This is a list of Christian metal artists, including artists that played Christian metal at some point in their careers. Christian metal, which is also known as white metal or heavenly metal, is heavy metal music with a Christian message. Christian metal is regarded more of a concept rather than a genre since it has no specific musical characteristics. It emerged in the late 1970s as a means of evangelization to the wider heavy metal music scene and was pioneered by American bands Resurrection Band and Barnabas, Swedish band Jerusalem and Canadian band Daniel Band. Los Angeles' Stryper achieved wide success in the 1980s. In the mid to late 1980s, extreme metal genres were popularized by bands such as Vengeance Rising, Deliverance, Believer and Tourniquet. In the early 1990, the Australian