Uncharted Territory
Mark Joseph's The Rock & Roll Rebellion
Charlie Peacock
January 1, 2000
The Rock & Roll Rebellion: Why People of Faith Abandoned Rock Music and Why They're Coming Back, by Mark Joseph (Broadman & Holman, 1999), 288 pp. (paperback), $12.99.
In 1999, an unprecedented number of serious books were published on the subject of contemporary Christian music—three to be exact: Mark Joseph's The Rock & Roll Rebellion, Jay Howard and John Streck's Apostles of Rock, and my own At The Crossroads. In most areas of interest, the publishing of a mere three books on a common subject would not necessarily constitute the arrival of thoughtful criticism. With contemporary Christian music (CCM), it does.
While volumes about jazz and even hip-hop fill entire shelves in bookstores, CCM has somehow slipped beneath the radar of book publishers. It's truly remarkable that the CCM community has waited thirty-plus years for anything resembling this kind of publishing attention (or criticism). Since—like a comet—book-length analysis and criticism on this subject may not come again for another thirty years, I've agreed to unpack the contents of Mark Joseph's book. (Alert readers will recognize Joseph as RQ's contributing editor for music, and also as the reviewer of my own book in RQ 5.3.)
Unlike Apostles of Rock (an academic analysis framed by Niebuhr's categories of Christ and culture), or At the Crossroads (which I consider to be a pastoral approach to the subject), TheRock & Roll Rebellion shows some real teeth. Joseph's obvious scorn for any and all forces that have marginalized "the music of brilliant artists" drives this book, gives it a little anger, and sets it apart from the others. Don't take this to mean that Joseph's book is merely an emotional rant against the Big Bad Wolf in Nashville, the mecca ...
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