The Gazette of Cedar Rapids (IA), January 18, 1980....
1980s
Now I finally understand what really happened to Jim Bakker in the 1980s. He got canceled.
If you want to get a feel for what is going on in the pro-Trump wing of charismatic Christianity, check out Steve Strang‘s recent appearance on the Jim Bakker Show. Strang, the editor of Charisma magazine, has a new book...
Help Us Decide Tonight’s Quarantine Debate
Watch: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-NOZU2iPA8&w=560&h=315] My twenty-two-year-old daughter can’t get her head around the suggestion that anyone would perform this song, in this way, unless it were some kind of parody or joke. She sees this video as some kind of Saturday...
Saved By Bruce
Earlier this week I saw Blinded by the Light, the feel-good movie about a Pakistani teenager named Javed Kahn living in Luton, England during the Thatcher years. Javed’s depressing life is transformed after he is exposed to the the music...
The “Real” Reason Televangelist Jim Bakker Went to Jail
Here is an excerpt from University of Missouri historian John Wigger’s book PTL: The Rise and Fall of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s Evangelical Empire (Oxford University Press, 2017): …on March 19, 1987, Jim Bakker resigned in disgrace from PTL after...
What Do Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and Andrew Johnson Have in Common?
Fillmore, Pierce, and Johnson were sitting presidents seeking reelection who failed to win the nomination of their political party. And it almost happened in 1980 as Ted Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter for the Democratic Party nomination. Could it happen in...
CCM Comes to a Presidential Funeral
Anyone who attended a Christian college or was part of an evangelical youth group in the 1980s knows this song. Love it or hate it, Michael W. Smith‘s “Friends” is a Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) classic. Yesterday I learned that...
Some Historical Perspective on the Trump Evangelicals
I am happy to contribute to this video posted today at The New York Times. Retro Report spent over an hour interviewing me at Messiah College back in August. I was apparently not as engaging as Cal Thomas, Jerry Falwell Jr....
Does Bruce Springsteen Explain Donald Trump?
Andrew DeYoung has written a very interesting piece at The Stake suggesting that the message of Bruce Springsteen’s songs resonates with the concerns of people who are supporting Donald Trump for President of the United States. It is a nuanced...
The Eagles and Evangelical Christianity
With the death of Glen Frey last week I felt a sort of obligation to watch the CNN documentary movie about his band, the Eagles. I know it’s cliche to say this, but its true: the Eagles have really provided...
Does”Born in the USA” Finally Reflect Conservative Values?
Some of you may recall my piece on Rick Perry’s use of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” at a rally last month. You can read it here. It is entitled “Why Rick Perry Should Think Twice Before He Makes...
The Decaying Ruins of PTL
Most of you know the story of PTL (Praise the Lord) ministries, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker‘s television ministry that collapsed under a sex scandal and subsequent revelations of accounting fraud. Jim ended up in jail. He and Tammy Faye...
Happy 30th Birthday “Born in the USA”
Springsteen’s Born in the USA turns thirty today. I was a teenager when this album appeared and it has been with me ever since. I bought the cassette through Columbia House as part of those membership drives in which you...
This Week’s Anxious Bench Post at Patheos: “Be Ye Glad: Christian Music in the 1980s”
Last week while I was in Ocean City, New Jersey, my family and I attended a concert by the Christian group GLAD. Evangelicals of a certain age will remember GLAD. They began in the 1970s as a progressive Christian rock...
Still on the Side of Love
I became an evangelical Christian in the mid-1980s and this was the kind of stuff I used to listen to back then. Classic! [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPstiMRlB-k] Believe it or not, I saw this group–GLAD (that’s their name–it is not an acronym)–in […]