Holy Rock 'n' Rollers (Page 2)

He's right that if you look across the culture, it's tough to find galvanizing forces that have the same effect among youth--especially dissenting youth--as music. Music was of course deeply tied to the antiwar movement in the 1960s, it was the whole purpose of Live Aid in the 1980s, and it's what brings so many of these kids into the evangelical fold. The collective experience of the live show--that intoxicating merger of music's transcendence and the authority of performance--is its most powerful form. These Christian rock shows even seem capable of reversing what most people would expect of teen behavior. At a festival last year, one of the 40,000 people in attendance had an asthma attack, and the singer of a band halted the show so the audience could pray until her breath was restored. The group prayer lasted forty-five minutes without a complaint. Just imagine that energy turned toward right-wing politics.

Bob Poe says of his yearly festival, "Our event isn't a political event but a behavioral event." This is consistent with evangelicals' insistence that all of their behavior--whom they choose to be intimate with, what books they read, what they drink, how they vote--is part of a way of life directed by their religion and aimed at developing a closer personal relationship with God. (Even, perhaps, what they drive: which may have inspired General Motors' decision to sponsor a Christian music tour.) One can't disassociate any part from the whole, and thus most are loath to talk about politics as politics, since any form of activism is just carrying out beliefs in some behavioral form. But these events may be politically effective precisely because they stress that behavior is merely a reflection of deep spiritual commitment. (Technically, no political campaigning--of the electoral sort--is permitted at these festivals, as they are all run by not-for-profit organizations. A press representative of the Christian Coalition admitted that the organization leaflets Christian music festivals but declined an interview.)

When some artist-preachers, whether easy-listening or headbanging, break into the mainstream, they scramble to cover up their evangelical roots, whether because of corporate pressure or their own desire to forge new identities. POD, which stands for "Payable On Death," has become Atlantic Records' bestselling act, topping rock charts, ruling MTV, selling out huge shows nationwide. With the exception of one song, all its recent lyrics make the band's personal relationship with Jesus an intentionally ambiguous thing (much like Creed's music can be interpreted as the exuberant or self-sacrificing experiences of teen love of the back-seat, not of the pew, variety), but take a look at the message boards on their website and you'll see where their core fan base lies. You'll find heated discussion among members with online identities like "Livin'4Christ" about topics like dating "heathens" and personal faith stemming from "fear of hell." Not your usual top-ten-drum-solos banter.

But not everyone weighing in on these bulletin boards is a believer. Neither is every person who shows up at a Christian rock festival or an underground show. In Hicksville, many of the kids I talked to had never "known Jesus" until they found him in the mosh pit. Kevin Murray of the band Now or Never says, "Sure, most of us come to this when we've been smoking pot or having sex or getting depressed, or hitting a point where we know we can't live like that anymore. And you come to a place like this and see a guy like me, and I tell you I've been there, and I've pulled through it, and I can help you, and it doesn't matter if you're a total stranger or think you don't believe in God, or what. I'll show you the way."

It's moving, actually, to be surrounded by a mass of kids dressed in the accessories of anger and marginalization, scowling their teen scowls, and hear the opposite of what you'd expect at a secular gig--a voice, Murray's in this case, shouting to the crowd, "If you want to talk to any guy in this band about what's going on with you, come up. We can help." And then to see guys with tattoos, guys with downcast eyes peering from their black sweatshirt hoods approach band member after band member, saying, "My friend brought me, and he thought I could talk to you," a bizarre twist on the cool-posturing punk shows I'd occasionally check out in high school. To watch a community of people form before your eyes, reaching out to each other, connecting through music and performance to each other and to a shared vision, committing to the political causes they identify as joined with that vision--it's the active community of a liberal utopian's dream.

That is, if you squint so you can't see those Rock For Life shirts. If you can block out the repetition of "Jesus" and "Lord" from the songs and conversations. This, of course, is impossible. Even though "religion" is a dirty word to these instruction-fearing believers (as Murray says, "We're against religion--our God is a God of freedom, not one of religion who won't let you have tattoos"), it's the only reason this scene works. And that's the reason politics so effortlessly becomes a part of the scene. It's the nature and extraordinary effectiveness of evangelical Christianity--the whole-life, whole-belief experience. So whether you're praying in church or at a club, or screaming on a stage or at the doors of an abortion clinic, it's all just an articulation of the oft-repeated "way we live." Is it a political movement? Not in the usual sense. But it is a massive and exponentially self-replicating cultural movement that binds itself inherently to politics.

It's hard to imagine that anytime soon a secular rock band might, as John Lennon said, be bigger than Jesus.

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