Jesus Sound Explosion by Mark Curtis Anderson.
Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2003. $29.95 — 269 pp.

We have all heard stories about the moral dilemma of the “preacher’s son” — the frustrations of a youth who finds himself caught between his father’s expectations and the “worldly temptations” of life. Well, I have a story, too.

I went to high school with a Baptist minister’s son, Bill Collins. Of course, the fact that Bill’s father was a Baptist minister influenced the way everyone reacted to him — teachers, fellow students, girls, etc. At first, many of us avoided profanity and racy stories when he was present. He was never invited when we made a “beer run to Waynesville.” However, it quickly became evident that Bill resented his “special status.” By the time we became seniors, the minister’s son not only cursed and smoked, he drank, wrecked cars and developed a reputation as a “lady’s man.” Shortly after graduation, he was married, then suddenly divorced and, following a violent disagreement with his father, he became a true “prodigal son” by moving to Atlanta where he drank to excess, got into spectacular bar brawls and finally attempted to rob a Western Union. He ended up in prison.

For a short time, Bill and I were friends. In retrospect, I remember him as a brilliant, humorous but short-tempered fellow who frequently brooded about the “curse” of being a minister’s son. He saw himself as hedged in by religion on one hand and “the world, the flesh and the devil” on the other. He felt that he was not in control of his own life and was determined to escape from what he called “the religious trap.” His father expected him to be “in the world, but not of it” — a concept that he found himself incapable of understanding or accepting.

Mark Curtis Anderson’s memoir, Jesus Sound Explosion is a wry, comical and often poignant chronicle of the author’s experience with the same moral conundrum that beset Bill Collins — However, there is one significant addition: rock and roll. Ironically, music, not religion, probably saved Anderson from a fate similar to that of Bill Collins — that and the author’s once-passionate belief that “the devil’s music” and his father’s religion could be united.

Jesus Sound Explosion, based on the title of an actual album that celebrated the 70’s fusion of Baptist fundamentalism and Jesus rock (endorsed by Billy Graham and Johnny Cash), is a chronicle of a spiritual war. It is a war with spiritual and mental casualties, and Anderson perceives his family, friends and himself as “recovering evangelicals.” It is also an account of Anderson’s gradual disillusionment in both the Jesus movement of the 70s and the basic doctrines of Pentecostal religion.

Anderson’s spiritual odyssey carries him from St. Paul, Minn., to La Crescenta, California and back again — from the first tentative attempts to bring drums (Andersen is a drummer) and a guitar into the church to the subsequent appearance of “Jesus Rock,” the author perceives himself as in the vanguard of a musical and spiritual revolution.

However, what begins with youthful optimism (and a kind of evangelical Woodstock) ends with hopelessly alienated factions, lost friends and disillusionment. Anderson painstakingly traces the doomed movement from the early attempts to create church-sanctioned rock and roll stars to the final years when the “Jesus-centered” revolution took on all of the trappings of elitism, becoming a strident voice that fervently condemned Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen as Satan’s apostles.

In retrospect, Anderson realizes that the yoking of the Jesus movement with rock and roll music was unrealistic because it required the repression of the latter’s most essential (and tantalizing) ingredients: drugs and sex. Some of the most memorable passages in Jesus Sound Explosion deal with the anguish and guilt suffered by teenagers at Baptist summer camps of the 70s. Anderson’s humorous accounts of the contrast between the camp’s “moral agenda” and the actual (covert) behavior of the camp’s youth (pot smoking, beer parties and sex) underscore the basic hypocrisy of the movement.

In addition, Jesus Sound Explosion exposes another aspect of this religious anomaly that smacks of something akin to brainwashing tactics and intimidation. In their zeal to win converts, the movement’s “charismatic youth leaders” (and Anderson unwittingly became one of them) resort to a variety of questionable procedures.

Anderson learns to frighten his youthful charges into conversion with tales of demonic attacks, knife-wielding satanic assassins and graphic descriptions of Hell’s torments. Add a few gripping passages from Revelations — all dramatically related in a cabin lit by candles — and even the most stubborn teenager is likely to convert.

The author’s personal crisis comes when he finds himself part of a rock and roll band called Rockmole at Mercer College in 1983. This was a time when “the world wanted to dance,” but Mercer disapproved. When the students made a half-hearted attempt to challenge the college ban, they were quickly condemned and forced to disperse by a Mercer spokesman. Struck by the pettiness of rules that condemned dancing and AM radio, condoned record burning and prohibited the purchase of the world’s most popular recording artists, Anderson began to slowly backslide. Before long, his dereliction was assured — he became a fervent Springsteen fan.

There is also considerable evidence that the movement’s zeal to win converts produced another kind of victim. Anderson’s memoirs contain repeated references to teenagers who despair of meeting the rigorous standards for salvation established by the youth leaders. Unable to forego drugs, sex and the devil’s music and saddled with an oppressive sense of guilt, these faltering youths simply accepted their fate. Frequently, they declared themselves disciples of the Anti-Christ and ended up sliding into a life of total dissolution. What does it matter? they say. If a little pot and Bruce Springsteen has damned me anyway, I might as well go the limit.

Anderson now lives in St. Paul where he teaches and occasionally works in his favorite music store, the Electric Fetus. Perceiving both his family and himself as “shell-shocked Christians,” the author notes that the negative impact of the Jesus movement on his family is extensive. Both he and his brother, Marshall suffer from clinical depression.

Anderson no longer believes in Hell, but he believes in the redemptive power of love. He still plays Springsteen and Dylan, and has developed a belated appreciation for Elvis and John Coltrane’s jazz. Unlike my friend, Bill Collins, Anderson continues to enjoy a warm relationship with his parents and retains an enviable ability to laugh at himself. As for his present mental state, he ruefully notes, there are good days and bad. He finds that drumming, listening to Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” and exercising his strong sense of rhythm help.

(Gary Carden is a writer, storyteller and lecturer whose book, Mason Jars in the Flood, was recently named Book of the Year by the Appalachian Writers Association. He can be reached at gcarden498@aol.com.)