Why does religious music, from a technical perspective, suck?

Well, a ton of the world's great music had religious origins, so there is that.

For stuff not in that category, a lot of it is intended to be simple and can be replicated in small churches with no particular musicianship required. The point being that the music itself is just a vehicle to the activity (worship).

Modern Christian music is typically pretty awful, of course. Probably because people with more talent gravitate to music that will reach a broader audience. I'm sure the budgets and professionals available to work on those recordings also don't help.

Christians are pretty "narrow minded" so you can't play them anything different or they would reject you. So contemporary christian bands have to just regurgitate chord progressions and melodies that these people have already heard.

Dude, do you even Bach?

Seriously, he was said to write all of his music to glorify God. His is some of the most complicated and beautiful of the Baroque era.

I wouldn’t confuse the Jesus pop they play in churches with religious music.

Several months ago I discovered my wife was cheating on me. We wound up splitting but the kids wanted to live with me. Anyway, I really tried listening to a ton of contemporary christian music, to keep me inspired and moving in the right direction. After about three weeks I concluded that it all sounds pretty much exactly alike.

I couldn't take it.

I see clear channel as the biggest barrier.
Every other station is broken out by sub-genre (Alt-Rock, classic Rock, pop, New country, country legends, etc.). For some reason, "Christian" radio is just a vanilla pitch to the soccer moms. All inspired types of music are abandoned, and there's no commercial reward for breaking a mold or pushing a boundary musically. If you are writing thought-provoking melodies over interesting chord progressions, that almost immediately precludes you from making the rotation.

What if Vaseline from STP had Christian lyrics? Never would hear it. What if The Distance from Cake had Christian lyrics, or Lights Out from Royal Blood?
It's not rewarded because it's off-center.

It's terribly patronizing, honestly.

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Why does religious music, from a technical perspective, suck?

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Bc Satan tells you it does

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Why does religious music, from a technical perspective, suck?

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Because they aren't largely focused on that. It is less about the music and more about praising God. The majority of the music you hear in the genre is the real heavy handed stuff. When it is subtle and the artist cares more about the music, it is generally some good stuff.

In the words of Hank Hill, "you're not making Christianity better, you're just making rock n roll worse."