Conversations with James Long

"You don't see many new bald Christian artists. Or fat Christian artists. You don't see any unattractive female Christian artists. I think that should concern people. That's a value system that we all ought to worry about."

Michael Card is sitting at his offices, tucked in the hills outside suburban Nashville. It is mid-morning, and the room is awash with white light and lament. Michael Card is reliving a career and airing his concerns for Christian music.

Over the past decade-and-a-half, those concerns have grown. He sees a Christian music industry that lacks a sense of community and that is instead driven by "competition, commercialism and individualism." Michael Card is, quite simply, disillusioned with an industry that he sees as having become preoccupied with image-making. An industry that he insists is "getting worse faster than any of us can imagine."

To understand the intensity of Michael's feelings, you must walk with him through the years of experience that began with a problem pregnancy, a grandfather's prayer, a blind woman's passion, a professor's heart. Michael Card, you see, was never called to Christian music. Music is peripheral to his heartbeat, his driving concern, his call.

"I was something of a crisis pregnancy. My mom was 46 and had lost two children before me. Naturally, there was a lot of concern. When my grandfather learned of the pregnancy, he started praying for me, something he continued every day. I think that, more than anything else, has made the difference. He died when I was very young-I never knew him-yet I have felt a real bond with him. That," he says, "is my foundation."

At age 8, Michael Card became a Christian, though he regrets that the next several years were in some sense lost to mere childhood, since he was not actively discipled. That changed when he hit the early teen years.

"When I was 14, I came into a relationship with an elderly woman in our church who was a Bible teacher. She had the Bible memorized, and, being blind, she taught it from memory." That woman led 13 Bible classes a week. Young Michael Card went to all of them. "Basically, I was her servant. I would open her mail for her, and once I was old enough, I drove her to her meetings." She was 86 years old, and she fanned the flame of his passion for the Bible. So it was that at 14, Michael Card felt called to be a Bible teacher.

"Ever since that time, that is the call I have operated on. To me, music is secondary to me. I am a teacher. That's what I do." But teachers must first be learners, and Card was. His high-school buddies remember him as Mr. Popularity, a real "chucklehead," who played the guitar for assembly programs and was a fun guy to have around. He remembers those years differently. He did not feel as though he fit in with the group, and his thirst to learn was frustrated by a course of study that was less than challenging. In fact, the last two years of high school, Michael left town each Thursday night and drove to his other grandfather's cabin in the mountains. He hiked all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday, then drove home on Monday. For two years, he attended classes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday only, yet still graduated in the top two percent of his class.

"For me, college is when it all came together. The Lord sort of took me in hand. I was discipled by my principle professor, who was also the pastor of the church I was attending, a black church in Bowling Green, Kentucky."

William Lane, who held a Ph.D. from Harvard and who did his research in 16 different languages, took Card under his wing and began a mentoring relationship that continues even today.

"This is the reason I am who I am today. For six years we regularly walked together. We studied together every day. I went to church and heard him preach every Sunday. He was the first person ever to ask me to write a song. He would give me his sermons in advance, so I could write praise choruses to use in the service."

It was under Bill Lane's teaching that Michael Card chalked up about twice the necessary credits to earn a Master's degree; he took every class Dr. Lane taught. "Bill Lane was grooming me for a Ph.D. program." As Michael relates the story now, he stresses that William Lane was preparing him to follow in his steps as a professor, "grooming me to be another Dr. Lane." Michael completed his Master's, handed in his thesis, and was accepted as a candidate for a Ph.D. program. But the two months between earning his Master's and starting his Ph.D., instead turned into a 15-year detour through the Christian music industry.

Back in his high-school days, Michael had played in bands with Randy Scruggs. It was natural then, that when Randy and friend John Thompson decided to start a production company, they would call their old friend, Michael Card. "They needed to make a demo tape they could take to the record companies so they could say, 'See what good producers we are?' Since I had a month or two before continuing my studies and since music had always been my hobby, I became their guinea pig. They played the demo at one record company and were told, 'We'll hire you as producers if you will produce this person on the tape.'"

Michael Card agreed to do it for one year. But one year turned into 15, as surely as fall turns to winter. Yet, throughout that time, Michael Card, the musician, was evaluating things through the eyes of Michael Card, the teacher. That, after all, was his training. And his calling.

And the disillusionment began.

"Christian music is becoming not a Christ-centered thing. Not even a song-centered thing, which it used to be. Christian music is becoming so much an artist/personality/celebrity-centered thing. The ministry is severely hampered as it is. It won't be long until the music is going to become totally irrelevant"

Now, years later, relaxing in his offices, Michael Card recalls with amusement the management team that was eager to help him. They talked about the possibilities and touched on the details. "We'll hire someone to teach you how to dress," they told him. They would create an image for him. "I don't know what they would have done when my hair started falling out. See, that would have been a major disaster."

Card relives the moment when a record company executive told him, "You sing about the cross too much." A weariness creeps into his voice as he recalls a painful and lengthy contract dispute, and he feels again a 10-year-old disappointment that the word of a Christian music executive could mean so little.

Sitting here now, Michael Card brightens as he speaks of men of integrity who helped him resolve the disagreement and who supported him in his ministry for the next 12 years. He recalls his moaning and complaining about the shortcomings of the Christian music industry and the counsel of his mentor, Bill Lane: "Let the excellence of your work be your protest." To this day, Michael Card is convinced: "I need to tattoo the advice on my body somewhere."

Even so, Michael Card has come to another critical juncture. His assessment of the Christian music industry today is bleak. He sees a greater preoccupation with shallow image-making than ever before. And the conversation comes to a close on a thought-provoking, if somewhat downbeat, note.

"Christian music is becoming not a Christ-centered thing. Not even a song-centered thing, which it used to be. Christian music is becoming so much an artist/personality/celebrity-centered thing. The ministry is severely hampered as it is. It won't be long until the music is going to become totally irrelevant--and that is the worst thing that could happen. See, the worst thing that anyone could say about Christian music isn't that it's wrong theologically or that it's heresy. The worst thing anybody could possibly say after hearing a Christian song is, 'So what?'"

In response to these concerns, Michael Card, Phil Keaggy, Wes King and Steve Green are hopi