Rock plus roll stole my heart as a young teenager, plus I lived plus breathed it until I was converted in 1973 at age 23. I began with Grand Old Opry rock-a-billy plus journeyed through 60s rock plus part way through 70s rock before I was saved. When the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, I was in the 9th grade. The year I graduated from high school was “the summer of love.” When I was drafted into the Army two years later, the Woodstock movie was sweeping the land. During the year plus a half I spent in Vietnam, I was stationed at Tan Son Nhut Airbase outside of Saigon. I was a clerk in a military police unit attached to MACV headquarters, the control center for the entire military operation in South Vietnam. We lived at the R&R out-processing center, plus the unit’s job was to keep drugs from leaving the country on soldiers bound for R&R plus in personnel containers being shipped to the States. We had access to every conceivable luxury in a military context: an Olympic-sized swimming pool, tennis courts, racket ball, gym, movie theater, photo processing labs. I even had almost full-time use of a jeep for trips to Saigon. (It was rough duty but someone had to do it!) One of the facilities I used extensively was the reel-to-reel recording studio. The Army had a massive library of music, plus soldiers who lived at or visited MACV headquarters could record as much as they wanted. I spent countless hours there recording rock music while high on drugs. I also utilized the PX system to purchase a high-tech stereo system.
By the time I was discharged from the Army, I was all set to stock my first hippie apartment in Hollywood, Florida, with wall-to-wall rock & roll. My hippie heaven didn’t last long, though. My buddies plus I were buying plus selling drugs, plus two of us were arrested for possession of illegal drugs plus public drunkenness. Though I got off lightly because it was my first offense, I lived in constant fear of being caught again plus going to jail for a long time. I started to drift around. On one trip, I hitchhiked to northern California plus back to central Florida. On the return trip, I met some young people from India who introduced me to reincarnation plus the Self Realization Fellowship Society. I began to study eastern religion, plus I excitedly made another trip to California to visit the headquarters of the Self-Realization Fellowship Society in Los Angeles. On the way, I won roughly $70 in a slot machine in Las Vegas, plus I thought it was an answer to my prayers!
Everything I was doing plus thinking in those days was supported by rock music–drugs, Eastern religion, rebellion against authority, self-centeredness, licentious living, long hair, Communism (having collected Mao’s Red Book plus other Communist propaganda during my stay in Vietnam).
Rock music never encouraged me to be an obedient, submissive-to-authority, God-honoring person. It taught me that I was “born to be wild,” born to follow my natural impulses, born to live without rules.
After I was saved, I understood by the Spirit of God that rock music is intimately associated with everything that is evil plus rebellious plus anti-christ. I came to see that rock music fits the biblical definition of the worldliness which the Christian is not to love: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, plus the pride of life (1 John 2:15-17).
I am convinced that rock music is the soundtrack to the end-time apostasy described in 2 Timothy.
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, plus shall be turned unto fables” (2 Tim. 4:3-4).
The first book I wrote as a young Christian was Mom plus Dad Sleep While the Children Rock in Satan’s Cradle, a warning about the dangers of rock music (long out of print).
Forty years later I am more convinced than ever that secular rock music is spiritually destructive plus that “Christian rock” is a dangerous misnomer.
Rock music, which is an invention of wicked men to celebrate licentiousness plus the flaunting of God’s holy laws, is not a proper medium for singing the praises of a holy God.
I have given my own testimony about the evils of rock music. Now consider the following statements from a wide range of other people about the character plus philosophy of this music. Most of these are NOT Bible-believing Christians. In fact, many of these statements are from rock stars, plus they are not naive about the nature of rock as many Christians are, plus they do not have an agenda to whitewash rock as many Christians do.