It Ain't Easy!
Subcultures exist all over our society, often unseen until one becomes involved. I wasn't really aware of a Christian subculture, but when I think of it now, it's quite real. It's not always good to be segregated. This Christian subculture isolates non-members, or the mainstreamers, and mainstreamers isolate Christian subculturites. In the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll, third edition, published in 2001, I tried to find out what they said about the classic Christian rockers. They didn't! Rolling Stone has isolated the Christian subculture from the mainstream. Except for a very few mentions, they don't acknowledge Christian rock. Their title says "of rock and roll," not "of rock and roll, except for Christian."
I found Amy Grant and Stryper, but didn't find the real rockers. There was no mention of Larry Norman, Petra, DeGarmo and Key, Terry or Steve Taylor. Rolling Stone paid no attention to even Steven Curtis Chapman, nor to Carman! Amy Grant a rocker? Stryper, something more than a Christian '80s big-hair and spandex heavy metal band? I just saw blatant neglect of the real greats. This brings me to two great books I stumbled across, and another I've got to mention for its bizarre anti-rock reasoning.
First, I'll mention the off-the-wall, bizarre writing. It's H. Talmadge Spence's Confronting Contemporary Christian Music. The guy is totally paranoid! He begins by discussing light science, and the fact that there are seen and unseen lightwaves in the spectrum. He goes on to include spiritual light, and that God is light --an actual wavelength, not just metaphorically speaking! From there, he leaps to spiritual light as being the highest end of the light spectrum.
Then Dr. Spence brings up the point that you don't have to see, or otherwise perceive, something to know it's fact. After establishing that, he proceeds to turn his own speculation into fact. Since you now know that you don't have to see something to know it's true, everything H. Talmadge Spence tells you must, therefore, be true. At least that's the impression I got.
Dr. Spence claims that contemporary Christian music distorts light, therefore, his claims are factual. The military uses jamming to disrupt communication, so CCM does it too. He even used science fiction as evidence that the Enemy uses light to fight light. His evidence is that the Dark Lord on Star Wars used lazers and light sabres to battle the forces of good. By this time, I concluded I was wasting my time. His reasoning, though, was quite unique!
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