u/HymnMetrics

This analysis tests the hypothesis that the American version of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) has warped Jesus's original message away from a communal call to help others and toward a hyper-focus on the self, personal emotional management, and individualized rescue.

Thesis: American Christian music has shifted from communal, outward-facing theology ("We/Kingdom") to individualized, therapeutic emotional management ("I/Me/Comfort").

Data:

• Analyzed Top 5 songs from Billboard's "Christian Airplay" chart, monthly, for 12 years (n=491 songs).
• Used spaCy (NLP) to parse first-person pronouns and semantic domains.

Findings:

1. Pronoun gap: In 2014, the ratio of Singular (I/Me/My) to Plural (We/Us/Our) pronouns was roughly 9:1. By 2025, it reached 15:1 ratio, with an average of 39.6 singular pronouns per track.
2. Kingdom Floor: Language regarding "The Poor," "Justice," or "Neighbors" (Kingdom Domain) dropped to an all-time low in 2025, averaging less than 1 occurrence per song.
3. Peak Ego: The "Therapeutic Self" domain (Anxiety, Rescue, Healing, Feel) consistently dwarfs outward action language, proving that the modern "Worship" movement is optimized for private emotional resonance over community service.

Tools: Python (billboard.py), spaCy (en_core_web_sm), Pandas, Matplotlib.