BOOK REVIEWS

This study examined 5 years of successful Christian music to determine if there had been a significant change in the amount of theological language used in contemporary Christian songs. Christian music is the only genre defined by lyrical content instead of musical style (Price, 1999). In a 1999 Wall Street Journal article, the Christian music industry was accused of watering down its lyrics in an effort to increase profits (Miller, 1999). After coding 100 of the top songs from 1996 to 2002 in the Christian rock and Christian hit radio genres, no systematic or significant decline in total theological words was found. However, when examining the type of theological words used in lyrics, the data demonstrated that words have become significantly less explicitly Christian.