En Vogue : Hot and Holy (INTERVIEW)

En Vogue : Hot and Holy (INTERVIEW): Why the ultimate purpose of sex is bringing Glory to God. When it comes to the Christian view of sex, confusion abounds, despite a d...

En Vogue : Jason Harrod: Singing Between Doubt and Belief for...

En Vogue : Jason Harrod: Singing Between Doubt and Belief for...: The folk singer-songwriter writes about faith after the 'mountaintop experiences.   "Thanks for hanging in there through my mi...

En Vogue : Hot and Holy (INTERVIEW)

En Vogue : Hot and Holy (INTERVIEW): Why the ultimate purpose of sex is bringing Glory to God. When it comes to the Christian view of sex, confusion abounds, despite a d...

The Secret Women's Porn Problem

We may not talk much about women’s addiction to erotica, but it’s happening. Trillia Newbell, guest writer 

It's difficult to find concrete numbers on women's pornography viewership. We shouldn't be surprised; adult entertainment has always been designated as the "man problem." But the little research on the topic, plus anecdotal evidence, reveals otherwise.

In 2007, Nielsen/NetRatings found that approximately 13 million American women click on pornographic sites each month. They make up an estimated one in three visitors to adult entertainment websites.

With the uptick in Internet use and the growth of online pornography, we can assume more men and women are viewing this content. Women also read erotica in huge numbers, with 50 Shades of Grey by E. L. James breaking records as the fastest-selling Kindle eBook and paperback novel in history, according to Business Insider.

Even as Christian groups work to combat our culture's porn addiction, their efforts continue to skew male. The Gospel Coalition editor Joe Carter published helpful findings on the effect of pornography on the brain, adding to the ongoing discussion over men and porn.

It's much harder to find similar articles tailored for women, leading many to deduce that pornography remains a struggle only for men. When we don't talk about women and porn, women everywhere hide in the shadows with this deep-rooted secret. Thousands, perhaps millions, of Christian women struggle with sexual sin, and we must speak openly about these temptations.

Many of these women start viewing pornography young—very young—and continue to struggle into their 20s. Three have volunteered to share from their stories.

 

Rachel: Googling Sex

It started when I was 9. A few days before, some friends were giggling about this thing called sex. I searched for it on Google, and up came countless links to pornographic websites. I clicked on many of them, and the screen was soon covered with explicit pop-ups. A flood of intense shame came over me, but I wanted to see more. I almost got caught, so I resolved to never do it again. I came too close to being exposed, and the shame was too much.

As a teenager, I became romantically involved with a guy who had just graduated from my school. Before long, we were discussing sexual fantasies. I went back to pornography, and I began to masturbate frequently. When things between us ended, I combated rejection and heartache with pornography and masturbation. It was an intimacy that I could control.

Every morning and evening—sometimes even in the afternoons—I would engage in those things. On the outside I was a straight-A student, a leader in my high school's chapel band, a core part of my youth group, a social butterfly, and a talented athlete. On the inside I was slowly wasting away, chained to my addictions and the woundedness that I was trying to avoid. For those four years I led a double life, and I was good at it.

 

Sally*: Chasing Endorphins

When I was 13, I would stay up late at night and watch scrambled porn on my TV in my room. I still remember, on my cable provider the Spice channel was 73, which happened to be the reverse of VH1, which was 37. I found it by accident one night, and it changed my life for several years. When my friends came over, we'd watch it together.

I eventually started experimenting while watching it. I was a virgin and I was curious, and at the time, I didn't think it was doing any harm. My addiction with porn and masturbation lasted until I was a senior in high school, when I entered into a relationship with a guy in my church. We were both Christians, but neither had any self-control or a strong conviction about premarital sex. We swore it off at first, but after a few months, I had experienced my first kiss, and then I was rounding second base and third base and was headed quickly for home plate. It was only by the grace of God that we never actually had sex.

After our relationship ended, I craved that feeling that I no longer was experiencing. I wanted those "feel good" endorphins. I knew it was wrong, but I still wanted to experience an orgasm. I remember watching a steamy scene from The Notebook (and if you've seen the movie, you know the one) on YouTube, and before I knew it I was viewing pornographic material. I was shocked at how fast it led there. The Lord had worked to get me out of that bad relationship, and I didn't intend to go down that path again. I closed the computer and wept. It was a changing point for me. I cried out to the Lord for help. I asked to be delivered from my sexual sin, and I was.

 

Sarah*: Satisfying Curiosity

As a kid, I was exposed to sex scenes in movies and sex chatter among other students at school, who repeated details of what they had heard of, seen, or done. I began to develop impure thoughts and daydreamed about sexual activity. I knew this was not right, but I continued to talk with others about sex, and imagine what it was like. Even at age 11, I heard a sermon about lust that ended with an altar call for congregants struggling with lust. I knew I had impure thoughts—I was yearning to see something that I had never seen before—but I could not stand because I was too ashamed.

A few years later, I realized I could gratify my desire to see what I was imaging in my head, so I would stay up and watch porn after-hours on premium cable channels such as HBO and Showtime. When I was about 15, someone prayed that lust would be removed from me. I felt much better, shared my issue with my mother, and did not have any desire to watch that stuff anymore.

In college, I was a virgin addicted to pornography. More of my friends were having sex and telling me about it, and I wanted to see it for myself without actually taking part. I ran into pornography on social networking sites. I would go to sexually explicit chat rooms and watch webcams. Though I was raised in the church, I did not realize my true identity in Christ and wanted to experience life on my own. I knew it was wrong, but I did not really care. I just wanted to satisfy my flesh. I went through periods where I felt completely stuck in my addiction to this stuff. I could not go to bed at night until I watched it.

 

Helping Women Fight Sexual Temptation

These few stories offer a small sampling of a widespread problem.

Women, you are not alone in this struggle with temptation to sexual sin. You aren't the only one ashamed of the sexually explicit material in your browser history or on your e-reader. For all who face these temptations, the power of the gospel enables you to say no to sin. Each of these women eventually confessed their sin to friends and received the grace available to them by the Holy Spirit to stop watching pornography.

While I have not struggled with pornography or erotic novels, I did fall into sexual sin prior to marriage. I write as one who has had to remember that as temptation came once I became a Christian, I was no longer a slave to sin but a slave to righteousness (Rom. 6:17). God's restraining power is greater than our sin and so is his grace.

If you are tempted to hide your sin and temptation because of shame, regret, and fear, know that in Christ, you are forgiven and pure—righteous, just has if you'd never sinned and always obeyed 

(1 Cor. 1:30).

You don't have to hide your sin and temptation to sin, even when it's a sexual sin, the kind we don't like to talk about. You are forgiven and loved. Let this knowledge of amazing grace motivate you to cry out "By no means! I will not continue to sin that grace may abound" (Rom 6:1). God can enable that in you.

Trillia is a wife, mom, and writer who loves Jesus. She is the author of United: Captured by God's Vision for Diversity (Moody Publishers, March 2014). She is the lead editor for Karis, the women's channel for the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and the consultant for women's initiatives at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for the Southern Baptist Convention.

I'm In Love With a Church Girl (Movies & TV)

There's some good elements here, but it can't quite rise above the main problem of "message" movies.

Taylor Lindsay

 

our rating

 

Genre: Drama 

 

Directed By Steve Race

MPAA RATING: PG (For thematic elements, a scene of violence, some suggestive content and brief language.)

CAST: Michael Madsen, Stephen Baldwin, Adrienne Bailon, Martin Kove 

THEATRE RELEASE: October 18, 2013 by FilmDistrict

The bad-boy drug-trafficker; the devout girl of faith. The church, the club, the interrogation room. Throw in Stephen Baldwin as a detective and (not one but) two appearances from Christian rappers, and we at least have all the right ingredients for a promising movie.

But when you actually put it together and project it on the screen, the film gets in the way of the story it was trying to share.

I can't possibly begin to tackle here why it seems so hard to make a great Christian film. But one thing I've noticed consistently is that the message seems to get in its own way. If you try too hard to convey the message(s), you risk pummeling the relatable part of your art out of the production. The audience will hear a lot, but just not "feel it." And in this vein, Church Girl tries to pack too many messages (about conversion, about faith, about drugs, about romance, about tragedy, about church, and more) into a movie that just isn't wide enough to hold it all.

Jeffrey "Ja Rule" Atkins & Adrienne Bailon in I'm In Love With a Church Girl

Former drug trafficker Miles Montego (the rapper Jeffrey "Ja Rule" Atkins) falls for "Church Girl" Vanessa (Adrienne Bailon, formerly of The Cheetah Girls). But he needs to navigate a faith culture foreign to him, while simultaneously trying to leave behind his hoodlum-y past.

By the time we meet her, it's clear that the church girl is in love with church. She works in a store for "faith-based products" (I spotted a lot of NOTW—Not Of This World—merch), and has a mom who won't shake Miles's hand until she knows what church he goes to. In every scene Vanessa references her church and her Bible study, and reminds her man, "don't forget to say your prayers."

So it's a little strange when we realize that someone whose vocabulary is so full of church terms only asks him much later if he's been thinking about answering those "altar calls." This missionary dating scenario continues until the near-end of the film, and it feels just a little off—especially since Vanessa talks more about "church" than God. (The movie's title is fitting, and revealing.)

Montego has a whole lot of struggles. He can't seem to abandon the "club scene" and the friends who reminisce about his good old drug peddling days. He's confused why a good God allows pain and suffering. He doesn't understand abstinence till marriage—yet he somehow manages to abide by it until we forget it's a struggle. And of course, he doesn't think church is cool (although he starts to, when he meets a pastor with a fast car and music tastes akin to his own).

None of these issues are singled out for deep examination, but they are all remedied at the same moment of the climax in which Montego falls on his knees (alone in church, in front of a stain-glass depiction of Jesus) and cries surrender. Until this point, it's hard to tell which thread of potential material the plot will fully flesh out, and it doesn't help that two federal officers are following Montego this whole time, hinting that they have spiritual struggles of their own.

Ja Rule is actually good in this movie: his prayers come across as sincere as can be, with acting that is similarly believable. The story is his, not the Church Girl's, and it was probably a good idea to put the weight of the material squarely on his shoulders. The difficulty is only that the movie asks him to juggle too many problems to tell an effective story in the film's 118 minutes—and continuity suffers.

By the time Montego hits his knees, we know that the previous climatic bit of drama has finally put him there. But we're left wondering whether it really takes that level of intensity to move a searcher or a stagnant believer to the same place.

I guess the obvious answer is that the journey of faith looks different for everyone, and the point of this film is that extreme measures are required for extreme cases of knee-bending. If you're a drug-trafficking rogue who's in love with a feisty faith-girl, just gone through a traumatic loss, facing criminal charges, and in the hospital praying by a bedside, then Montego's conversion won't just be a climax, but a heartfelt relief. But given how over the top the story is for what it's trying to do, the average moviegoer—or churchgoer—may be left too busy trying to keep up to really get the point.

Caveat Spectator

The film is rated PG for thematic elements, a scene of violence, some suggestive content, and brief language. The characters talk a little about sex, and some scenes at the club show people drinking alcohol.

Whatever Happened to Grace? (EDITORIAL)

 

Three stories that illustrate the crisis of grace today.

I was visiting a Texas megachurch that was baptizing 200 people one Sunday morning. A few of the candidates for baptism were interviewed by the pastor on stage, and the script went like this: after the candidate's testimony of new life in Christ, the pastor asked if the candidate believed that baptism saves us. The prompted answer was, of course, no. Then he asked the candidate what does save us, and this time the prompted answer was our faith in Jesus as God incarnate and/or our trust in his sufficient death on the cross. The answers were formally correct, but "faith," it seems, had become a new work. We weren't so much saved by Christ as by our mental assent to a few theological propositions.

I was at another church where the message was grounded in those astounding and miraculous verses that culminate in "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20, ESV). Things were going well until we got to the end, when the preacher said, "Have you experienced grace?" His tone, and the background music that swelled as he prayed, suggested we were not saved by faith in what Christ accomplished but by a certain type of religious feeling we might have.

Third: I was speaking with a professor at a Christian university, and we were talking about the relationship of grace and good works. At one point he said, "We are saved by grace, yes, but after that, the Christian life is mostly about our effort to live a Christlike life."

I pick these three anecdotes for three reasons: First, they are typical of messages I hear in my travels as CT's editor. Second, these were taught by pastors and teachers of the faith, who one would hope would have a deeper appreciation of grace. And third, they represent what have become the three main alternatives for the simple biblical message of salvation by grace through faith.

It is understandable why we're tempted to shift the message of grace to a form of works. The radical grace outlined in Romans and Galatians seems too good to be true. It's hard to fathom that while we were sinners Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8), or that, before we had done anything, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19). Before we had created the doctrine of salvation to believe in. Before we had enjoyed any religious experience. Before we had reformed our lives.

Let's be fair. In fact, salvation is a doctrine that we will at some point believe in as an intellectual proposition. And normally an encounter with almighty God will result in powerful religious experiences. And, yes, there is a measure of truth that life in Christ is a hard and narrow road.

But in the beginning is grace. In the middle is grace. In the end, "all manner of thing shall be well" (Julian of Norwich) because of grace. What I'm hearing time and again, in every corner of the church I visit, is not the soaring message of grace but the dull message of works—that I have to believe a certain theological construct, or have a certain feeling, or perspire in effort before I can be assured of God's radical acceptance and my future salvation.

This last month we read another dismal Pew survey about how American churches left, right, and center alike (except the Assemblies of God and a few others) are losing members. The reasons for this exodus are many and complex, but one reason may be that we have forgotten the message that long ago made our hearts grow strangely warm. There was once miraculous talk of the impossible possibility that a way had been made to return to Eden. And the angel standing at the entrance did not demand intellectual or emotional or moral visas to get in. The only passport required was one with a full list of all our sins, each stamped over, blotted out really, with the red ink of grace.

Jason Harrod: Singing Between Doubt and Belief for 20 Years (MUSIC)

The folk singer-songwriter writes about faith after the 'mountaintop experiences.

 

"Thanks for hanging in there through my mini-meltdown."

Jason Harrod is playing the legendary Club Passim in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He wipes sweat from his forehead (and was that a tear?), then leaves his hands on either side of his head, like he's just run a sprint and needs to catch his breath.

At 6'2", the 41-year-old songwriter dwarfs the already small stage at a venue where Joan Baez and Bob Dylan hung out in the 1960s. Tonight he's in a pair of dark jeans and an eggplant button-up, which haphazardly hangs open beneath his guitar strap. The strap holds a handmade Lowden 032c, marked by a piece of graffiti: Pete Seeger's autograph.

The "mini-meltdown" wasn't a meltdown, in fact, not even a "mini" one: Harrod forgot the words to one of his old songs—not entirely uncommon for singer-songwriters whose careers span three decades. "My spirit's willing, but my mind . . . ." he trails off.

After playing a full set from his third solo record, Highliner (Lincoln City Records), accompanied by a drummer and bassist, Harrod treats the 90 or so fans gathered to a solo acoustic set featuring songs from the earlier days. The crowd is virtually sitting on top of each other, leaning into the stage, but the intimacy is part of what makes Club Passim special.

Tonight the room is brimming with longtime Harrod devotees who have been following his career since the early 1990s, when he was just a kid out of Wheaton College and one half of the folk duo Harrod & Funck. He and Brian Funck moved from Illinois to Boston, when the folk scene was experiencing something of a renaissance; Patty Griffin, Tracy Chapman, and Peter Mulvey all got their start busking Beantown's streets and subways. While Harrod lives in New York now, playing in Boston is a kind of homecoming.

I was a freshman at Gordon College when I first heard Jason Harrod in 1999, right around the time Harrod & Funck were getting ready to call it quits. If you're familiar with Harrod & Funck, there's a good chance that you were a Christian college student when you first heard them. They were that kind of group—the kind that attracts young Christians who don't listen to much Christian music.

Maybe that's because on each of their two studio albums, as well as on their final recording (a live album), the duo sang casually about smoking and committing "murder in the first," and imagined life (and death) as a member of the Heaven's Gate cult. Still, Christian record labels came knocking. Harrod tells me that they turned down several Christian labels, including Michael W. Smith's Rocketown Records as well as a subsidiary of Word Records.

Probably, though, their lyrics—as well as the ones that Harrod writes today—aren't the reason Harrod eschews the "Christian singer-songwriter" label. Rather, it's because Harrod's songs reveal a personal anguish rarely spoken of among Christian artists, even those on the fringes who openly struggle with institutional faith. His lyrics betray a deep-seated insecurity, about his own abilities, about his value, and, ultimately, about his belief.

"For a long time I wasn't sure if I was [a Christian] or not," Harrod says. "And I flirted with the idea of 'taking a leap of doubt,' that is, living as if there was no God."

These are bold words from a man who currently serves as a church music director at a Christian Reformed Church on Manhattan's Lower East Side. But, Harrod tells me, Dwell Church leaders knew what they were getting into. It's his lack of "slickness," he says, that got him the job. Still, even when leading worship, Harrod wrestles with doubts. "There are times when I'm singing a hymn in front of the congregation and I think, I need to quit this job."

Harrod's doubts extend beyond his faith, however; he often wrestles with personal insecurities as well. Concerts, especially, have long proved challenging for Harrod. Ever since Harrod & Funck split up, in part because Brian Funck hated performing live, Harrod has faced extreme performance anxiety.

"It's just a feeling of ugliness," he tells me. "I think partly my singing has always been, in a way, combating that—trying to make a beautiful sound, trying to make beauty."

That moment at Club Passim when Harrod lost the lyrics of "39," a track from Harrod & Funck's self-titled second record (1997), perfectly exemplifies Harrod's ongoing struggle. He recovered when the room full of fans picked up the lyrics where he left off. "My songs are so personal because they really are a part of me," he says. "To make this beautiful thing come out of me is a way of combating that feeling [of ugliness]."
 

Coming Off the Mountain

Harrod's latest record marks the latest stop, the furthest outpost, in his struggle toward a more grounded faith.

Highliner sounds much like his previous records: a hybrid of twangy folk, superb guitar work, and catchy hooks. But this record is more polished, in part because it was funded by a very successful Kickstarter campaign. The record interchanges stories from Harrod's personal life with fantastical tales and folk romps. For example, in back-to-back tracks, "Moon Mission" and "Grandma," he memorializes the underappreciated last man on the moon, astronaut Eugene Cernan, and pays tribute to his grandmother.

On "One of These Days," Harrod promises to "get it right," but then counters, "until then I want to get so gone, I want to be so wrong, I want to see what damage I can do." He refers to himself as a "bitter old batch" and "a filthy old rat" who is "sinking down to a deep dark place." Still, he invites the listener along: "I'm thinking when I'm sinking I don't want to sink alone."

"Mountain," the third song on Highliner, neatly describes Harrod's lifetime experience with faith:

When I came down off the mountain

I was breaking like a wave, rolling over everything in sight

Shining like a silver-plated nickel in the sun

I was dispersed across the universe of light.

Scannin' the horizon looking for a sign of you

When I saw your silhouette my heart stopped

But then I got up close and found out it was just a ghost

And I was sad that I had left the mountaintop.

"I knew vaguely that it was a 'God song' when I wrote 'Mountain,' " says Harrod. "But when I was asked to talk with a youth group at a Detroit church about how my faith affects my songwriting, it became very clear to me that the song is autobiographical.

"The last verse of 'Mountain' isn't about resting in God's arms or about resting in faith," Harrod tells me. "It's about climbing a mountain looking for God. So there's an element of dissatisfaction and searching."

There's reason to be hopeful for Harrod, however. In "Chains," the eighth track on "Highliner," he sings, "I'm not old / I'm not young / I been down / but I'm not done / I believe, I don't know why / Only you can make me shine."

And shining is almost literally what Harrod does after his show at Club Passim. He was in the middle of a national tour that brought him into people's homes and backyards in small towns and suburbs, as well as onto stages of music clubs in major cities. He had, for the most part, managed to keep his performance anxiety and persistent insecurities at bay while doing what he loves. And, at each stop, he was surrounded by people who love him for doing it.

Writing and singing over the past two decades has been, for Harrod, his literal lifeblood. As a professional musician, the songs pay the bills, but more than that, they connect Harrod with God. "For all my doubts and for all my periodic profligacy and dissolution, I can't escape the kernel of faith that is in me," Harrod tells me.

"I'm happy when I sing, Praise God. I believe when I sing. I might be a tired, angry guy, with an underlying suspicion of futility. But when I sing, I believe."

When he sings, his fans believe too.

Hot and Holy (INTERVIEW)

Why the ultimate purpose of sex is bringing Glory to God.

When it comes to the Christian view of sex, confusion abounds, despite a deepening stack of books on the subject. Denny Burk, associate professor of biblical studies and ethics at Boyce College and editor of The Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, is the latest to come forward with a proposal for theological and moral clarity. In What Is the Meaning of Sex? (Crossway), Burk addresses sensitive issues of sexuality—including marriage, gender roles, family planning, and homosexuality—within a framework of biblical ethics. Author and editor Lisa Velthouse spoke with Burk about God's design for sex and the cultural influences that interfere with our seeing and abiding by it.

So. What is the meaning of sex?

The reigning sexual ethic reflects a tongue-in-cheek lyric from Sheryl Crow: "If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad." This worldview affirms any and all attempts to get sexual pleasure so long as such attempts do not harm others. If it feels good and you're not hurting anyone, how could it possibly be wrong? Many people see no larger purpose for sex. They have severed their sexuality from the objective order that God has created, and they have lost sight of God's purpose for our sexuality. So when people ask what they should or shouldn't do sexually, they are asking a question about purpose—whether or not they realize it.

When Paul commands us to glorify God with our bodies in 1 Corinthians 6, he may as well have said, "Glorify God with your sex." He clearly has in mind the use of the body for sex, so the ultimate purpose of sex must be the glory of God. To enjoy sex for God's glory is to enjoy it in the way God has determined.

In the book, I distinguish subordinate purposes of sex from ultimate purposes with the example of an automobile. We might say that a car is made for somebody to sit in. Nobody can deny that that's one of its purposes. But the ultimate purpose of a car is to transport people and objects from one place to another. Unless we account for the ultimate purpose of the automobile, we have failed to grasp what it was made for.

The same is true when we talk about sexual morality. I agree with the Christian ethicist Dennis Hollinger that there are four purposes of sex: consummation of marriage, expression of love, procreation, and pleasure. But we must realize that these purposes are subordinate to the ultimate purpose of glorifying God.

Why is marriage central to sex that glorifies God?

When Jesus and Paul talk about marriage and sexuality, they appeal to the Old Testament. But they don't point to the polygamist kings of Israel—not even King David or Solomon—or to polygamist patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Instead, without exception, they look back to the monogamous union, before the Fall, of Adam and Eve. That's what they present as the norm of human sexuality and marriage. Paul writes in Ephesians 5 that Adam and Eve's marriage (and every other marriage after it) is meant by God to be an icon of another marriage: Jesus' marriage to his bride, the church. So marriage is fundamentally about the glory of God, because it's meant to depict the gospel. It tells a bigger story: husbands loving their wives as Christ loved the church, and wives relating to their husbands as the church relates to Christ.

Is sexual holiness about our state of mind or what we do with our bodies?

It's both. What we do with our bodies is an overflow of what is inside our hearts. That's why Jesus equated lust and adultery in the Sermon on the Mount. But sexual holiness is not merely a state of mind. God intends the body to be his temple—a place where his glory is on display. A Christian sexual ethic must be concerned with bringing both mind and body under the lordship of Christ.

The Legacy of Rich Mullins's Ragamuffin Band (INTERVIEW)

Producer Reed Arvin remembers the fearless, soulful musician whose music challenged and transcended Christian pop.

This week marks the twentieth anniversary of Rich Mullins's landmark recording A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band. Anyone who bought that record, or many other recordings by Mullins before his death in a car accident in 1997, was bound to see another name in the liner notes, that of producer Reed Arvin. Arvin, who has spent his years since working with Mullins as a novelist writing legal thrillers as well as teaching and writing on creativity, recently took time to reflect on working with Mullins and the recording of that album.

I assume you met Rich Mullins on the road touring as a keyboardist with Amy Grant. How did you become his producer?

I did meet Rich on the road. I don't recall the city, but I recall seeing him for the first time. He was wearing a dark overcoat and looked pretty disheveled, but in an intentional way. I shook his hand but had no idea the role we would eventually play in each others lives. I don't think I saw him again for a year or so.

Reed Arvin

Eventually, Mike Blanton, Amy's manager, asked me quite spontaneously, "Do you think you could produce a record for Rich Mullins?"

What would you say your approach to producing was? Specifically, what did you add to Mullins's songs that wouldn't have been there otherwise?

I cared about the song more than the artist, which is not smart for a producing career. My approach was simply, "What is the emotional core of this song, and how can I bring that forward?" I really wanted to feel things listening to music. Still do.

The early records were a bit catastrophic; neither Rich nor I had any real idea what we were doing. I was in love with experimenting at a time when experimenting wasn't economically feasible. So, some of the early stuff is unlistenable. Partly, it was because of a lack of competence, but also because we would try stuff, it wouldn't work out, and then we were out of money to regroup.

Everything changed with Winds of Heaven, because that record was made for very little and sold a lot—I don't know how many, but it was certified gold (500,000) a long time ago. I imagine it must be close to platinum. We got better budgets as a result.

In terms of what I brought to the process: Probably a more musically diverse background. I knew a lot about world music and I could write orchestrations and conduct them. I had a big soundstage in my head and I liked pushing together latin percussion and orchestra and dulcimer and what not. But there were downsides to that, too. I had never been in a dirty, grungy rock band, and there were times when that would have suited Rich's music better. But to be fair, the '80s and early 90's was not a time for dirty, grungy rock bands. We were listening to Mister Mister and Toto and virtuosic bands.

Most people are surprised to learn that Rich wasn't particularly involved during recording, simply because he wasn't interested. He would disappear for long stretches. I would beg him to stay around more, because I was quite worried that he would come back after we'd spent a good deal of time going in a direction and pronounce that he didn't like it. But he very rarely expressed opinions about things musically. I very rarely had musical discussions with Rich. On the other hand, I had many, many discussions with him about politics, religion, and philosophy. And the music business. But to actually sit and talk about what to "do" with a particular song, no.