The Gospel According to Country Music Revisited: My Apologies to David Allan Coe

After my Gospel According to Country Music bit, I thought I had written the perfect Country and Gospel blogpost. But, a friend of mine wrote me back and told me that I had NOT written the perfect Country and Gospel post because I hadn’t said anything about Momma, or trains, or trucks, or prison, or gettin’ drunk. So, I sat down and wrote a Part II to this post and I felt obliged to include it on this blog, and it goes like this here:

Despite what most of us have been taught all our lives, Jesus was and is not a stuffy, churchy, religious deacon-type driving a Cadillac and wearing a suit following all the rules and living quietly and fading demurely into the proverbial sunset. Not even close, He made it apparent that he preferred hanging out and serving the “least of these” including those whom Country Music lovers would easily recognize: thieves, sluts, liars, not to mention the lowest of the low, those tax collectors. Of course, Jesus didn’t want these folks to stay in their sinful conditions, but it’s pretty clear as I read the Scriptures that He preferred the Bible-era Bubbas and the Bethlehem rednecks gettin’ drunk as opposed to the super-religious stuffed-suits of Jerusalem.

It has been said that if a Country Music singer makes it to Nashville, they will likely already know Jesus but if they don’t they better learn in a hurry. The big wig music execs could probably care less with their business motto of “show me the money”, but the fans, the audience wouldn’t cotton to kindly to an unclean heathern or a treacherous vixen a singin’ to ‘em if’n they hadn’t been washed in the blood of the Lamb.

Confederate Railroad will take it from here:

She never cried when Old Yeller died
She wasn't washed in the blood of the Lamb
She never stood up for the Star Spangled Banner
And she wasn't a John Wayne fan

Speaking of Confederate Railroad, they reminded me that Jesus and Momma Will Always Love Me. My friend was right, Country Music just ain’t Country Music without Momma. Merle Haggard’s Momma tried to raise him better, but her pleading he denied. His Momma seemed to know what lay in store, but despite all his Sunday learning, he turned 21 in prison doin’ life without parole. Turns out, like Paycheck, he was the Only Hell [His] Momma Ever Raised.

Josh Turner churned out a classic Gospel-inspired Country song with his, Long Black Train, the hauntingly memorable story about temptations and allurements of the world. He encourages the listener to believe that there’s Victory in the Lord (I say) and he warns us that the Devil is driving that long, black train.
Well, this brings us to trucks and trucker songs and of course there’s the classic and my favorite trucker song of all - Convoy. Even C.W. McCall honored Country Music’s Gospel roots, uh sort of, as he sings about the eleven long-haired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse micro-bus.

It can be argued that the premise of the Gospel is that Jesus was human, God in the flesh. I realize that this post and the post before it have been quite theologically thin, but as well as just having fun with my Southern, Country Music, and Christian roots I think it is important that we realize while He was fully God, Jesus was also fully human. From the classier Country tunes of Patsy Cline to the raunchier redneck ballads of David Allan Coe to Charlie Pride’s enduring love song Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’, Country Music, perhaps better than any other genre, best represents the human condition and our need for a Savior.




* The Ryman Auditorium image (The Mother Church of Country Music) is from www.keywest-art.com.

Confessions of an Evangelical

• I think it’s fine for you to have one, but your Jesus fish decal doesn’t impress me, especially if it’s placed perfectly beside your political bumper sticker of choice. . . As if they are equal?!
• I believe in Creation, but I won’t freak out nor am I threatened if you believe in evolution.
• I believe in being politically and socially active, but I believe the biggest mistake of evangelicals in this generation is relying on our elected officials to do the work of the Kingdom.
• I cringe when I see an American flag draped around a Cross.
• I believe in Global Warming.
• I don’t think of God as being a Caucasian male.
• I love Contemporary Christian Music, but I cannot stomach most Christian radio deejay’s. Try as I may, I cannot find them funny. I can’t even courtesy-laugh.
• I find Christian-themed t-shirts seriously lacking in creativity. You know the ones: HisWay instead of Subway. CreatorAid instead of Gatorade. Jesus (in yellow, orange, and brown) instead of Reese’s. If you see me in one of these, rest assured that I haven’t take my meds or I’ve lost a bet I thought surely I’d win.
• I have heard from God more often in the woods, at the cabin, on the river, in friends’ living rooms, driving down the road, and at Waffle House than I have in church buildings.
• I played Gospel and Christian Music (Hallelujah FM and KLOVE) in my office in a public school in Little Rock and had my counseling clients who were interested reading the Bible, T.D. Jakes, Donald Miller, and others IF they were interested, while I received countless e-mails and complaints from friends about “them liberals” taking God out of school. Meet me at the pole.
• I don’t think Obama is the antichrist, but I can’t tell you why Biden is always smirking that smile.
• I often forget to pray for people who have asked me to, but I find myself praying for people I see in public that I don’t know.
• I confess that I like and support some televangelists, but I don’t believe that you can purchase a miracle with a credit card. And what’s with the pink hair?
• I don’t want Big Gumment to suppress the work of the Church, but if they could just do me one little favor, I’d plead with them to outlaw church marquees.
• I believe that we’ve developed a sin check-list that differs seriously from the Spirit of the Word to fit our cultural and socioeconomic needs and preferences.
• I’m sickened by the fact that the amount that Christians in America spend in a year on ice cream could eradicate hunger in the entire world. Replace ice cream with dog food, boob jobs, Viagra, North Face, create-your-own category. We spend money wildly and selfishly chasing the American dream of instant, self-fulfilling, glamorous gratification while our "neighbor" in our own country and especially the world over are literally starving to death.
• I’m certain that there are things that I do and beliefs that I hold that annoy, irritate, and bother others and I’m also sure that I’ve been pretty tacky and judgmental (mainly in the name of humor) in the above bullet points, but therein lies my point about contemporary evangelicals – we should be more tolerant. I’m not saying change our standards, but it's more important to get people into the Kingdom instead of converting them to our culture and our politics.

* Please add your confessions or challenge me on mine. Would love to hear from you.