Cory Asbury isn’t in the business of damage control.
He knows what the Christian music world expects: Stick to the script. Stay inspirational. Don’t touch the hard stuff. But that’s never really been his style. Not when he wrote “Reckless Love”—a worship anthem about the scandalous grace of God—and not now, when the industry is facing one of its most visible reckonings in years.
“If anyone knows me at all, you know that there’s full transparency—no matter what, to a fault,” Asbury says. “But I’ve realized you can’t have the same level of transparency with the world that you have with your wife or your friends. They know you. The world doesn’t.”
Still, he’s not about to start filtering himself for optics. When asked about the Michael Tait controversy in an Instagram Q&A, Asbury answered plainly—and caught heat for it.
“People took it out of context and ran with it,” he says. “But I’d rather be misunderstood for telling the truth than loved for faking it.”
It wasn’t about starting drama. It was about telling the truth. And for Asbury, truth-telling isn’t just a personal conviction—it’s a theological one.
“The industry’s not perfect,” he says. “And if anyone’s looking at it thinking it is, they’re disillusioned. But the beauty of it is that God still uses broken, imperfect people. That doesn’t excuse bad behavior, but it does put the spotlight where it belongs: on God, not the artist.”
Still, the headlines hit a nerve—not just for him, but for thousands of young Christians trying to make sense of yet another public failure. The Tait revelations followed scandals involving church leaders like Carl Lentz and Mike Bickle. And with every headline, more people find themselves asking: Who can we trust?
Asbury understands that question more than most.
“I’ve seen so many men rise and fall,” he says. “So my outlook is—I’m never surprised. I know the depravity of man. I know what we’re like at our worst.”
He speaks from experience. As someone who came up through the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, he was close to the orbit of Bickle, a former leader accused of misconduct. The news hit hard—not just for Asbury, but for countless others who had looked up to Bickle for years.
“When that happened, everyone was calling me like, ‘Did we waste all our time there?’” he recalls. “And I’m like, bro, was your faith in Mike Bickle? Was he your savior?”
That, for Asbury, is the heart of the issue.
“We don’t put our faith in people. We put our faith in Jesus,” he says. “If your faith is shaken because a worship leader fell, your faith wasn’t built on the right thing to begin with.”
It sounds blunt. That’s because it is. Asbury doesn’t have time for platitudes. He’s more interested in accountability—starting with himself.
“Integrity means being the same person onstage, online and at home,” he says. “No B.S. No facades. No performance.”
And that integrity, he believes, starts with honesty—even when it’s inconvenient.
“It’s easy to say you’re doing great when you show up at church and high-five the pastor,” he says. “But if inside you’re struggling and hiding and pretending, that’s not faith. That’s theater.”
What does real faith look like to him? “It looks like saying, ‘God, I’m offended. I’m frustrated. I’m disillusioned. Can you meet me here?’ And then letting him.”
That’s not just a theory. It’s a challenge.
“There are two ways to respond to all this,” Asbury says. “You can get bitter and jaded. Or you can lean in and ask God to show up in the mess. James 1 says the testing of our faith produces patience. But that only happens if we stay in it.”
He’s not naive. He knows people are hurting. He knows trust has been broken. But he also knows what’s at stake if the church and the industry avoid the conversation.
“I’m not saying we throw people under the bus,” he says. “But Christians do need to stop pretending to have it all together. We need to tell the truth. Because God’s not afraid of it—and people are desperate for it.”
For Asbury, that’s not just a mission. It’s a mindset.
“We can all carry our hearts with integrity,” he says. “Whether you work in ministry, music or Walmart. And that looks like honesty. Even when it costs you.”
It’s not a glamorous call. It won’t earn him a PR consultant anytime soon. But for Asbury, it’s the only way forward—for himself, for the church and maybe even for the industry he refuses to give up on.
“I think honesty is the place God meets us,” he says. “And if we keep showing up there, He will too.”
