Carman and Rush

(Written 2-17-21)

I learned today about the deaths of two men who had, during their lifetimes, a lot of influence on the conservative Evangelical sub-culture in which I was raised.

Everyone knows who Rush Limbaugh was. He was one of the biggest reasons that having a civil, fact-based conversation about politics became impossible in this country. He taught the right wing that if you’re abrasive enough and loud enough, you can get a lot of people to believe anything (thereby paving the way for the guy who gave him a Presidential Medal of Freedom that he didn’t deserve). I’ll waste no more time on him, and I only include him to compare and contrast with Carman.

Carman Licciardello, on the other hand, was really only known to Evangelicals - especially those who were kids or had kids in the 80’s and early 90’s. He was among the first big stars in “Contemporary Christian Music” – the thing that came to be when record producers realized there was money to be made in telling Evangelical parents that the music on the radio was endangering their children’s souls and then presenting a sanitized “Christian” alternative (for a price).

I owned a couple of his albums, listened to them frequently, got made fun of by non-Evangelical peers for listening to them (and believed I was being “persecuted for my faith” rather than “teased for listening to mediocre Jesus-flavored music instead of good music”). I went to a few of his concerts. I was in a youth group skit that used his signature song “Champion”, which painted the battle of good and evil as a boxing match between Christ and Satan. I memorized that song for a school project in which we were supposed to declaim a piece of poetry or prose. I even dreamed of being in a Christian band someday, and he was one of the main reasons for that.

I was REALLY into his music for a while, is what I’m saying.

And you know something? In some ways, even now, I have to actually respect the guy. His music wasn’t by any means amazing, but a lot of it was fun, the kind of high-energy pop that doesn’t have to be good in order to be enjoyable; and the rest had the kind of melodramatic catharsis that we as humans just NEED sometimes. He wasn’t a great theologian, but he was a charismatic speaker and a good story-teller. And, unlike so many conservative/ Evangelical celebrities, this guy actually seems to have been sincere. He honestly believed what he was singing and preaching, as far as I can tell. Never had any affairs, it seems, or even any allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct – during a career in the music business spanning 4 decades. He waited till he was 60 to get married, and was apparently faithful to his wife. He put on free concerts in public venues sometimes, so people who couldn’t afford tickets could still hear his music and his message. He used what celebrity pull he had to support charities that feed and educate kids in impoverished countries. He tried to send the message that part of the church’s job is to bring racial reconciliation. He appears to have genuinely wanted to be a good Christian, to have seen his career as a ministry, and to have wanted to bring other people to love Jesus as much as he did. That’s refreshing, in a world full of Falwells and Trumps who use Evangelical Christianity to cynically manipulate people for financial and political ends. It looks like Carman actually lived by the morals he claimed.

But…

The guy sincerely believed that Satan literally, personally intervenes in the world; and that adults having the right to marry who they choose, women not being forced to have babies they don’t want, and public schools not forcing non-Christian children to participate in Christian prayers, are all part of this demonic plot to destroy Christianity and America. He helped perpetuate the image of Jesus as a mighty warrior who lays waste his enemies (including, and perhaps especially, liberals) – rather than the homeless street preacher who was crucified because he wouldn’t stop calling out conservative religious political figures for their hypocrisy. Carman helped perpetuate the modern American Evangelical’s conflation of “Loves Jesus”, “Loves America”, and “Votes Republican”. He helped pave the way for the Evangelicals’ unshakable support for Trump, just as surely as Rush did… but what he did was even more insidious, because it helped make a significant number of people believe that opposing the Republican Party equals opposing God’s will.

Evangelicals who had heard Rush’s political schtick, without having it reinforced by people like Carman, might have seen through Trump even if they wanted a conservative in office. Evangelicals primed by the Gospel to take seriously the many prophetic injunctions for nations and rulers, not just individuals, to take care of the poor… might have considered that liberals have some worthwhile ideas that might be worth funding appropriately (and therefore might have pushed their Republican legislators to join the Democrats in doing so, rather than pushing them to defund all of those programs).

But Evangelicals primed to equate Republican policy with God’s will, primed to have unwavering loyalty to Republican candidates – no matter who they are or how objectively terrible they are – could never admit, even to themselves, that it might be a mistake to throw in their lot with a man who incarnates the opposite of everything Jesus told his followers to be.

And the worst of it is, Carman was sincere. Like so many other Evangelicals, he helped to bring about evil while genuinely believing he was helping to combat evil.

Carman was both a cause and a symptom of what’s become toxic in Evangelical Christianity in this country, just as Rush was both a cause and a symptom of what’s become toxic in conservatism. And both of them were instrumental in creating a culture where “Conservative” and “Evangelical” are practically synonymous. (And, as I’ve said before, whenever religion and politics get into bed, it’s always religion that gets screwed).