I’m grateful for the attention paid to my ongoing discussion with Tom Beaudoin regarding the question of norms in theological method. While I work up a response to continue that conversation, I would like to also call attention to a post by Joe Carter on the First Things “On the Square” blog earlier this week.

Carter’s argument runs basically like this: generally speaking, the type of lyrical content distinctive to country music (regarding faith and family) is not only missing from the larger world of popular music, but is considered aberrant within that world. In conclusion, he draws connections to popular culture in general, arguing that it is popular music’s lack of attention to these themes that is aberrant, since “If you took a random sampling of all other forms of pop media produced in the history of America, you wouldn’t find sixty artifacts that lacked any mention of families or religion. How, then, is it even possible that they are missing from pop music?”

I discern in Carter’s post something deeper than a mere cultural-conservative cry for “family values.” After all, previous posts of his have included critiques of the religious right and—perhaps more daringly iconoclastic—the cottage fantasies of Thomas Kinkade. Yet I am struck by the logic of his argument here, praising the particularity of country music’s lyrical content, while paradoxically demanding that popular music in general conform to the larger sphere of popular culture.

Truth be told, the boundary lines between popular music and other

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