A quick scan through Pittsburgh FM radio reveals a familiar set of stations — the pop hits of BOB FM, the classic rock and sports talk of WDVE, the hip hop-focused WAMO, and the listener-supported WYEP, among others. In an era of Spotify playlists and curated podcasts, the local radio landscape still offers a healthy array of choices, from country to TikTok-viral hits.
However, a growing trend has taken over the Pittsburgh airwaves, one that signals a telling shift away from rock blocks and morning DJs into spiritual and political ideology.
Christian radio stations are beginning to dominate the Pittsburgh FM scene, as scans are increasingly populated with praise music, broadcast masses and sermons, and religious talk radio. Now, local listeners are just as likely to hear an ad for Patriot Mobile, a faith-based cell service promoted by divisive country artist Jason Aldean, as they are a round of Top 40 hits.
Among the stations preaching to commuters are 101.5 WORD FM, 96.5 FM WPIT, 92.5 ANSWER, K-LOVE, BOOST 97.9, 106.3 Relevant Radio, and the Catholic WAOB 106.7 FM, the abbreviation of which stands for “We Are One Body.”
Why Christian radio has gained a foothold in a decidedly liberal area of Pennsylvania reflects a national trend. It also demonstrates how it has diversified in an effort to attract a larger audience, as so-called contemporary Christian music (CCM) sits alongside the haunting sounds of WAOB’s traditional Catholic masses and hours of recited prayers.
Now, young Christians unmoved by dusty church hymns can get their Jesus fix through power ballads, rap, or pop songs like those by artists Forrest Frank or Brandon Lake, whose track “Hard Fought Hallelujah” features Jelly Roll, the award-winning, born-again singer who straddles the worlds of mainstream pop and Christian music. Even the hootin’-and-hollerin’ singer Benson Boone, a self-professed former Mormon raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, explicitly thanks God in his mega-hit song “Beautiful Things.”
Leah Payne, a professor of American Religious History at Portland Seminary in Portland, Ore., and author of the book God Gave Rock & Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music, calls CCM a “form of Evangelical activism.”
“If you look at Evangelicalism in the United States through the lens of what most people think of as kind of cheesy pop culture, what do you find?” Payne posits during an interview with Pittsburgh City Paper. “And it turns out, you find out a ton, especially about … the business of Evangelicalism, how they look to the marketplace as a way of getting their ideas out in the world, and the incredible amount of skills that they have in utilizing the marketplace. And it all gets hidden because it’s such shiny, happy sounds. People just don’t think, oh, that’s super powerful.”
It’s telling, then, that Christian artists look different from the straight-laced face of CCM past; instead of button-up suits and long prairie dresses, we’re party to face tattoos, broccoli haircuts, hipster mustaches, and sexualized outfits — telegraphing that this ain’t your granddaddy’s Christian music.
Even as CCM artists adopt a more liberal-coded look, however, the genre remains steeped in conservative ideology.
While the website for BOOST FM, a faith-based hip hop station, features more positive, inclusive messaging — including denouncing misogyny on its About page — it still promotes crisis pregnancy centers, which have come under fire for deceptively masquerading as legitimate health clinics, all in an effort to discourage unwitting pregnant patients from choosing abortion. Rising concerns around these centers prompted Pa. Gov. Josh Shapiro to cut taxpayer funding to Real Alternatives — described in a release as an organization that “purports to provide counseling, referrals, and other services through partnerships with crisis pregnancy centers” — in 2023, citing its support of biased, unethical practices.
But how did we get here? A Rolling Stone article from January 2024 directly points to the Educational Media Foundation, also known as K-Love Inc., a nonprofit, multi-platform media company with a reputation for buying existing stations and replacing them with Christian content. EMF/K-Love has recently acquired local stations, including the Burgettstown-based country music station 103.5 WOGH, which the nonprofit purchased in 2024 for a cool $800,000. EMF also claims 98.3 WPKV Duquesne and Air 1 88.7 W204CT Pittsburgh/WPKV-HD2, as well as Gateway Creative Broadcasting’s Christian Hip Hop Boost Radio on 97.9 W250CY Pittsburgh/WPKV-HD3, according to a press release about the WOGH deal.
Those concerned with American Christian nationalism, a movement credited with empowering President Donald Trump and overturning Roe v. Wade, among other feats, may view this proliferation of faith-based radio as a conversion tactic to draw potential believers with music wrapped in hip, stylish, social media-friendly packaging.
An email request for comment resulted in a boilerplate statement from K-Love communications director Rhonda Roberts, who describes the mission of K-LOVE (98.3 FM) and Air1 Worship Now (88.7 FM), another EMF property, as inspiring people to “move closer to Jesus through inspirational music and compelling messages on our airwaves,” and to “point people to the Lord through vertical worship.”
“Reports show that Christianity is growing world-wide; people are searching for a more faith-filled life and Christian music is an effective instrument,” Roberts writes.
“Christian artists are writing and performing biblical music that touches the hearts of listeners, offering them hope and direction in these confusing times. Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) is not only popular on faith-based radio stations, but it’s also making an impact in secular radio with some CCM artists and songs crossing into mainstream,” Roberts continues. “We also find that Gen Z is searching for meaning and are coming to faith in numbers greater than we’ve seen in the last 30 years. K-LOVE is honored to be a small part of what the Lord is doing worldwide through Christian music.”
Granted, this is not the first time CCM has crossed over into the mainstream — in the late 1990s, singer/songwriter Bob Carlisle topped the charts with his saccharine tune “Butterfly Kisses.” This time period also saw the rise of Christian nu-metal band P.O.D., as well as Creed, Lifehouse, and Evanescence, all of whom produced top-selling records with ambiguously or explicitly Jesus-friendly lyrics. In the 1980s, Stryper combined religion with the androgynous sex appeal of hair metal, while folk artists in the 1960s and 1970s offered a comparatively friendlier, sunnier version of Christ.
However, while they may seem similar, Payne sees a difference in the current rise of Christian music from its earlier eras. Payne, who once worked for a record producer who signed popular Christian rock bands like Switchfoot, says that, in the 1990s, the CCM industry copied the style of pop music, offering an ambiguously Christian alternative to Top 40 radio that secular listeners could also enjoy.
“All of that depended on the idea that the core buyer of contemporary Christian music — not the consumer, but the buyer — was a suburban white mom who wanted to regulate her children’s music tastes,” says Payne.
That model fell apart, she explains, when downloading, and then streaming music platforms made it nearly impossible for these theoretical moms to control their kids’ music consumption.
Now, she says the focus has narrowed to producing “worship music,” a genre made specifically for play in mega churches.
“If CCM existed in the old way, we would see Christian K-pop bands,” she says, explaining how the CCM that now sells is meant for “liturgical use” in worship services, pointing to the aforementioned Brandon Lake as an example. Unlike its Bush-era predecessors, new CCM eschews trying to resemble the now-reigning genres of dance pop and rap in service of male-fronted guitar rock bands, who, as Payne points out, once dominated arenas now sold out by artists like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.
“And for these guys, the future is not that, except for in the mega church world, where it’s still very common to have a guy with a guitar,” she says, going as far as calling Lake a “knock-off Scott Stapp” in reference to the lead singer of Creed.
It’s a telling choice in a time when research shows American men becoming more Republican and conservative, a development driven, in part, by panic over declining marriage rates, and by reports showing men being outnumbered by women when it comes to earning college degrees and buying homes.
Payne says outsiders who view CCM and Christian radio as “silly” and non-threatening should not underestimate the industry’s current takeover of struggling radio stations across the country. The political implications of this, she says, cannot be denied, pointing out how Brandon Lake played at the funeral for Charlie Kirk, the controversial conservative golden boy and Turning Point USA founder who was assassinated earlier this year.
The nonprofit status of EMF/K-Love Inc. also means funding used to purchase these stations comes with less financial risk. According to tax filings provided by ProPublica, EMF reported $261 million in revenue and $1.19 billion in total assets for 2024 (for context, in 2011, the nonprofit reported $112 million in revenue and $336 million in assets).
This stands in contrast with Salem Media Group, a for-profit Christian media company that sold several of its radio stations to EMF/K-Love in January 2025 after accruing over $17 million in debt. A press release details how that acquisition furthered EMF’s reach in Atlanta, Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Dallas, Los Angeles, Portland, and Sacramento.
Payne points out that the growth of Christian radio in liberal Pittsburgh could have major implications in Pennsylvania, a swing state that twice handed its electoral votes to Trump. Despite assumptions to the contrary, research reveals that most people in the U.S. still listen to the radio for music and news, despite the popularity of streaming platforms and podcasts.
Beyond spreading the gospel and promoting conservative values, Payne says the advent of Christian FM radio, achieved through a combination of “sincere religious conviction” and business acumen, threatens to homogenize the individual creativity of airwaves in Pittsburgh across the country.
“They figured out ways to run things a lot cheaper. They hire fewer DJs. They don’t hire local ones usually,” she says, adding that, as a result, CCM radio listeners in different cities will hear the same playlists. “So that’s so much less expensive than the price of hiring someone. If it’s an indie rock station in Pittsburgh, then you have somebody who knows the city and the art scene there, and that’s a lot more expensive.”
While the impact of this Christian radio proliferation remains to be seen, Payne says its power and influence should not be underestimated.
“Worship music, in some ways, appears to be less political because it’s singing about Jesus. But if you look at the activism that the leading voices participate in, you see that it is part of a broader conservative activist ecosystem,” she says. “And in some ways, you could argue it’s the most powerful one, because if you’ve ever been to a [CCM] concert, you have to be dead inside not to be moved.”
