Revisiting Praise & Worship’s Impact On Guitar Sales

I first worked on this topic in conjunction with Fender in early 2021, but I still have a lot to say.

Nothing makes me cringe more than images like this.

One of the strangest articles I’ve ever written in my guitar career was this one on UG in April 2021. It didn’t get all that many views on UG, but it was widely reported by every major guitar website. In many ways, I had broken my first big story, which is awesome! But it felt like a hollow victory, because not only did no one credit me directly (much to my chagrin) but the co-author was uh, not as helpful on the project as could be.

But the point of this article isn’t just to air my grievances with that project, it is more importantly to air some opinions that were withheld from the original piece. Fender reported that nearly one third of all instruments sold were used in a Praise & Worship (P&W) setting. That’s an absolutely huge chunk of the MI market that is being influenced by churches.

This bothers me a bit and I want to discuss why. I’m not anti-christian, in fact I grew up in a Catholic household and never really had too many issues with religion in my childhood. Yes, my favorite band is Bad Religion, but like their name states, I only have negative feelings for BAD people who use religion as a form of control over men, women, or minorities, an avenue to gain wealth, or a way to gain power. That’s all fair game to complain it when it comes to most conservative religions, not just the Christian P&W scene.

But one that has continuously bothered me is that the P&W scene is mostly comprised of this new age evangelical churches that are essentially get rich quick schemes. Think Hillsong or the televangelists that are brilliantly mocked by the TV show The Righteous Gemstones. These fuckers should be paying taxes, they are not tax exempt religions institutions, they are a source of income and I often wonder how many of these guitars are bought tax free, or bought with money that was untaxed? Yes, it’s great that the P&W sector can provide additional income to boutique builders and our friends in the community. But there has always been this cloud of sketchiness around it.

I first was exposed to this while working on that article, many builders weren’t really willing to fully disclose what percentage of their business was from that sector. Even those who have notoriously offered discounts to “christians” who want to buy their gear. Businesses are still free to run as they wish, but what I offered a discount to non-christians only? Don’t you think a few of them would speak up and speak out?

That’s my whole point in this strictly opinion article, there’s just an air of hypocrisy and, for lack of a better term, ick, with the whole P&W gear scene. There are many people in the music community who have been harmed by the bad aspects of religion and christianity specifically, and it just feels like a lot of time the P&W portion of the gear world likes to stammer over that fact. There’s no shortage of amazing individual people from the gear/P&W corner of the world, but as a whole it’s not really a corner of the market I am going to cater towards.

I do not want the gear community to suffer financially, so no I don’t wish to remove that 1/3rd of the market from existence. But it also bothers me that P&W typically drives very high end, boutique, and oftentimes overpriced gear. Instagram is flooded with P&W boards that feature the “Strifecta”, 3 or more Strymon pedals like the Flint, El Capistan, and Blue Sky strung together. They feature boutique offset guitars that are Fender’s with specific brands of P&W approved pickups. There’s no amps too, it’s all digital (like my rig is) with Line6 Helix, or a Walrus ACS-1. I’ve quite literally NEVER seen a cheaper piece of gear used in this context. I cannot think of any podcast I’ve listened to with P&W peeps (of which there are MANY) or any video or any instagram post from that world that has shown just a Carbon Copy and a Tube Screamer and a Boss RV6. The specific association of the genre with having this massive rigs with complex midi and switching just to play at a freaking church will never stop driving me nuts. And hey, that’s just my opinion, it’s not a fact! But if you came to a guitar gear site run by a punk fan you shouldn’t be expecting any different.

P&W Music, their gear habits, and many of the churches they belong to give me the ick. Simple enough.