood decides to write some Christian music that would pass a doctrinal smell test. Would you sing it in your church, knowing that some money, every time you sing that song, supports an organization that murders babies?

Admittedly, I have been having trouble parsing and working out the ramifications of this statement and truth, that by consuming media of Hillsong and/or Bethel (or any church which supports false doctrine), regardless of how doctrinal-sound, edifying and God-glorifying the song itself may be, I am indirectly (or directly) supporting that church’s work and false doctrine through mechanical licensing (when I choose their songs as part of a music set), performance licensing and/or ad revenue (through YouTube or other online streaming platforms).

At service, when we sing a song published by Hillsong or Bethel, I now get uncomfortable and distracted by the internal struggle of the above. When we were youth, some of us may have asked: Is it okay or right for a Christian to listen to secular or explicit music? That question can also be asked as: Is it okay for Christians to enjoy media/art produced by unbelievers? The question here is along the lines of: Is it okay for me to consume media which directly or indirectly supports the propagation of false teachings?

Sometimes, we might receive a response referencing only 1 Corinthians 10:31

Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

And sometimes we might receive a response referencing only 1 Corinthians 10:23-24

“All things are lawful”, but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful”, but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.

Sometimes, we even get into heated arguments or leave our churches because of some songs or our opinions. I don’t intend to do either of these.

I need to “be quick to listen and slow to speak” (James 1:19) and faithfully ask God for wisdom in this matter, because I am clearly lacking it (James 1:5). Ironically, or unexpectedly, this blog post was written…with charts…and many links.

From this, some thoughts which remain on my mind are:

1. Is it enough that I do not personally and willingly consume media from these two publishing giants?
2. Is it possible for me to continue as Youth Music Director while purposefully avoiding including songs from these two publishing houses? Would I be unfairly subjecting the youth to my personal preference and opinion by refusing to choose songs from these two publishers?
3. Can I call upon the Lord to renew my heart and mind over the stumbling block which now interferes my worship which wholly belongs to him? Can I humble myself to place this into his hands such that distractions during musical worship will be outweighed by the immense glory due and owed to him?

If you were looking for a conclusion about this, I’m sorry to disappoint that I do not have one to provide for you yet. You will need to wisely discern what I’ve shared above, perform additional research into various other sources which contain better theology and facts than what I’ve included, and peacefully come to your own conclusion.

As Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9), and I’m sure this kind of struggle and debate existed well before the Reformation.