...
Show More
I read this directly after finishing Daniel Radosh's riveting "Rapture Ready," and while I felt this effort wasn't quite as deft as that book (perhaps in part because the author had trouble getting many subjects to talk to him), it was still a compelling read. Where Radosh covers pretty much the whole landscape of American evangelical pop culture, Beaujon focuses almost entirely on the music industry. His detailed history of the development of "Christian rock" and its variants is enlivened by his interactions with both the industry's artists and producers and (to a lesser degree) its target audience. I particularly enjoyed his parallel exploration of integrational "crossover" artists such as David Bazan, Sufjan Stevens and Aaron Weiss, who have devoted followings despite alienating many evangelicals with, for example, songs about struggling with doubt or which contain profanity. And while the author -- a secular rock critic -- gets justifiably snarky on occasion (and there is much about which to snark in the Christian music industry), he writes with touching honesty about seeing many of his prior assumptions turned upside down during this journey.
It's hard to sum up this book, but I recommend it to anyone who is (like me) weirdly fascinated by the truly bizarre aspects of U.S. Christian pop culture, especially outsiders seeking to understand it. Many evangelical fundamentalists will no doubt find it offensive, but if you're an open-minded Christian curious about how this culture really looks to someone from the outside, I think you'll enjoy it. YMMV.
It's hard to sum up this book, but I recommend it to anyone who is (like me) weirdly fascinated by the truly bizarre aspects of U.S. Christian pop culture, especially outsiders seeking to understand it. Many evangelical fundamentalists will no doubt find it offensive, but if you're an open-minded Christian curious about how this culture really looks to someone from the outside, I think you'll enjoy it. YMMV.
