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Perhaps the most refreshing quality of this, Dylan's first postconversion album, is that he has not bought into the Christian subculture's status quo. His gift to us remains his once-removed prophetic insight. He is able to see the sticky sweet personalization puffery of some segments of American Christianity: "Spiritual advisers and gurus to guide your every mood. / Instant inner peace in every step you take, got to be a prude … / Do you ever wonder just what God requires? / You think he's just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires" is sung in the context of "adulterers in churches, pornography in schools, / You got gangsters in power and lawbreakers makin' rules. / When you gonna wake up? When you gonna wake up'? / Strengthen the things that remain."

Dylan has packed the album with a plethora of human foibles and fantasies, all cloaked in the latest societal garb (there is at least one with which each of us can identify) and exposed in the searing light of biblical metaphor. He at once shows us who we are and calls us to "the man who died a criminal's death."

The voice and especially the music are in the best Dylan style. But they are only the vehicles to carry a message that goes beyond the searching of an earlier quest for the source of all answers.

This article originally appeared in the January 4, 1980, issue of Christianity Today. At the time, David Singer was the magazine's art director. He is now publications director for the American Bible Society.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Watered-Down Love | Bob Dylan encountered Jesus in 1978, and that light has not entirely faded as he turns 60. By Steve Turner (May 24, 2001)

Bob Dylan: Still Blowin' in the Wind | Christianity Today reviews Dylan's work before the singer's conversion to Christianity. By Daniel J. Evearitt (Dec. 3, 1976)

Bob Dylan Finds His Source | A call into the bars, into the streets, into the world, to repentance. By Noel Paul Stookey (Jan. 4, 1980)

Has Born-again Bob Dylan Returned to Judaism? | The singer's response to an Olympics ministry opportunity might settle the matter once for all. (Jan. 13, 1984)

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May (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45