When I was 18 years old I found myself, accidentally, at a Christian music festival in New Hampshire. It was called the Inside Out Soul Festival. I was invited to a weekend music festival and thought it would be fun. It wasn't until I got there that I realized what I was getting myself into.
It was a learning experience for me. It was the first time I had really experienced Christian pop culture and the machinery behind it. All around me I saw people wearing t-shirts with the Taco Bell dog saying 'Yo Quiero Jesus'. I heard music that sounded like the hits I was hearing on the radio, but the messaging in the lyrics was very different.
Fast forward a couple of decades and I came across this new book called Jesusland: Stories From the Upside Down World Of Christian Pop Culture. Joelle Kidd has put together a wonderful piece of work that takes us back to her youth in the early 2000's, a time period when Christian pop culture started to really make waves. The book talks a lot about efforts from political figures over the decades to infiltrate communities with specific messaging.
I hope you enjoy my conversation with Joelle Kidd.