Cephas Hour
Episode Eighteen
Release Date: June 24, 2021

Commentary on manning up and not shirking ones obligation in relationships. Continue reading “Cephas Hour
Episode Eighteen
Release Date: June 24, 2021″

Cephas Hour
Episode Sixteen
Release Date: June 3, 2021

Commentary on Psalm 103 and a common misconception surrounding depression. Continue reading “Cephas Hour
Episode Sixteen
Release Date: June 3, 2021″

Cephas Hour
Episode Ten
Release Date: April 16, 2021

Not a lot of chatter in this mostly acoustic outing; letting the artists do the talking. Continue reading “Cephas Hour
Episode Ten
Release Date: April 16, 2021″

Cephas Hour
Episode Seven
Release Date: March 22, 2021

Some discussion about not making yourself into a living cliché, not pursuing happiness at the expense of others, and the need to comfort those facing loss. Continue reading “Cephas Hour
Episode Seven
Release Date: March 22, 2021″

Cephas Hour
Episode Five
Air Date: March 6, 2021

Some discussion about taking the long view of things, the need to put Scripture into action by taking care of one another, and the need to better know Scripture period.. Continue reading “Cephas Hour
Episode Five
Air Date: March 6, 2021″

Looking Back: “Only Visiting This Planet” by Larry Norman

It’s impossible to objectively review Only Visiting This Planet by Larry Norman. Without this 1972 release, contemporary Christian music as we know it would not exist.

It’s possible if not probable that CCM in some form would have emerged in the mid to late 1970s. But it would not have been the same. It would not, and could not, have addressed political, cultural, and relationship matters without Norman having led the way, letting people know that Christians are aware of what is going on in the world and have lives themselves.

Norman was a stubborn, solitary visionary, often if not always at odds with the music business both secular and Christian. The former gritted their teeth at his open proclamations of Christ, knowing that doing so would immediately strike him from any general public appeal. The Christians couldn’t handle Norman’s music, a mix of not-so gentle folk and roots rock minus the instrumental showmanship, his hair, his lyrics, or Norman himself. Only the few got it.

The cultural references on the album are necessarily dated, yet continue to ring true. Norman was no flag-waving conservative, nor was he a bleeding-heart liberal. He viewed both sides with a critical eye, letting his answer be Jesus almost regardless of the question.

Norman was the outsider’s outsider, the voice letting you know it was okay to admit hurt and pain and confusion without fear of a guilt trip. He didn’t so much expand the horizon of what a Christian in the arts could accomplish as create a new horizon. With Only Visiting This Planet Norman didn’t necessarily invent Christian rock, but he did make it something of value.

The album is available on the Larry Norman website.

The Devil and Larry Norman

Sipping whisky from a paper cup
You drown your sorrows ‘til you can’t stand up
Take a look at what you’ve done to yourself
Why don’t you put the bottle back on the shelf
Shooting junk ‘til you’re half insane
A broken needle in a purple vein
Why don’t you look into Jesus
He’s got the answer

 

from “Why Don’t You Look Into Jesus” by Larry Norman

 

On “Center Of My Heart,” a song from Tourniquet which was Larry Norman’s final studio album before he passed away ten years ago, he included the line “I’m a walking contradiction.” After reading Gregory Alan Thornbury’s Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?: Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock, it’s obvious truer words have seldom appeared.

Thornbury’s biography of Larry Norman, Christian rock’s founding father in the 1960s and most polarizing figure to this day, is a fascinating and sobering look at the life of a man almost perpetually surrounded by controversy. Much of it was Norman’s own doing, intentional or not; his incessant need to be in control and insistence on being a lone wolf utterly convinced of his selected path’s correctness often frayed and sometimes shattered relationships, both professional and personal. Yet, he could also be generous to a fault with his time, money, and talents. He was also a brilliant songwriter and performer, penning and recording work that remains stunningly powerful and genuinely life-changing for those who have ears to hear.

Norman, to quote from a song by Mark Heard, whose early career was directly influenced by Norman, was too sacred for the sinners, and the saints wished he’d leave. The former were often off-put by Norman’s frequent references to Christ being crucified and risen. At the same time, the latter routinely freaked out over his mixing straightforward love and political songs, plus generous use of allegory and parable, into his body of work. Norman didn’t care. It was his vision, done his way, take it or leave it.

The book does an excellent job in painting the backdrop for Norman’s life and times, managing the not inconsiderable feat of detailing such elements as the Jesus People movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s in a manner both informative to the uninitiated and not dreary for those already in the know. Some biographers tell a tale of a life well; others specialize in times. Thornbury does both well.

Thornbury mentions more than once how Norman, in concert, sought not to entertain but rather to challenge his audience, having no hesitation about making it feel uncomfortable through in-between song musings as well as in the songs themselves. He posed questions about faith and how believers should conduct themselves in the world, detailing the need to demolish the Christian ghetto and be in the world but not of it. Norman was simultaneously icon and iconoclast, the one without whom almost every contemporary Christian artist would not be there while at the same time asking what they were doing there, as they were neither witnessing to non-believers nor edifying those who were already Christians.

The book is unflinching in examining Norman and those around him; his first wife, Pamela, and his early protege Randy Stonehill both come off quite poorly. However, the book also tosses bouquets as easily as it does brickbats. It is no hatchet job designed to speak maximum ill of the dead or the living. In lieu thereof, it is, as best as Norman can be capsulated, a multi-level study of a multi-level man who won friends, made enemies, influenced many far more than they are willing to admit, and left it for others to argue about as he decidedly did it his way. If you love Larry Norman or have no idea who he was, Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?: Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock is enriching reading that, even as Norman did with his work, forces reflection.

The book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.