Sufjan Stevens (Photo: Nina Corcoran/ CC BY 2.0)
Hosts: Dirk Schneider, Hartwig Vens
Some may still dismiss, with an amused shake of the head, the fact that Kanye West considers himself to be Yeezus. But when a Sufjan-Stevens concert is presented as a pop worship service, one must ask her- or himself, as a non-believing fan, how to relate. Is it possible to fully appreciate the work of an artist if one doesn’t subscribe to that artist’s belief system? Inversely, religious institutions also have their problems with pop music. But it was Larry Norman who asked in the 60s »why should the devil have all the good music?« and founded Christian rock, i.e. rock with a Christian message – not the devil’s message.
In Germany, too, there have been successful bands in this genre: take Koenige & Priester or Allee der Kosmonauten, for instance. So, to what extent are faith and pop compatible? Can pop that strives toward moral goodness also be aesthetically good? Hartwig Vens and Dirk Schneider, both editors at Deutschlandfunk Kultur, will explore these questions with their guests: the Christian musician Sarah Euler-Brendel, the feature writer Fabian Wolff and one more guest from the music world.