Rodney Clapp: What Johnny Cash Says About America
by Kimberly Winston, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 2/27/2008
It seems an unlikely pairing—Johnny Cash and an analysis of the American religious personality. Yet a new book by Rodney Clapp, editorial director of Brazos Press, holds up the tough-livin', hard-lovin', drug-usin' country and western icon as a prism that refracts the many contradictions of the American people, the most religious in the developed world.
In Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction: Christianity and the Battle for the Soul of a Nation (Westminster John Knox Press, Feb.) Clapp describes how the singer, who died in 2003, epitomized the American character, all merit and mess. Like Cash, he argues, we are a people torn between hedonism and holiness, between innocence and violence, and between a longing for community and an insistence on vibrant individuality.
Cash was a walking contradiction. Like many country singers, he swung between the Friday night honky tonk and the Sunday morning pew. But his honesty in writing and singing about it makes him an especially good illustration of America's struggle with the same polarities, Clapp told RBL. "I think Johnny Cash and his work show us America in terms of its strengths and possibilities, but also in terms of our weaknesses." Somehow Cash could question the Vietnam War while still being perceived as a patriot. "He was able to stride that blue state-red state divide at another very turbulent time in American history, and I think he has a lot to teach us now," said Clapp.
Clapp has explored this tension between good and bad in previous books, including Tortured Wonders: Christian Spirituality for People, Not Angels (Brazos Press, 2006) and The Consuming Passion: Christianity and the Consumer Culture (InterVarsity Press, 1998). "This one goes a lot deeper into American identity and especially the Southern aspect of American identity," he said.
The idea for the book came from an editor at another press who wanted to do a series on popular music and religion and approached Clapp, a long-time country, blues and jazz fan. "I was already a bit of an enthusiast and I started thinking. By the time the series fell through I had two shelves of Johnny Cash books and I knew I wanted to write," he said.
