I just finished Greg Thornbury’s outstanding biography of Larry Norman, Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music?, which I highly recommend.
If you have any interest in the history of Christian music, are puzzled as to how the Newsboys are still in existence 52 years after their inception, or wonder why most Christian music sounds pretty much the same, read the book.
As I read it, I couldn’t help but reflect on how so-called “revolutionary” movements come and go within the church, but always seem to burn out after awhile.
Larry was on the front edge of both the Jesus Movement and Christian rock.
He wanted to create something big. Culture shaking. Revolutionary. Something that would rattle the Christian landscape and achieve massive and unique things for God.
Larry felt like the church was full of hypocrites and a total failure, and so he wanted to spearhead something unique and new and big for God. A sort of, Jesus without all the trappings of the church,…
