The Wall Street Journal-20080118-WEEKEND JOURNAL- Taste -- Houses of Worship- The Christian Woodstock
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WEEKEND JOURNAL; Taste -- Houses of Worship: The Christian Woodstock
Candidates from Hope are hip. Bill Clinton had his saxophone; Mike Huckabee plays his electric bass guitar. But when Americans hear the labels "Southern Baptist" or "evangelical," they probably don't immediately think "hip." Next to Mormons, evangelicals are probably regarded as the least cool segment of the American population. How did Mr. Huckabee become a hip evangelical politician?
In 1972, Mike Huckabee -- still in high school -- followed the example of thousands of other young Americans. He went to a weeklong festival, waded through mud and listened to rock music. But the throng of students he was a part of was different from the youthful gatherings more often associated with the late 1960s and early 1970s. These young people were in Dallas for Campus Crusade for Christ's "Explo '72" -- at "Godstock" rather than Woodstock.
It was the perfect trip for a young, conservative Christian like Mr. Huckabee, as Explo '72 foreshadowed the subsequent emergence of evangelicals as a powerful voting bloc. The assembled students applauded a large contingent of military personnel and cheered the South Vietnamese flag. The Rev. Billy Graham read a telegram from Richard Nixon, and a survey conducted by a local newspaper reported that the students favored Nixon over George McGovern in the coming election by a ratio of more than 5 to 1. They also favored stronger penalties for marijuana possession and overwhelmingly believed that American attitudes toward sex were "too permissive."
Godstock, however, was about God, not the GOP. Campus Crusade refused to extend an invitation to President Nixon, who dearly wanted to come.
Explo attendees listened to Mr. Graham, Campus Crusade's Bill Bright and other evangelists who urged them to "change the world" by telling others about Jesus. On several afternoons, Mr. Huckabee visited Dallas neighborhoods, knocked on doors and shared the contents of Mr. Bright's small booklet titled "Have You Heard of the Four Spiritual Laws?" Mr. Bright's message was short and simple: "God loves you, and offers a wonderful plan for your life," began the tract, which identified Jesus as "God's only provision for man's sin." It is hard to imagine a better training ground for electioneering. Though some Texans probably greeted Mr. Huckabee warmly, he also learned to persevere with his message and remain gracious regardless of disinterest or hostility.
At Explo, Mr. Huckabee also saw evangelicals shedding some of their cultural conservatism. Every night, Christian rock music had the delegates in the Cotton Bowl swaying and singing before Mr. Bright or Mr. Graham took the stage. On the final night of the event, tens of thousands of other Dallas residents joined the students for a "Jesus Music Festival" featuring the music of Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson. The young people in attendance danced to the music and pointed their index fingers to the sky in the "one way" symbol of the Jesus Movement.
Looking back, it is hard to appreciate just how revolutionary these steps were for evangelicals in 1972. Crusade's Mr. Bright, one of the most influential evangelicals of the post-World War II generation, had long rejected rock music -- along with long hair and dancing. Less than a year before Explo, he told a reporter that rock 'n' roll "wasn't for us . . . because of the complaints of ex-addicts." At the time, conservative evangelicals strongly associated rock music with drug abuse. Mr. Bright's son Zachary remembers telling his father: "You can have a conservative view of music and keep what worked for you, or you can win [young people to Christ]." "I'd rather win," Campus Crusade's president responded.
The organization's embrace of rock music at Explo '72 went a long way toward revolutionizing evangelicalism's relationship with popular culture. Only a few fundamentalists seriously swim against the cultural tide today. Explo may not have changed the world, but it changed American evangelicalism.
Mr. Huckabee absorbed both Explo's substance and its style. Culturally, he became part of the updated evangelicalism that emerged from the event: bold, confident and much more at home in American culture, yet still determined to persuade others to embrace Jesus.
After graduating from college, Mr. Huckabee spent more than 15 years in the ministry, first assisting televangelist James Robison and then pastoring congregations in Arkansas. He hasn't strayed far from Explo's prescription of Jesus as "God's only provision for man's sin." At a South Carolina church last Sunday, Mr. Huckabee told the congregants that good works wouldn't get them into heaven. "What does it take to get in?" he preached. "His name is Jesus."
While such sermons resonate with evangelical voters, they obviously risk offending nonevangelicals. But Mr. Huckabee utilizes both humor and a comfortable embrace of popular culture to avoid the stereotype of the dour fundamentalist. In a November debate, he deftly parried a question about whether Jesus would have supported the death penalty: "Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office." Explo '72 reached a wide audience of young evangelicals by staging a Christian rock concert. Mr. Huckabee now plays bass guitar next to Elvis impersonators at campaign rallies.
I bet Mitt Romney wishes he had learned to play the drums.
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Mr. Turner is the author of "Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ: The Renewal of Evangelicalism in Postwar America," forthcoming from the University of North Carolina Press.
