by Lisa Zhito
GRAMMY.com

Hours after winning his first GRAMMY in 1997, Dan Haseltine was posed a question: "Would you rather be up for a 'Christian GRAMMY' or a GRAMMY in the regular field?"

The question puzzled Haseltine, lead singer of cutting-edge Christian rock band Jars Of Clay, because it basically asked him to pinpoint which was more important: the music or the message.

"I thought that was interesting," Haseltine recalls. "Even in music, people have a hard time distinguishing what is a genre and what is a belief. And we wondered, is the award tainted somehow because it's the 'Christian' GRAMMY? Is it still legitimate?"

One can't blame Haseltine for wondering. As any artist making a name for themselves in Christian music well knows, the rest of popular culture tends to dismiss such groups as being somehow second-rate.

It's a reality even for Jars Of Clay, which has made a bigger splash than most. The group has won two GRAMMYs (1997's and 2000's Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album awards for Much Afraid and If I Left The Zoo, respectively), racked up sales exceeding five million records, and garnered mainstream pop radio hits such as "Flood" and "Crazy Times." The group's fourth album, the recent The Eleventh Hour, yielded a 14th No. 1 song, "I Need You." Still, for Haseltine and bandmates Stephen Mason, Matt Odmark and Charlie Lowell, it's been a struggle to be taken seriously because of their faith.

"It bothers me that Christianity has such a negative view in the culture," says Haseltine, "because the Christianity that people think they know isn't necessarily what real Christianity is. People haven't looked deep enough into what real Christianity looks like. They've stopped at the stereotype."

Certainly, these are interesting times for Christian artists. Bands like Jars Of Clay and Sixpence None The Richer have had visible crossover success; but on the other side of the fence are artists making what is ostensibly Christian music, but who aren't painted with that same negative brush. One wonders if the Christian genre will eventually lose its relevance.

"It does feel like the [Christian] genre is dissolving," says Haseltine, pointing to successful mainstream bands like Creed, Lifehouse and P.O.D. "Songwriters write about such a host of different things, and these days there's no reason not to play a song on regular radio if it's a great song. A lot of what having a sub-genre like Christian music has done is keep a lot of those bands that write really great music from being played on regular radio, because of the common stereotypes of what a Christian is.

"We find we have to straddle that fence very carefully," Haseltine continues. "Because we write songs, we are known as a Christian band, but we've had to tell people to define their terms when they use that label. We're very different from that stereotype. If people spend time with us we can challenge their world view of what people say a Christian looks like, that pious, self-righteous, hypocritical person."

For that reason, Haseltine is careful to call the songs on The Eleventh Hour music that is "because of faith, not about it.

"There is a tendency for bands that carry a faith to almost come across preachy," he observes. "Creed is one of those bands that in one sense has gotten away with it; when I listen to their records I think they do kind of preach about it.

"Because of our faith, because of our lifestyle, because of our perspective, it colors everything we do. [Our music] doesn't alienate, it's simply from our perspective. Hopefully it's disarming for people who might shy away from a band that they've heard is Christian because they don't want someone preaching at them."

On the other hand, Jars has faced criticism for not being Christian enough. One song on The Eleventh Hour, "Silence," has already been singled out by the Christian community because it doubts God's presence in a situation.

"The song doesn't end with a pat answer, 'Here I am.' I think that's important, because the biggest part of faith is doubt," says Haseltine. "I think people need to feel like they can go there safely.

"For me, and for Jars Of Clay, our hope is that we would make great music that helps people ask questions. We don't have any gift-wrapped answers, all we do is hope to make music that helps people connect to deeper issues of the heart."

(Lisa Zhito is a Nashville-based writer covering country and contemporary Christian music.)