R&B Singer Howard Hewett Explains Why He Will Never Call His Music "Secular"

Along with being a writer, I am also a media coach.  A media coach coaches people for media appearances such as interviews, hosting, etc.   Often when coaching an artist who is a Christian in mainstream music, I try to get them out of the habit of saying that they perform "secular" music.  The reason is because of something I once heard R&B singer Howard Hewett say about why he doesn't call his music secular.  I thought that was really interesting so I looked up some other interviews to to find out his thoughts on being a Christian artist in mainstream.  Here is what he had to say in interviews from GospelFlava.com and NPR.

On being called a "secular artist":  "I'm not a Gospel artist.  And I'm not one of those raunchy R&B artists either.  A long time ago I stopped calling my R&B music secular.  Because if you really look at the definition of secular, it's deep.  The dictionary defines it with words like 'heathen, ungodly and without God.'  And I don't think anything I've ever done in my career has been without God." 

On being criticized by non-Christians for singing his Gospel hit "say Amen" during his performances:  "Through the years I've had atheists come up to me, I've had Jehovah's Witnesses come up to me, I've had 'Science of the Third Mind' or whatever come up to me after shows.  I remember a couple of atheists come up to me saying, 'we were having such a  great time, and then you started talking about God. What was all that about?'

And that's my opportunity to plant a seed.  I'm not saying that it would take root right away, but God says that his Word will not return void.  If I was a 'Gospel artist', then those same people may not even have been there."

The difference between singing about love and sex:  "I believe that romance has a spiritual side to it.  There's a big difference between singing about love and romance and singing about sex.  I don't sing about sex.  I sing about love.  God is love, you know what I'm saying?  And I don't know about you but you know when I'm getting read to set the mood, I'm in a romantic situation and I want to set a romantic mood for me and my wife, you know, I love Shirley but I'm not going to reach for Shirley Caesar...But I don't want to have to reach for somebody who's irresponsible in the way that they project and portray love and romance like some of my peers do, you know , in today's music.  So I stand in that gap, I think, of respecting- love is  a very, very, very sacred thing to me.  It's a very important thing to me.  And I respect it that way."