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Aug 28, 2024
The Devil’s Music
How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock n’ Roll
Summary
I was immediately drawn to the book The Devil’s Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock n’ Roll (Harvard University Press, 2018) by Dr. Randall Stephens, Associate Professor of British and American Studies at the University of Oslo. Dr. Stephens and I came across one another online and the book, which combines part rock n’ roll history, part American Christianity history, was an absolute delight for me.
The Devil’s Music tells the story of how my experiences with rock music in the 1990’s came to be. From the inside cover of the book, “When rock n’roll emerged in the 1950’s, ministers denounced it from their pulpits and Sunday school teachers warned of the music’s demonic origins. The big beat, Billy Graham believed, was “ever working in the world for evil.” Yet by the early 2000s Christian rock had become a billion-dollar industry. The Devil’s Music tells the story of this transformation. Enjoy our conversation.
