Seeds of Change

As a 1980s rocker and metal-head, I like reading rock and roll biographies when I have a little time for pleasure reading.  I just finished an interesting autobiographical work by the main songwriter and keyboard player for Kansas: Kerry Livgren.

I've always liked Kansas, not only for their massive commercial hits like Carry On Wayward Son (1976), and Dust in the Wind (1977), but also for other pieces like Point of Know Return (1977) and the MTV classic Play the Game Tonight (1982).

This book, Seeds of Change: the Spiritual Quest of Kerry Livgren, (Crossway, 1983, paperback, 189 pages) focuses on the spiritual journey of Livgren and his conversion to Christianity and the end of a long quest for truth.

Actually, it was a re-conversion back to Christianity, as he was baptized and raised as a Christian from childhood.  He was confirmed by Pastor Nelson of Trinity Lutheran Church in Topeka, Kansas (which is today affiliated with the ELCA, and at the time of Livgren's childhood, before the formation of the ELCA, was either an LCA or an LCA parish).  Livgren also served as an acolyte.

As a young teen in the early 1960s, he discovered music, taught himself to play guitar, and formed a band (the Gimlets) with other teens.  Livgren loved classical music and he and his friends also studied philosophy.  Their band was interested in going beyond the usual pop-fare of the era.

Their study of philosophy led Livgren away from Christianity, which he didn't seem to find intellectually stimulating - although Livgren looks back upon his confirmation studies in amazement and can't explain why he wasn't interested at the time.  But the experience of the church's liturgy made an impact on him nevertheless:

[T]here were two things about church that sometimes captivated my mind: the organ music and the stained-glass window above the altar.  The music filled me with a sense of reverence and mystery, and while listening to it I would stare at the pastoral scene portrayed in the colored light beaming through the window.  It was a picture of Christ shepherding a flock of sheep in a valley.  I did not know how to direct these fleeting feelings of mystery and awe, but the sense of longing they produced became an important theme in my later life....  I felt privileged to have an active part in the liturgy (p. 6).

Livgren recalls learning doctrine, the Apostles and Nicene Creeds, church history, and of course, the catechism.

After playing with the same friends over many years, with various additions and subtractions, there would be three incarnations of the band Kansas.  They became wildly successful, with deep spiritual lyrics and complex music which reflected Livgren's fascination with bold and dramatic classical music.  This kind of music became known as Progressive or "Prog" Rock.

Meanwhile, Livgren's Christian faith lapsed and was replaced by studies of philosophy, Eastern religions, and finally, becoming involved in an esoteric cult based on a literary work called The Urantia Book - which claims to have been written by otherworldly spirits with the real insight on Jesus.  It is a syncretistic revival of Gnosticism - which Livgren acknowledges.  At this point, he became convinced of its truth.

Until he ran into Jeff Pollard, the singer of the Louisiana band, Le Roux.  Pollard was a deeply intelligent Christian, and he and Livgren had much in common.  They became fast friends.  Pollard patiently listened to Livgren's insights from the Urantia Book, but pointed out the many internal inconsistencies, as well as pointing Livgren back to the faith that he had rejected.  At this time, Kansas was "one of the most successful and respected rock bands in the country" (p. 127).  It was 1979.

After his (re)conversion, the first person Livgren called was Pastor Nelson.  His wife took time to get used to the idea, but gradually came to the Christian faith as well.  Livgren's bandmates weren't very thrilled with the idea.  His lyrics became openly Christian, and this caused some controversy within the band.

In time, the singer would quit, and was replaced by a singer who was also a Christian.  Kansas did not want to be a Christian rick band, but rather Livgren's vision was to be a quality rock band that happened to sing lyrics grounded in the Christian worldview.

As a outlet to his impulse to sing explicitly Christian material, Livgren put out a solo album (which I remember buying on vinyl) in 1980, called Seeds of Change (which became the name of this 1983 book).

Livgren called upon several friends to play on the project, and caused a few raised eyebrows by enlisting the great Ronnie James Dio to sing on two of the tracks.  Dio was singing for Black Sabbath at the time, and during this period, there was a lot of concern over Satanism in rock music.  Dio (who died in 2010) was no Satanist, but nor was he a Christian.  In fact, his understanding of Christianity was sadly superficial and mistaken.  I found it odd that he was completely clueless that these were Christian songs, one about Christ ("To Live For the King") and one about Satan ("The Mask of the Great Deceiver").





The two tracks turned out well, and Livgren knew that he had hired the right set of pipes for the job.








The book is interesting and thoughtful.  As a mild critique, I do think there is too much by way of lyrics.  Several runs of pages are simply lyrics of sings one after another.

Having said that, there is a quote from one song from 1972 (before his conversion back to Christianity) called "Drifting Silently Through Shimmering Days.  There is a line that caught my attention:

Surround me with your boundless grace,And take me to that holy place. (p. 51).

This sounds a good bit like a line from "O Morning Star How Fair and Bright" (LSB 395) by the 16th century Lutheran hymnist Philipp Nicolai (1556-1608):

He will one day, oh, glorious graceTransport us to that happy place (stanza 6).

These two motets have the same number of syllables (8-8) and both rhyme "grace" with "place."  I suspect that the church's hynody embedded itself deeply into Livgren's mind.  And there is much in common between Prog Rock's deep lyrics and powerful musical force and the deep theological verbiage combined with the potent classical gravitas of the traditional Lutheran chorale.

I would love to find an email address for Kerry Livgren and ask him about this.

(The other criticism that I have of the book isn't really about the book, but rather the fact that it is out of print and very expensive to buy.  A used copy goes for more than fifty dollars, at least at the time that I looked into it.  So, I borrowed the book through Interlibrary Loan.  I wonder if Livgren would consider re-releasing the book, or maybe updating it for a new generation.)

I was also struck by Livgren's attention to the importance of quality in music, and in art in general:

Instead of catering to the lowest common denominator, art should have a transcendent quality.  Unfortunately, Western art in the last two centuries has, in a general sense, been undergoing a tremendous downward trend.  The humanism of the Enlightenment gradually led to the loss of a Christian base in European and American culture, and this has been reflected in art, music, and literature.  In all too many cases, craftsmanship has been replaced by chaos in the arts.  An illustration of this in my own field is the trend toward minimalism in rock music.  The idea here is, the less thought, complexity and skill that goes into the music, the better.  This kind of approach is totally alien to my nature.  (Minimalism is not the same as simplicity; it is more of an attitude that results from a largely nihilistic world view.  There can be profound beauty in simplicity) (p. 178).

Also of note, upon his return to the Christian faith, Livgren became an evangelical Christian of some stripe.  He doesn't reveal what confession that he joined.  But it certainly seems that he did not rejoin the Lutheran Church, though he was baptized and catechized into the Christian faith within our Lutheran tradition, and for Livgren, it was within the Lutheran doctrine and practice that the Seed was sown in his heart, mind, body, and soul..

There was an interesting critique of his Christian childhood that I think is very important.  I surmise that Livgren's wandering from the faith was owing to the fact that his family did not seem to make the faith central to their lives:

Because of my church upbringing, I assumed that I had already tried Christianity and found it wanting.  I had long since shoved the Christian message into the back of my mind along with a lot of other childhood memories and had no intention of retrieving it for serious reconsideration.  I didn't know it at the time, but I had been inoculated with just enough Christianity to become immune to the real thing (pp. 116-117).

I was struck by this passage, that called to mind a line from Chad Walsh's remarkable 1949 work, Early Christians of the 21st Century, in which the author, an Episcopal priest and university English professor, wrote:

If a man travels far enough away from Christianity he is always in danger of seeing it in perspective and deciding that it is true.  It is much safer, from Satan's point of view, to vaccinate a man with a mild case of Christianity, so as to protect him from the real thing (p. 11).

The business about being inoculated by a weak does of Christianity sounded like something Lewis or Chesterton might have written.  In fact, this turn of phrase is often attributed to Leslie Weatherhead, though I cannot find a source for it.

Whoever originated the phrase, I believe it is a real danger when families limit the practice of their Christian faith to Sunday mornings, with meal prayers going unsaid, where the father of the house doesn't lead his children in prayer and the reading and studying of the Scriptures in the home.  Sadly, Livgren's developing piety did not gain traction, and the reverence and awe of the liturgy, the hymnody, the doctrine, and the preaching of Christ and Him Crucified unto forgiveness, life, and salvation was choked off by the cares and riches of this world.

But fortunately, the Seed was indeed sown, and it did eventually bear fruit.

Soli Deo gloria!