This issue features a “micro-interview” with Eileen Luhr, conducted by Nick Poppy. Luhr (a friend of the interviewer’s from college) is an Assistant Professor of History at California State University, Long Beach, and the author of the recent Witnessing Suburbia: Conservatives and Christian Youth Culture (UC Press). In her book, Luhr studies the rise of Christian youth culture, particularly Christian rock, and how evangelical Christianity colonized (and was colonized by) secular culture. The book describes a moment and a movement that has had tremendous influence in American life, even as it resembles a bizarro version of a more recognizable pop culture.

EILEEN LUHR MICROINTERVIEW, PART I.

THE BELIEVER: You’re a contemporary cultural historian. You’ve done years of research and have written a book on Christian rock (Witnessing Suburbia: Conservatives and Christian Youth Culture). So… what is Christian rock? What are its defining qualities?

Eileen Luhr: Christian rock emerged in the late 1960s out of the Jesus Movement. Small churches sought to reintegrate hippies into American society, and they permitted the young people to bring their music into the church. During the 1970s, Christian rock grew to include record la- bels, magazines, pop festivals, and radio stations. During the 1980s, the genre grew beyond iconic pop acts like Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant to include “edgier” music such as Christian metal and Christian punk. Christian bands sought to induce a religious experience in their listeners, whether it was proselytizing to nonbelievers or intensifying an existing believer’s devotion. Thematically, the genre has tended to emphasize personal salvation and morality, often tinged with “outsider” identity. Conservatives worried that bands like U2, whose members were known to be religiously devout but who were not “Christian rock,” were akin to “gateway drugs” in the sense that parents and ministers worried that if kids were allowed to listen to these bands, they’d move on to more dangerous  secular stuff. More recently there have been some critics and bands who have refused to use “Christian” as an adjective because they felt the usage consigned bands to a subcultural audience of existing believers. But it’s be- come a huge industry—last year the Gospel Music Association reported  sales of over fifty-six million albums and digital tracks.

EILEEN LUHR MICROINTERVIEW, PART II. 

THE BELIEVER: What are the musical/cultural antecedents to Christian rock? Can you trace its development from an earlier point in time, or is it revolutionary and sui generis?

Eileen Luhr: Protestants, especially revivalists, have a tradition of incorporating contemporary musical forms into their worship practices. The most common quotation one sees in articles about Christian music is the saying “Why should the devil have all the good music?” which was also a Larry...