Christian Metal

Christian metal is heavy metal defined by the Christian faith of its performers and the evangelistic or devotional content of its lyrics, spanning every metal subgenre from glam and thrash to death metal, black metal and metalcore. It emerged in the late 1970s and flowered in the 1980s around *Stryper*, whose platinum success proved a church-raised audience existed for metal that preached rather than transgressed. Denounced by some pastors as counterfeit and by some metalheads as propaganda, the scene built its own labels, festivals and distribution through Christian bookstores, and produced uncompromising extreme acts such as *Mortification*, *Tourniquet* and *Extol*.