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In this week’s SojoMail, Sojourners’ Mitchell Atencio looks at how Christian musician Rich Mullins’ legacy still challenges white evangelicals: Rich Mullins had a museum of a personality. The singer-songwriter, who died in a car accident in 1997, loved to show off anything he found interesting, his friends say. From music to movies to the places he traveled, Mullins loved “for you to experience what he loved,” his friend and collaborator Mitch McVicker told Sojourners. And more than just about anything else, Mullins loved Jesus. Mullins’ career tracked alongside the evolution of contemporary Christian music (CCM), which went from marginal in the 1970s to a powerhouse genre that sold a combined 31 million albums in 1996. Best known for the modern hymn “Awesome God,” Mullins wrote his fair share of songs that fit Christian radio. But more often, his music was a kaleidoscope of faith and humanity, offering a tour of human frustration and failure. Mullins was a contemporary Christian music misfit, unafraid of making a mess of the white evangelical faith that still dominates the industry. In his 30s, he took informal vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. “[I]f I want to identify fully with Jesus Christ, who I claim to be my Savior and Lord, the best way that I can do that is to identify with the poor. This I know will go against the teachings of all the popular evangelical preachers, but they’re just wrong. They’re not bad, they’re just wrong,” Mullins said in concert in a Texas church in 1997. Twenty-six years after his death, Mullins’ life and music stand as a prophetic witness against a Christian music industry that is policing, puritanical, and performative. He resisted the idea that Christian artists needed to lead kids to Jesus to reinforce abstinence from sex and drugs. Instead, Mullins said evangelism “has nothing to do with their sexual conduct or with the management of their bodies or their minds. It has only to do with God so desperately wanting us to know that he loves us, that he incarnated himself.”
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Our Latest ‘Telling the Truth and Exposing Evil’ With W.E.B. Du Bois (by Talique Taylor) W.E.B. Du Bois may not have been a Christian, but he has something to say to the church. The True Story of a Migrant Farmworker Who Became an Astronaut (by JR. Forasteros) In A Million Miles Away, we learn what’s possible when family — and policy — support migrants. Rise of the Nonreligious Voter and the Future of US Elections (by Evan Stewart) Could this religious change actually make a strong political impact? Denominations Are Dying. But the Church Can Still Thrive (by Michael Woolf) I have come to believe that denominations are not the best way to organize our religious communities. |
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From the Magazine When We Feel ‘Angry Enough to Die’ (by Natalie Wigg-Stevenson) September reflections on the Revised Common Lectionary, Cycle A |
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Announcing the Flourishing Futures Campaign On Tuesday, SojoAction launched Flourishing Futures: a campaign to equip faith-rooted early-childhood development champions and allies everywhere to protect and promote the health of children and their primary caregivers. Join Churches, congregations, and leaders like you to meet this moment with courage and faithfulness so every child can thrive. Subscribe to Sojourners magazine and get a free book Sojourners is the magazine for Christians who care about social justice. Subscribe today for bold reporting, inspiring theological reflections, insightful culture coverage, and original artwork. As a gift we will send you a hardback of Matt Desmond’s new book “Poverty, By America,” a sociological analysis of poverty and its causes. |
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