Review of Homer Rodeheaver and the Rise of the Gospel Music Industry

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.

About Stan Guthrie

Stan Guthrie is an editor at large for Christianity Today magazine and for the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. His latest book is God's Story in 66 Verses. He also is author of All that Jesus Asks: How His Questions Can Teach and Transform Us, Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Key Trends for the 21st Century, and A Concise Guide to Bible Prophecy. He is co-author of The Sacrament of Evangelism. Besides authoring, writing, and editing books, Stan is a literary agent, bringing together good authors, good books, and good publishers. Stan writes the monthly Priorities colum for BreakPoint.org. He has appeared on National Public Radio's €œTell Me More,€ WGN's Milt Rosenberg program, and many Christian shows, including The Eric Metaxas Show and Moody Radio'€™s €œNew Day Florida.€ A licensed minister and an inspirational speaker, he served as moderator for the Christian Book Expo panel discussion, Does the God of Christianity Exist, and What Difference Does It Make?
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