The actual title of this Next Wave essay is, "The role of the Christian artist in the secular world." But why do we need to insert the qualifier "secular" in there? There is no secular world. There is no Christian world. There is only the world, and it is God's.
But I digress. The author, Drew Goodmanson, of Kaleo Church in San Diego, draws from recent interviews with band members from non-CCM-but-spiritually-focused-alt/pop groups like P.O.D., Evanescence, Lifehouse, etc., and exegetes the lyrics of alt/pop and rap artists to come up with three roles for the Christian artist: poet, philosopher and prophet.
Interesting thoughts and worth a read. I tend to agree with much of Goodmanson's thoughts, as I've derived similar ideas from my research and study of punk music. But I disagree with Goodmanson's statement that the role of the prophet is reserved exclusively for a "Christian" band.
This is a band whose lyrics explicitly communicate truth as revealed to us by the Bible. The band communicates the God of scripture and confronts the listener with these truths. Those who are in Christ rejoice and the secular world declares it foolishness. The sad state for this band is that they will not become commercially successful in the secular world. You may ask, why won't they succeed? Because of sin.
Again, the entire argument is rooted in this dualism of the "spiritual" versus "secular" world. Can a "secular" band not also be prophetic? In my studies on punk rock, I've found several examples of prophetic voices. Goodmanyson is examining only self-professed "Christian" artists, not others that deal with prophetic and spiritual issues without necessarily professing Christianity or any particular spiritual path.