Was There Room at the Cross for Elvis?
The story is told of the two famous Rock singers, Pat Boone and Elvis Presley, crossing paths at the airport in Memphis just a month before Elvis’s death on August 16, 1977. Elvis was on his way to Sin City (Las Vegas); Pat Boone to Orlando. Elvis made a crack about Boone headed in the wrong direction; Pat responded with, “Depends on your perspective!”
Pat Boone was an American evangelical icon – clean-cut image in a world that a dear brother in Christ derides as “Flannelgraph Christianity”; Elvis had become its scourge with his history of pelvic gyrations, sexual dysfunction, and drug abuse. I am reminded of a family joke that once had my righteous mom laughing in stitches: “Why don’t Baptists make love standing up?” ans: “Because they are afraid it might lead to dancing!”
Being raised in a fundamentalist home and church of the 1950’s, it became clear to me by the time 1960 rolled around that the problem with the Church in America was the “great lie” that you could change yourself into a righteous person under a strict moral code. Jesus was here to “save” you; you were here to be moral.
“Thank you, Jesus! “I’ll take it from here!” No out-of-body transformation; no active role of the Spirit of God; little following of Christ. Evangelist Billy Graham described the era best with his closing question, “If you died tonight, where would you wake up?” His son, Franklin, carries on the tradition with allegiance to political party and replaces Jesus’ message of “Repent, for the Kingdom of God has arrived” with one of being able to become righteous through our own self-discipline and the legal code.
As I reflected on both Pat Boone and Elvis, I could not avoid the contrast between an icon of 1950’s self-righteous American Christianity and the brokenness of a poor kid from Tupelo, Mississippi. Fact is, while I admired Pat Boone for his representation of a slowly passing church era, I can’t remember a single song of his off the top of my head.
Elvis, however, was another story. From deep in his heart, he sang Peace in the Valley:
I am worn; I am weary, but I must travel on
‘Till the Lord comes to call me away
Where the morning is bright, and the Lamb is the light,
And the night is as fair as the day.
There'll be peace in the valley for me some day
There'll be peace in the valley for me, I pray.
No more sorrow and sadness or trouble will be
There'll be peace in the valley for me.
Who from my generation can forget his rendition of the hymn, How Great Thou Art? Seemingly out of the depths of his soul came a cry for deliverance. Universally rejected by American evangelical Christianity, Elvis contrasted with Pat Boone as “the way things are” vs “the way things are supposed to be in family life in America.” We need to get back to making room at the cross for Elvis while encouraging Pat Boone to become genuine; more real; less iconic.
No moral code will ever make America great. It will only foster self-righteousness. Whether or not America returns to greatness in wealth and power, citizenship in the eternal Kingdom of God is the prescribed alternative to nationhood. The Church of Jesus Christ needs to repent of its preoccupation with popularity and focus on dying to self in order to follow Jesus. It has no business writing a prescription for greatness outside the grace of God through Christ.
Let’s just leave it there, shall we? If there is no room at the cross for Elvis Presley, with all his addictions, neither is there room at the cross for Stan Moody. As for Pat Boone, who knows except God Himself? “Depends on your perspective,” I guess!
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