Keith Green & Rich Mullins: Where Would Their Theology Be Today?

Rich Mullins & Keith Green

Rich Mullins and Keith Green were two of the most influential people on my faith, theology, and walk with Christ as a teen and later as a young adult.  Not surprisingly, they shared a lot  in common.

• Both were hugely popular within the emerging Contemporary Christian Music scene and yet constantly chaffed against it refusing to be categorised.
• Both were prophetic in that they used their music often to remind the church of its hypocrisy and that they were failing to be a light to the world.
• Both were tragically killed in the prime of their lives

To understand the impact these two men had on my faith you need to understand that a prime motivating factor on my going oversea to become a missionary in the 1980s was reading, re-reading, and then reading yet again Keith Green’s biography No Compromise.  Then years later in 1995 when Tammy and I planted Island City Church in Hong Kong’s bar and nightclub district we began every church service by listening to and meditating on to Rich Mullin’s song The Creed.

As I said, these two guys were hugely influential in my theology in times past but their untimely departure had me recently musing, would Keith Green & Rich Mullins continue to be pioneers of the faith into the 21st century?  Or would they join many of their contemporaries in the shrill commentary that abounds in today’s church which has less to do about advancing the Kingdom of God and more to do with winning an American cultural war?

In 2018 would Keith Green and Rich Mullins be reduced to defenders of the aquarium…or would they still be Fishers of Men?

Keith Green in 2018

Keith Green was a product of the Jesus Movement (as was I).  If I’m honest, I’ve been fairly disappointed in my Jesus Movement contemporaries of late.  Shocked is the word I’d use to describe a group of people that once were organic, welcoming, and cutting edge on what God was doing on the Earth… and then somehow over the years largely morphed into Trump supporting culture warriors.

I’ve really strived of late to avoid American culture politics in my blog and podcast but find I need to ask, “would a Keith Green in his mid-sixties, who wrote songs like No Compromise, lend his vote and / or support to a mean spirited ‘p#*sy grabbing’ thrice married serial adulterer for the somewhat suspect reason of securing some conservative Supreme Court justices?”

One only needs to follow his widow Melody’s twitter feed to see that she has joined a large segment of her Jesus Movement contemporaries in believing that supporting Donald Trump (albeit reluctantly) was a justifiable price to pay in the American culture war battle.  Somewhere along the way those quasi left wing hippies who came into Christianity through the 1970s Jesus Movement had, by the 1980s, got co-opted into becoming right-wing Republicans.  I know cuz I was right there and part of it.  Two things that were drilled into me as a product of the Jesus Movement generation:

1. You MUST vote
2. That vote MUST be for a pro-life candidate

But would Keith Green living today feel the same way?

Reading the story of Keith and Melody’s journey in No Compromise one could sense Keith was always a couple steps ahead of Melody and pulling her, sometimes reluctantly, forward in their faith.  It’s depressing to think then of a 65 year old Keith Green as a talking head on Fox News alongside a Franklin Graham or Jerry Falwell Jr.

Instead I prefer to  think that Keith would have kept pulling Melody and that Jesus People generation forward.  A prophetic voice reminding the church of its call to be a Light and to American Christians they are Resident Aliens in the USA and not meant to follow a political donkey or elephant but The Lamb!

I don’t know about you but I see a see Keith Green / Shane Claiborne Tour 2018 in my head.

And that makes me smile!

Rich Mullins in 2018

Back in the 1990’s I was chatting with a friend who was fairly high up in the corporate world of a major Christian recording company.  In a moment of candor and venting perhaps a little frustration she was spilling a bit of the “dish” on what some of the more popular Christian artists were really like behind the scenes.

It wasn’t particularly inspiring.

I remember asking after one particular Christian singer who was selling out arena shows across America at the time.

“Him” my friend laughed, “that guy’s ego is so big it enters the room five minutes before the rest of him does.”

Ugh!

I was gathering from our conversation that close exposure to the Christian music scene could be truly detrimental to one’s Christian faith.  But I had to ask about one of my personal favorites.  A musician and minister who had been such a inspiration to me  …but was a little afraid of what I’d hear.

“What’s Rich Mullins like?” I said.

“Oh Rich,” she responded, “Rich is the real deal!  He is really nice and what you see on stage is the same guy behind the curtain.”

News to my ears!

Recently I was rewatching the Rich Mullins biopic Ragamuffin and just seeing Rich encounter the theological understanding of Grace for the first time still gives me goosebumps.  (Its an amazing scene where he is listening to a teach by Brennan Manning and he has to pull over and just weep)   It was actually that moment that was the inspiration for this post as I thought, “if Rich hadn’t been tragically taken from us in 1997, where would his theology be today?”

Unlike Keith Green, Rich was not associated with the Jesus Movement and so even by 1997 had largely avoided the political baggage the generation from that movement was steeped in.  Also, although Rich was embraced by the Evangelical / Charismatic church he deftly kept its theology and culture at arms length even to the point of flirting with Catholicism. Indeed he was drawn to liturgical expressions in music and faith long before they began being rediscovered by the growing ex-Evangelical diaspora.

But would a 62 year old Rich Mullins be doing a concert alongside Rob Bell and expounding on the theology of N.T. Wright?

I’d like to think so.

Or, he may be off the radar living in obscurity teaching music to children on a Native American reservation as he was apt to do when he was alive.

Either way, both Keith Green and Rich Mullins were voices that the church still needs today. Through their music, in a way, they are still here and speaking to us!

Peace,

Steve