Christian music legend Larry Norman died last Sunday morning at the age of 60. In one sense it wasn’t surprising, as his health had been terrible for a long time; in another, though, it was a shock. This man rocked the world for Jesus Christ, casting a vision that all too few Christian musicians have had the wisdom (or the nerve) to follow; and if he was a difficult saint, that was true of many of those whose vision rose above the mediocrity of CCM (most notably Keith Green, Mark Heard, and Rich Mullins)—because they were the people who simply could not be comfortably at home in this world.
Larry Norman helped a lot of people see Jesus who might not have otherwise, and he helped many more see the vast world of possibility in Christ beyond the conventional wisdom. I include myself in that category; his great albums were fifteen years old and more when I first heard them, and they still blew me away. Indeed, they still do, another fifteen years on. Michael Spencer is right: “Almost thirty years later, the word masterpiece is not wasted on the entire endeavor.” The church is richer because of Larry Norman, and would be richer yet if more of its artists had emulated his unflinching integrity and high sense of mission. I’m glad for him that he’s been released to the peace for which he longed.