Stan Guthrie
Chances are you’ve never heard of Homer Rodeheaver (I hadn’t), but if you care about the development of gospel music over the last century, you’ll want a copy of this book. Authors Kevin Mungons and Douglas Yeo made me, a complete novice to the subject, care about Rodeheaver, a founding father of the gospel music industry, and his impact on religious life and culture in the United States.
In telling his story, they traverse the narrow ridge of accurate research and judicious conclusions, avoiding the precipices of hagiography on the right and inordinate skepticism on the left. Along the way they introduce us to the many lives Rodeheaver touched or was touched by: those of W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King Sr., Billy Graham, Billy Sunday, and Cliff Barrows, just to name a few.
Rodeheaver’s life is a quintessentially American story. The man was part celebrity, song
leader, entrepreneur, and heart-throb. He was also a man on a mission: fighting a rearguard action to exalt the primacy of congregational singing in a culture being drawn inexorably to a more professional, performance-based approach to Christian music.
Mungons and Yeo have rescued a former icon of American religious life from undeserved historical obscurity, placing Homer Rodeheaver in the complex context of his times. And although they don’t dwell on it, they show his continuing relevance to the “worship wars” currently roiling Protestant evangelical churches. If you care about the Christian music industry and an era largely lost to history, you’ll want to read this book.