rock and roll

Coffeehouse Churches and the ‘Party-on Messiah’: How I Lost One Leper Messiah, and Gained Another, Part 3

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In this third installment of Mark Dery’s cultural critique-cum-“nonfiction novella” about a born-again teen’s transcendent encounter with Ziggy Stardust in the 1970s, our hero experiences an agape that is equal parts sanctified rapture and endorphin rush at a radical Friday night coffeehouse church. Meanwhile, the hippie Jesus of the Jesus Freaks reaches the big time in mainline protestantism. 

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Till There Was Rock You Only Had God: How I Lost One Leper Messiah, and Gained Another, Part 1

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In this opening episode of Mark Dery’s original, autobiographical essay (a “nonfiction novella”) about a suburban teen’s transcendent encounter with Ziggy Stardust, we’re introduced to David Bowie’s astro-hippie alter ego from the early 1970s, a glam-rock deity of Frankensteinian spookiness and ladyboy vulnerability. 

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