ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 4, 1997 TAG: 9703040037
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHICAGO
SOURCE: STEVE KLOEHN KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
The leather, the dog collar, the wash-off tattoos - it was all a little joke, Pat Boone's people explained after Boone appeared on a nationally televised awards ceremony looking like the world's best-coiffed headbanger.
But the joke struck a sour chord among some of Boone's more literal-minded Christian fans. By last week, viewer response had grown so loud that Boone's weekly show was canceled by the Christian cable network that televises it.
Suddenly, Boone - the 62-year-old icon of clean living and vanilla pop culture - found out firsthand what Elvis Presley could have told him 40 years ago: There are people who believe that rock 'n' roll, or anything that resembles it, is the work of the devil.
Certainly, the Christian critics of rock are fewer in number than they were when Presley's gyrating hips were hip. Faced with a constellation of threats to morality and religion, many of today's culture kvetchers would probably admit that the post-punk Pat controversy is a sideshow.
But amid the one-liners, the incident provides a reminder that some people still hear an irremediable dissonance in the term ``Christian rock.'' They bristle at the idea that God can be glorified through a form of music that also has glorified, or at least reflected, a culture of sex, drugs and me-first rebellion.
Their reaction can be as extreme as the half dozen Internet sites devoted to proving that the Bible says rock - including ``Christian rock'' - is a tool of Satan. Or, it can be as mild as a debate about whether to use an organ or an electric keyboard at a Sunday morning church service.
Either way, it points to the generational seam that is still working its way through churches in America.
``I think rock 'n' roll was very effectively used by a group of people who had an agenda that was opposed to God,'' said John J. Thompson, a Christian rock promoter based in Wheaton, Ill.
``Some people haven't gotten beyond that,'' Thompson said. ``Especially in the South and among the older generation, they're as uptight about rock 'n' roll as they ever were.''
Thompson is the founder of True Tunes, the name of a Wheaton music store and a magazine devoted to Christian rock. He also runs Upstairs, a Wheaton club that presents Christian rock bands, and he plays in his own band, the Wayside.
From Thompson's vantage point, Christian rock is thriving, on the local scene and nationally. Thompson said that he is able to fill Upstairs with 40-somethings who want to hear folk-style Christian artists as well as with busloads of churchgoing teens who come to hear youth-oriented pop acts.
Perhaps the biggest boom, however, is in the musical scene known as alternative rock - the self-proclaimed cutting edge of anti-establishment music. There, lines between Christian and secular artists are blurring, while the market for purely Christian alternative and punk rock soars.
Thompson characterizes some of the acts he books for Upstairs as ``pretty aggressive. ... You play it for a kid who's into punk, and he's going to like it.''
Nonetheless, ``no matter what the style is, it can all be done to glorify God,'' he maintained.
And when it comes right down to it, Thompson is more concerned about the music industry's historic distaste for overtly Christian performers than about churchgoers' indignation at rock 'n' roll.
Doug Moss has not tried a dog collar, but he finds no contradiction in being a practicing Christian ``who has bleached blond hair and wears weird clothes.''
Moss and his wife are the youth ministers at Homewood Church, a Baptist congregation in the Chicago suburb of Homewood, Ill. He is also lead singer and guitarist for Honey, an alternative rock band made up of Christians whose songs have religious themes.
For Moss, the music has less to do with evangelism than self-expression.
``It's what I like. It's what I identify with. It's what speaks to me,'' he said.
``I don't feel I'm sinning in any way by the way I dress and the kind of music I play,'' he said. ``It's a gift from God. Anything I create as a Christian, I think, is Christian.''
Moss has read some of the attacks on Christian rock in religious publications and online. But despite playing in many area churches with several bands over the last decade in front of a variety of audiences, Moss said that nobody has ever criticized his music or his style to his face.
Pat Boone wishes he were so lucky. A spokeswoman in Boone's California office said last Friday that the singer is more than a little taken aback by the reaction to his appearance Jan. 27 at the American Music Awards.
She stressed that Boone is serious about his latest compact disc, which critics have characterized as an odd collection of heavy metal hits from the '70s and '80s, orchestrated with violins and performed in the typical mellow style people associate with the prepunk Pat Boone.
But most of the complaints have stemmed from Boone's new look, not his new sound. And Boone will get a chance to plead his case in April, when he appears on the TV show ``Praise,'' the flagship program of the network that pulled the plug on him, TBN.
Even if that does not pan out, Boone may have a future in the Christian scene. Thompson said that he would book the new Pat Boone at his Upstairs club in a heartbeat.
``I might ask him not to sing some of those songs like Ozzie Osborne's `Suicide Solution,' but he's welcome here any time,'' Thompson said.
Moss, too, said he and Honey would be happy to tour with Boone, although he has not heard Boone's new work, and he is not quite sure it would be the ideal musical mesh. At least he knows they would agree on the message.
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