This essay argues that the tension between concepts of “flesh” and “spirit” inherent in the evangelical Protestantism of the early twentieth century South was an important creative force in blues and country music, and this influence was still clearly present in the first generation of Rock n’ Roll musicians, such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis. However, this tension largely disappeared after the first generation of Rock musicians, when the genre quickly became a national and then international music that was often a corporate commodity, increasingly removed from its Southern roots.
By 1977 the nihilistic British punk band The Sex Pistols could rhetorically snarl on their first
single “God Save the Queen”, “When there’s no future/How can there be sin?” because they had
already destroyed “sin” as a concept [5]. However, the music and culture that created Rock n’ Roll,
eventually paving the way for The Sex Pistols, very much believed in “sin”. In a sense, it is easier
to rebel when there are no boundaries, no consequences, or “no future”, as The Sex Pistols repeat
17 times in their single, because there is little or nothing to lose. The musicians examined in this essay
felt their “sinful” actions risked their eternal soul. This essay will examine the evangelical Christian
influence on blues, country, and Rock n’ Roll—particularly related to the tension between the flesh and
the spirit—and then examine Rock n’ Roll’s rebellious impulse in the absence of religious boundaries,
tensions, and influences.
2. Evangelical Protestantism in the American South
Before directly examining Southern folk music in light of the region’s religious culture, it is
important to briefly sketch the main features of evangelical Protestantism in the early twentieth-century
American South. While Flannery O’Connor, the ever-observant Catholic novelist in the Protestant
South, cautioned that “anything you say about Southern belief can be denied in the next breath with
equal propriety” ([6], p. 818), it can be generalized that variations of a pervasive, energetic, highly
personal, form of evangelical Protestantism has dominated the region from the early nineteenth century
until today.
The term “evangelical” is notoriously slippery. Even Billy Graham, America’s most famous
evangelical preacher in the second-half of the twentieth century, when asked what an evangelical
Christian was, responded, “That’s a question I’d like to ask somebody too” [7]. Historian David
Bebbington claims that the central features of evangelicalism are an emphasis on the Bible as
the ultimate authority, the saving power of Jesus, the necessity of a conversion experience to be
“saved”, and encouraging non-Christians to accept Christ as their savior. The National Association of
Evangelicals has endorsed this definition as “helpful” and uses it on their website to inform others
about their basic beliefs [8].
Historian Charles Reagan Wilson adds that in the South “Evangelical religion prizes religious
experience over other aspects of faith, offering a tangible way to deal with the burdens of sin and guilt
that its Calvinist-inspired view of human nature often inculcates” ([9], p. 169). This personal religious
experience could take the form of an intense conversion experience—being “saved”—or directly, often
publically, being influenced by the Holy Spirit in a variety of ways. Because evangelical Protestantism
offers “the individual direct access to the divine, unmediated by institutions, creeds, theologies, or
ritualism” ([9], p. 8), evangelical churches typically do not fit more urbane and liberal “mainline”
Protestant notions of denominational structure, authority, or even, at times, worship.
The evangelical emphasis on salvation—their own and others—stems from their central belief
in the sinful nature of humans and our Fallen world. Historian Donald Mathews describes that
Southern evangelical Protestantism has emphasized from its nineteenth-century beginnings “the total
depravity of man, the wrath of God, and the necessity of repentance” ([10], p. 13). Jon Sensbach notes
that, “Evangelicalism embodies and has shaped so much that seems quintessentially southern—the
preoccupation with sin and guilt, the emotional search for redemption” ([11], p. 20). Due to this
emphasis on Original Sin, evangelicals believe there is a sharp dividing line between the secular and
the sacred, as the “Fallen” world is not what God originally created; thus “secular” becomes at times
