{"id":370163,"date":"2025-12-25T23:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T23:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/370163\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T23:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T23:25:07","slug":"the-worship-music-rebirth-of-american-idol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/370163\/","title":{"rendered":"The Worship Music Rebirth of ‘American Idol’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLast spring, a month and a half into American Idol<\/a>\u2019s 23rd season, the reality singing competition did something it had never done before. It aired a three-hour special on Easter Sunday, themed around \u201cSongs of Faith\u201d and featuring worship songs performed by not just the 20 remaining contestants, but all three judges as well: Carrie Underwood<\/a>, Luke Bryan, and Lionel Richie. If you had a hankering for seeing Underwood, the fourth-season winner, belt out the Christian hymn \u201cHow Great Thou Art\u201d in wailing communion with a gospel<\/a> choir, this episode was calling for you.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was a discussion that started at a dinner with the judges, some people from ABC, and myself,\u201d says American Idol\u2019s showrunner and executive producer, Megan Michaels Wolflick. \u201cWe watch myriad Christmas specials. We don\u2019t ever see a faith-based spring Easter-style show. So we kind of embraced that. It was a special show, and people loved it; the ratings were pretty amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor viewers weaned on an era when American Idol incubated household names like Kelly Clarkson and Adam Lambert, the special might have seemed jarring. But since the show\u2019s revival landed on ABC in 2018, Idol has leaned into a faith-based sensibility and become a potent launching pad for tomorrow\u2019s praise-music stars.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat roster includes Jamal Roberts, a virtuosic-voiced, Mississippi-bred gospel singer who won American Idol\u2019s 23rd season in May. Roberts grew up singing in his church choir and earned the admiration of Idol judge Richie, who described him as \u201cdivinely guided.\u201d In November, his collaboration with Jonathan McReynolds, \u201cStill (Live),\u201d a megachurch-y anthem about God\u2019s love, earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Gospel Performance\/Song, making him the first Idol winner to be nominated in that category.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother rising star is Breanna Nix, a Texas native who came in third behind Roberts. Before American Idol, she traveled the country with her husband, performing in churches. Because she spoke openly on the show about being a stay-at-home mom and sang faith-based songs like Underwood\u2019s \u201cJesus, Take the Wheel\u201d and Lauren Daigle\u2019s \u201cYou Say,\u201d Nix has attracted praise from conservative organizations like Focus on the Family. During the finale, she duetted with Brandon Lake<\/a>, a Jesus-haired star of the contemporary Christian music circuit, who has topped the Hot Christian Songs chart with singles like \u201cGratitude\u201d and \u201cThat\u2019s Who I Praise,\u201d along with his collab with Jelly Roll, \u201cHard Fought Hallelujah.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tSigns of a shift were apparent when Iam Tongi, a young reggae talent from Hawaii, and proud\u00a0Mormon, became Idol\u2019s first non-country winner in three years. Other moments from the show have found a second life on YouTube. When gospel veteran CeCe Winans sang \u201cGoodness of God\u201d with a contestant, Roman Collins \u2014 who wailed out \u201challelujah\u201d several times at the climax \u2014 it became one of the most-viewed Idol clips of all time. As one YouTube commenter wrote, \u201cThis wasn\u2019t just a performance, this was worship.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat accounts for Idol\u2019s come-to-Jesus moment? \u201cWhen we open our floodgates for auditions every spring, we don\u2019t know what\u2019s coming,\u201d says Wolflick. \u201cWe follow the lead of who comes through our doors. What is happening in music today? And that, organically, in the last couple years, has been more and more faith-based music. Not intentional, but it was resonating with the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed, outside of American Idol, contemporary Christian stars like Daigle (an early-2010s Idol reject) and Lake have tapped into a ravenous appetite for modern worship music. In a world of secular pop stars, they broadcast their faith proudly and explicitly (\u201cI praise the heaven seated, undefeated, highest of names,\u201d Lake yowls on \u201cThat\u2019s Who I Praise\u201d) and create family-friendly music videos. Their stardom exists in a parallel pop sphere of Christian awards shows and Christian album charts. Though the music isn\u2019t necessarily political, the singers are often right-coded; Lake led worship at Charlie Kirk\u2019s memorial service, and Underwood herself sang <\/a>\u201cAmerica the Beautiful\u201d at Donald Trump\u2019s second inauguration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt seems like country and praise music is really becoming a big thing, much bigger than I ever remember it being,\u201d says Joey Arbagey, head of music for 19 Entertainment, the production company behind the Idol franchise.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tRecently, the faith-based sensibility has trickled into other segments of the entertainment world. In November, Fox News announced the launch of a religious-themed vertical, Fox Faith, including a 52-episode podcast series about the life of Jesus. In December, ABC aired a Christmas special hosted by Kevin Costner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, some\u00a0Idol\u00a0alumni, like country singer Gabby Barrett, a 16th-season finalist, have embraced Christian music as their chosen genre. With songs like \u201cJesus on a Train,\u201d Barrett\u2019s second album, 2024\u2019s\u00a0Chapter & Verse, seems fit for a youth retreat playlist. She follows in the footsteps of Underwood, whose recent albums \u2014 including 2020\u2019s\u00a0My Gift\u00a0and 2021\u2019s\u00a0My Savior\u00a0\u2014 have made her faith a central concern. Earlier this month, Underwood made a surprise appearance at Rolling Hills Community Church outside Nashville to perform at the church\u2019s Christmas service.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAmerican Idol has always been a family-friendly staple in the reality-TV world, equally amenable to grandparents and children, but its days as part of the pop-zeitgeist machine are long gone. \u201cWe\u2019re not in the Kelly Clarkson era, where someone\u2019s going to launch into massive superstardom in the same way,\u201d Wolflick, who has worked at the show for two decades, says.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Wolflick\u2019s view, that\u2019s because pop culture has gotten more fractured and decentralized. \u201cThink about it like a For You page,\u201d the showrunner says. \u201cYou don\u2019t have one person crossing all genres. We are all being fed what\u2019s in our algorithm.\u201d As a result, Idol \u201ctakes the wins differently than we would have taken them in Carrie Underwood\u2019s year\u201d \u2014 for instance, Roberts\u2019 Grammy nomination, or Tongi recording a song for the Lilo & Stitch soundtrack.<\/p>\n

\n\tIdol\u2019s pivot into faith-based territory, coinciding as it does with the shock and awe of Trump\u2019s return to power, could be interpreted as a political play \u2014 an attempt to win over conservative viewers and churchgoing types. Wolflick calls this \u201csilly\u201d and denies any such agenda.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re a show about talent,\u201d Wolflick says. \u201cWe\u2019re a show about people who organically walk through our doors. We\u2019re not asking people their political affiliation. For me, American Idol has always been an escape from that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last spring, a month and a half into American Idol\u2019s 23rd season, the reality singing competition did something…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[12287,122982,157636,88,61040,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-370163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-american-idol","9":"tag-brandon-lake","10":"tag-carrie-underwood","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-gospel","13":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}