Tait posted on Instagram days ago that for 20 years he lived a ‘double life’ but is working on ‘repentance and healing’
www.theguardian.com
The Christian music legend Michael Tait, whose hit song God’s Not Dead became an anthem for Donald Trump’s Maga movement, has been accused of sexually assaulting three men, two who believed they were drugged by the rock star in the early 2000s, according to a months-long Guardian investigation. Four other men have alleged that Tait, a founding member of DC Talk and later a frontman for Newsboys, engaged in inappropriate behavior such as unwanted touching and sexual advances.
The Guardian is publishing these allegations days after Tait posted an extraordinary
confession on his Instagram account, admitting that for 20 years he had been “leading a double life”, abusing alcohol and cocaine, “and, at times, touched men in an unwanted sensual way”, according to his statement.
The statement appears to be a response to a
separate report published earlier this month by the Christian media outlet the Roys Report, which also investigated Tait and revealed similar allegations of drug use and sexual assault against young, male musicians.
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Over the last 38 years, Tait has emerged as one of the most iconic names in Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). The genre and industry often exists in its own commercial and cultural ecosystem – yet mimics popular trends of mainstream music – creating multi-platinum superstars who are marketed to teens (and their parents) as wholesome alternatives to the “sinful lifestyles” of mainstream rock stars.
Tait was one-third of the rap-rock group, DC Talk, which formed in 1987 while its members were attending the evangelical Liberty University, whose founder, Jerry Falwell, launched the Moral Majority, the political organization that first galvanized evangelical voters around the Republican party in 1980, forever changing the American political landscape. Falwell was a mentor to young Tait – whom he
referred to as “my white daddy” – and helped boost DC Talk to stardom.
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The fight for Christian nationalism was also a premier theme of DC Talk’s music – as well as the book Under God, co-authored by Tait – claiming the US is suffering a collapse of moral values because of the secularization of government and public schools. This was underscored with frightening urgency by their songs warning of the coming rapture. As
recently as 2021, Tait warned: “I believe we are living in the last days [before the rapture].”
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DC Talk went on a hiatus in 2000 and for nearly a decade Tait performed as a solo artist until he became the frontman of the legendary CCM supergroup Newsboys. In 2011, their rock song God’s Not Dead became a rallying cry for disaffected evangelicals in the Obama era. In 2014, Tait and Newsboys appeared in God’s Not Dead
, a movie centered around the fictional story of an atheist college professor who threatens to fail his students if they refuse to sign a form declaring “God is dead”. Tait would make an appearance in four subsequent sequels, becoming a recognizable face in the fight against perceived anti-Christian discrimination, a central theme of Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns.
Tait
endorsed Ted Cruz in 2016, but shifted his allegiance to Trump after the Florida pastor Paula White – chair of the evangelical advisory board for Trump’s 2016 campaign and leader of the White House faith office in 2024 – invited him to pray over Trump before a Florida campaign stop. Tait soon became a key bridge between the candidate and white evangelical voters. Newsboys performed for Trump at the White House in 2019, and the following year Tait sang at evangelical “Let Us Worship” events, which were centered around the false claim that President Joe Biden was using Covid lockdowns to repress church attendance in the US.
