God Gave Rock and Roll to You

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 of Elvis Presley and Little Richard 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 a new alternative emerged. Known as the Jesus Movement—and its members, more colloquially, as "Jesus freaks"—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 freaks and evangelical media moguls gave birth to an entire genre known as Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). In this book, Leah Payne traces the history and trajectory of CCM in America and, in the process, demonstrates how the industry, its artists, and its fans shaped—and continue to shape—conservative, (mostly) white, evangelical Protestantism.