What If I Stumble? What Happens to Art When Artists Fall?

I was an 80s hard rock and metal kid. In the five years after my first concert in 1980, I saw between 70 and 80 rock concerts. Then something happened. I met a wonderful woman who introduced me to Jesus. I still loved the music I was listening to at the time. I was even a mobile DJ for a while, but I started to realize that there were songs that I couldn’t sing along with anymore, because their lyrical content ran counter to my new found faith. Something had to give. And so I gave up on secular music for a time. Bands like Stryper and Petra filled the void, and I was doing okay.

Jesus Freak

Fast forward a few years to 1998. I got my call to ministry, and the first thing I ended up doing in ministry was taking a group of kids to the Creation Festival in Shirleysburg, PA. That was the first time I saw a band that would become one of my favorites, dcTalk. I especially came to love their Jesus Freak album, especially the title track, but there was another track that intrigued me even more. It was a song called What If I Stumble? The lyrics touched my heart to the core. It was a song about faith and grace and forgiveness. It asked a tough question, if I fall will I receive grace, not just from God but from others?

What If I Stumble?

I was especially intrigued by these lines:

“What if I stumble?
What if I fall?
What if I lose my step and I make fools of us all?
Will the love continue, when my walk becomes a crawl?
What if I stumble and what if I fall?”

Talk about lines that will bring conviction. It turns out, thirty years later, they were more prophetic than we could have imagined.

Confession

This week one of the men who penned and sang that amazing song, Michael Tait, confessed some major wrong doing, including “touch[ing] men in an unwanted sexual way” along with a two decades of alcohol and drug abuse. First of all I want to say, if you’re waiting for me to pass judgment on Michael Tait, you’ll be waiting a while. Judgment is not my role.

Instead I pray for him as well as anyone he may have harmed. I read his online confession and I believe 1 John 1:9 to be true. Romans 3:23 also reminds us, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

I have struggles of my own, and I refuse to condemn someone just because they sin differently than me. Instead I pray Mr. Tait gets the help he needs. 

Questions 

This does bring forth questions though. dcTalk disbanded in 2000, after which Tait became the lead singer of The Newsboys, in 2009, leaving abruptly in January 2025, His sudden departure sent whispered questions across social media.

Once his confession came out, people started to question whether his band mates knew about his double life, and if so why did they keep silent?  I have no idea, and I refuse to join the speculation I have seen across the internet. That’s between him and God. What I do know is major Christian media outlets, including K-Love have banned playing of the whole catalogs of both Newsboys and dcTalk.

This is where my struggle begins. 

Is Redemption Still a Thing?

A favorite song in my church is We Believe, originally recorded by the Newsboys. Should we stop singing it, too? It’s basically a reworded version of the Apostle’s Creed and it’s powerful, but is it guilty by association. To be clear, I believe the man is redeemable and he appears to be repentant. I believe that is a hope we all have in Christ, again looking back to 1 John 1:9. Sins can be forgiven, but what of his creative output? Is that too tainted to be used again? A great artist has stumbled and fallen. Does that devalue his art?

Should I stop listening to Jesus Freak—the anthem that has been used to inspire me to stand up for what I believe in—or the album by the same name, one of the best albums to come out of the CCM era? 

Disqualified?

Are the words and music any less important, now that their creator has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and if so, is any Christian creative output safe for our consumption, since every last artist but Jesus has also sinned and fallen short? We don’t disqualify the Psalms, even though we know, that the author of many of them was an adulterer and even committed murder. Yes, even after all that, King David’s repentance and God’s grace allowed him to continue to be a man after God’s own heart.  

God is Faithful and Just

Nowhere in any of this am I trying to justify what Mr. Tail has admitted he’s done, and for the record, at least in his written confession, neither does Mr. Tait. He has sinned and he knows it, and hopefully he stands true to what he wrote in his confession. I know that if he confesses his sins, God is faithful and just to forgive him of his sins and cleanse him from all unrighteousness. I am concerned that we in the church will overlook that promise when it comes to Mr. Tait. The world is not the only one who has a cancel culture. The church has one too, and the problem with cancel culture is it dredges up past sins and ignores the possibility for grace and redemption. This is problematic, because everyone needs grace. 

Is a Work of Art Redeemable If Its Creator Stumbles?

Is a song or any work of art beyond redemption, if it’s creator has stumbled and fallen? I’m not sure, but my guess is, like everything else, there’s room for grace. Maybe the question is answered in the song, What If I Stumble? “What if I stumble? What if I fall? What if I lose my step and I make fools of us all?” Yes, right now this story has me feeling a bit foolish. Will the love continue, when my walk becomes a crawl? What if I stumble and what if I fall?” Seems to me, despite what has come to light about Mr. Tait, God sent Jesus to redeem sinners and that grace is available to him and to us. I don’t know if we should use the song anymore, but the question it poses is still valid.

Will We Show Grace to the Stumbling?

Part of the reason that song resonates is because it is a question we all should be asking ourselves as we guard our hearts, and try in Christ to live lives the are pleasing to God. Sooner or later, we all stumble, and we wonder if when that happens, will we find grace? With the perfect God, the answer is obviously yes, the question is will the other recipients of God’s grace be willing to extend grace when it’s someone else’s turn to stumble? 

Repentance

Lastly, maybe we need to look at 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. God’s not sitting up on a cloud waiting to zap us whenever we stumble. Instead He sent Jesus to save us from our sins. When we stumble we need to repent, to turn from our sins, confess them and when we do, God is faithful an just to forgive and cleanse us. Everyone who is Christ has been forgiven. The question then becomes will we extend to others what we have received?