Cory Asbury is a former member of the Bethel Music collective, best known for the massively popular song “Reckless Love.” In addition to a Grammy nomination, he has won three Dove Awards, including Worship Album of the Year and Song of the Year.
We last wrote about him after he defended his practice of wearing nail polish in public.
A couple of years ago, he revealed that he was working on a country music album because he felt deeply disillusioned by what he saw in the Christian music industry. He described the experience in late 2025:
“My eyes are opened to the Christian music industry and I saw some things that I did not expect to see. Immediately, the one thing, that main thing that connected me to God, worship, felt tainted. I didn’t really know what foundation to stand on. Subconsciously, I think it almost became a goal of mine to tear down this industry that I was seeing this perversion and this evil in.”
Rather than tear down the evil and tainted Christian music industry by exposing it and naming names, he instead decided to put the worship music on hiatus and made a country album.
But the album was never released, even though he had been given a $500,000 cash advance to complete it, which it nearly was. In a new Instagram post, Asbury reveals more of the details behind what could have been, saying the reason he stopped doing worship music to pursue a country album was that “I was running from my calling.”
“I was really frustrated by the industry of it all. Making money from worship music and the gospel was just such a weird feeling for me and my soul. Like I can’t charge $100 a ticket to come to my worship thing because like I’m good at singing to Jesus, like that’s so weird. I just couldn’t settle the issue in my soul.
I was really thrown off by the dirtiness of the industry. Honestly the sin in it was rampant. The biggest names, stuff that you would never want to see, I was seeing it. I was like ‘man, I don’t want to have anything to do with this.’ It felt like Ezekiel’s temple where you open the doors and you’re just like ‘What? ..What’s going on?”
Asbury has not seen fit to reveal the identities of the big-name Christian musicians who are engaging in dirty, rampant sin, but has, however, ensured it’ll just continue and proliferate.
Notably, after drug and sexual abuse allegations against former Newsboys frontman Michael Tait emerged, Asbury revealed that “everyone” knew about Tait, just not the specific details, and insisted that “a lot” of Christian bands are living a double life.
He later revealed that he felt jaded by what he learned about the Christian music industry and began looking down on others, and began acting and thinking he was better than everyone else.
Eventually, however, he felt convicted by the Holy Spirit, called his label, put the country album on hold (he suggested he would give back the $500k), and is now releasing a new worship album that reflects who he is and who he was created to be.
“My hope is a lot of y’all who have been following along, prodigal parts of my story where I was running, I had taken my inheritance and I was going to do my thing. I’m hoping that you guys can grab ahold of this record and this move of God and be like, ‘okay, there’s hope for me.’ I’ve been in those dark places. Folks who have been like, ‘screw the church,’ they can look at this and go, ‘okay, God could do that for me.”
Yet people not naming names is how folks like Michael Tait were able to prey on so many people for so long. If you’re not going to name names, why even mention it? Why bother bringing it up?
