Nicole-Marie

Anytime you identify as "Christian" on any level, people judge you and reject you.  They put you in the same category as fundamentalists who decry homosexuality as a sin or tell you that you will burn in hell for all of eternity if you don't follow Jesus.  This is not the kind of Christian I am but this is what is always ascribed to me.  I could remove the "Christian" term from my bio but I would never do so because there is nothing more important to me than my spirituality, even if it gets me rejected in a music business that favors sexuality over spirituality.  I will never belong to it or be accepted by any part of the music business.  I have been rejected by every genre of the music business, in part, because I dabble in every genre and blend genres and therefore, get rejected for some part of the whole of who I am.  But I choose to be a whole person and refuse to put myself in a box and label myself as any one thing.  I will never be accepted by those in the Christian music community simply because of my "new age" beliefs. 

There seems to be an over identification with the sexual in the music and entertainment business at large.  There are so many ways to be sexual.  You can transsexual, homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual, asexual, pansexual, bisexual, etc.  I'm sure more terms will come out whereas you can even further identify yourself sexually.  But if you dare bring the word "spiritual" or "Christian" into the mix, you are synonymous with "religious" or "fundamentalist Christian" with a huge negative overtone.  You are immediately labelled as "homophobic" or "self-righteous" or any of the negative labels that have gone along with daring to call yourself a Christian. 

Just wanted to share with you an example of the kind of rejection that those who identify as Christian on any level face.  Here is a recent rejection based from a music organization that I submitted my music to.  The rejection was obviously based on my spiritual identification:

Rejector:

Thanks Nicole-Marie

Whilst I did enjoy what I heard - music of 'religious fundamentalism' is
something I never feature - sorry.

I realise as a Christian evangelist it may surprise you that this is a
site which features music by Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Muslims, Jews,
Agnostics and Atheists etc. and absolutely refuses to support musicians
of overt religious intent.

I wish you every success with your career as your production,
song-writing and vocals are sublime - but being a 'Christian
fundamentalist' is not some mark of relevance I am able to countenance
on a site which features music from around the world with those of faith
of other religions, or none at all.

Tim

My Response: