A recent article (“Chris Tomlin: On Top of the World”) in Christianity Today claims that Christian singer Chris Tomlin is the “most-sung music artist in history.” Could that possibly be true?
The CT story makes the claim in the first sentence and never brings it up again. The words “most-sung music artist in history” are linked to another CT story (“Move Over, TobyMac: Chris Tomlin Tops Billboard 200 [Thanks to Passion]”) that says no such thing. The original version of the story is about Tomlin’s new album topping the Billboard sales chart. However, the story was updated three months after it originally ran with the following paragraphs:
Update (Mar. 11): CNN has profiled worship leader Chris Tomlin, calling his songs the “most widely sung music on the planet today.”
Not convinced? Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) CEO Howard Rachinski has done the math. “CCLI estimates that every Sunday in the United States, between 60,000 and 120,000 churches are singing Tomlin’s songs. By extrapolating that data, Rachinski says, ‘our best guess would be in the United States on any given Sunday, 20 to 30 million people would be singing Chris Tomlin’s songs.'”
The quote from the Newsweek story is accurate, but there is no evidence here that Tomlin is the “most-sung music artist in history,” only that he is one of the most-sung composers now.
The CCLI data raises a few more questions: Why is the range of churches allegedly singing Tomlin songs so large? What math did CCLI do to get the 20-30 million figure? Does the calculation take into account the fact that a good proportion of people in churches that play Tomlinesque music aren’t actually singing but just watching the performance?
Assuming the 30 million figure is correct, does that even make Tomlin the most-sung composer now? How many people sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” or “Happy Birthday” in an average week? How many people sing “March of the Volunteers,” the Chinese national anthem? (To be fair, the composers of these songs are all dead, so perhaps Tomlin is the most-sung living composer.)
Could Tomlin be the most-sung worship music composer in history? Could he have already caught up with Charles Wesley or Isaac Watts? How about King David? I’m doubtful. In any case, Christianity Today should provide some evidence for its claim
Absurd statistics like this abound—one of the assignments for students in my Social Problems class is to find and analyze one—but the fact that this howler could lead off a Christianity Today story possibly says something about American evangelicals’ amnesia about worship music.
I don’t have much knowledge about Tomlin’s oeuvre—I saw him in concert a few years ago and have six of his songs on my iPod—but how could his music be so significant that 60,000+ churches are singing it on a typical Sunday? Was pre-Tomlin English-language hymnody so impovershed that his songs need to be played so often?
The problem isn’t the popularity of Chris Tomlin, but the fact that so many evangelical churches have tossed out a centuries-old musical tradition to play only songs written in the past couple decades. It’s possible to be a regular church-goer who is unfamiliar with “And Can It Be,” “All Creatures of Our God and King,” “Jesus Shall Reign” and the version of “Amazing Grace” that doesn’t have Tomlin’s superfluous praise chorus tacked on. It’s a real shame.
The CRC’s new hymnal, Lift Up Your Hearts, gets it right. Modern praise songs, including seven by Tomlin, join hymns by Watts, Wesley, Fanny Crosby, Martin Luther, John Newton, psalm settings, laments, seasonal music, and the whole range of Christian hymnody.
[Tomlin’s seven songs in LUYH are “The Wonderful Cross” (LUYH #176), “I Will Rise” (LUYH #468), “How Great Is Our God” (LUYH #574), “Forever” (LUYH #578), “Our God” (LUYH #580), “Holy Is the Lord” (LUYH #579), “Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone)” (LUYH #693).]