This morning in my devotions I was reading about the Apostle Paul in Acts 17. On Paul's second missionary journey in this chapter, he made a stop at Athens. It is the only stop that we know of on his missionary journies where he didn't preach about sin or the blood of Christ. He says that he only briefly mentioned the resurrection.
Why did he water down the message to this crowd? Maybe it's because of the highly-educated intelligencia that formed the ruling body of Athens at the time. Maybe it's because of the intense level of idol worship they had at the time.
What was the result? Only a few believed. It is the only stop on his journies where only a few became Christians -- everywhere else there were many conversions.
Bottom line... When we choose to water down the message of Jesus Christ so as not to offend the secular crowd, our message becomes ineffective./color]
I read Acts 17, specifically Acts 17:16-34 (Paul in Athens). I didn't see Paul watering down the Gospel message to this crowd. He had an intellectual group of philosophers as his audience. He, probably through the prompting of the Holy Spirit, adjusted the approach his message took to reach those men. I've found that it is good to know your audience when sharing the word of God. Some did come to Christ right then, who knows how many others came later, when Paul's words had a chance to sink in. Intellectual people ponder things, don't usually make fast rash decisions, etc. The point is, the Holy Spirit knows what each person needs to hear and will guide each of use when witnessing if we seek his advice and counsel.
I remember attending a funeral a few years back. The preacher that did the funeral had been picked by the more fervent fundamentalist child of the deceased. This was unfortunate as the crowd was Northern, Educated, Urban/Suburban marginally Roman Catholic. This preacher was Southern, Rural, sounded uneducated, Fundamentalist, Fire and Brim Stone in his approach. That family today refers to that funeral as the "Hee Haw" funeral, as those folks couldn't relate to him at all and even though he gave a solid Biblical based message that told of salvation through Jesus Christ (so his theology might have been correct), his approach was Fire and Brimstone, Hell and Damnation, nothing of comfort or about the love of Christ, etc, (what a comforting message to give at a funeral) then he and his wife sang a country hee haw type duet that made Hee Haw sound sophisticated. If this had been a TV show, it would have been very funny. As it was a real funeral for a real person, who wasn't like this preacher at all, it was an abomination. This preacher embarrassed those of us, who know Christ as this man didn't love these mourners as Christ would, he simply preached at them. He saw a bunch of "Catholic heathens he could get saved" (man is that guy going to be in for a surprise when he sees Catholics in heaven). Those people, sat quietly and were far more polite than this man deserved, but all he did was turn off those people to hearing the Gospel message. No one took him seriously. He didn't practice Agape love, it appears that he didn't ask the Holy Spirit for guidance, because the Holy Spirit gets real results and this was a total disaster.
Now, having said all that, I'd tend to agree with you though, that a radio station, needs to decide who its audience is, if it is going to be a Christian station then it needs to play ONLY Christian music. I listen to all sorts of music, both secular and Christian, but I know people who only listen to Christian music. Those people would tune out if they hear "worldly" music. I too would tune out depending on the lyrics of that "worldly music". So if you are trying to have a "positive music station" then playing both secular and Christian music might work assuming you can get enough nonbelievers to accept the Christian music you choose. Many nonbelievers don't want to hear any music that mentions God in it unless the word damn follows. So I'd agree that a format mixing both might not be that successful for either group, nonbelievers or for Christians.
So my advice would be, either be a solid Christian station or be a solid secular station.
