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"Few things frightened conservative white Protestant parents of the 1950s and the 1960s more than thought of their children falling prey to the "menace to Christendom" known as rock and roll. The raucous sounds seemed tailor-made to destroy the faith of their young and, in the process, undermine the moral foundations of the United States. Parents and pastors launched a crusade against rock music, but they were fighting an uphill battle. Salvation came in a most unlikely form when a revival swept through counterculture hippie communities of the West Coast in the 1960s and 1970s. Known as the Jesus Movement, the revival was short-lived. But by combining the rock and folk music of the counterculture with religious ideas and aims of conservative white evangelicals, Jesus people and evangelical media moguls gave birth to an entire genre known as Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). By the 1980s and 1990s, CCM had grown into a massive, multimillion-dollar industry. Contemporary Christian artists were appearing on Top 40 radio, and some crossed over into the mainstream. And yet, today, the industry is a shadow of what it once was. In this book, Leah Payne traces the history and trajectory of Contemporary Christian music in America and, in the process, demonstrates how the industry, its artists, and its fans shaped--and continue to shape--conservative, (mostly) white, Protestant evangelicalism. Ultimately, Payne argues, CCM spurred evangelical activism in more potent and lasting ways than any particular doctrine, denomination, culture war, or legislative agenda had before"-- |
