Yup, that’s me back in the day. The pic is actually my seminary ID and I’d gotten a haircut just for the occasion. Picture this face with wire-rimmed glasses, that blue jacket, purple tee-shirt, bellbottom jeans, and cowboy boots. Most often there’d be a Winston cigarette smoldering between my fingers and close by would be a twelve-string guitar with a chord chart taped to the top of the body and Jesus stickers all over the front.
“Life was filled with guns and war
and everyone got trampled on the floor,
I wish we’d all been ready…”
I loved the music of Larry Norman who many say was the father of Christian rock. Larry’s 1972 album “Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?” was a hit in the Movement but a massive puke-job to folks who loved traditional hymns. Despite the controversy, this turned out to be the start of what eventually became known as Contemporary Christian Music although the new music has lost the edginess of Larry Norman and the others. Today’s music has given itself over to a bland, melodic middle class “I Love Jesus and Jesus Loves Me” lyric sung over and over and over again…and over and over and over again. The music of the Jesus Movement in contrast had plenty of pretty choruses and upbeat praise songs, but it also spoke to the times. Norman’s music was not afraid to take up social issues like politics, free love, the occult, religious hypocrisy, war, and even venereal disease. When was the last time you heard a song about The Clap from the worship team at your church?
As focused as the Jesus Movement was on personal salvation and the second coming of Christ it was also rooted in the world, calling people to love radically and to take action to save the world. And that hit me right in the gut because I was learning that an important part of who I am is a person struggling to strike a balance between personal faith with social justice.
That struggle, interestingly enough, had been planted in me through my upbringing at a traditional church – Adams Square Congregational Church in Worcester, MA.
Next time, I’ll tell you how that church helped me become a Jesus Freak.
__________
Leave A Comment