I’m just glad the book has got people talking. I’m glad it’s ruffled some feathers.
- Brett McCracken

When I was growing up, I wasn’t all that cool. Neither was being a Christian, a reality my devout parents considered less important than my spiritual formation. In retrospect, I’m grateful for their priorities, even if their policing went a little far.

In lieu of the classic Green Day, Nirvana, and Rage Against The Machine records my schoolmates were spinning, I spent jr. high afternoons rocking out to DC Talk (think the Beastie Boys trapped on an endless tour with Savage Garden), Petra (the glam/worship fountainhead from whose prophetic loins Stryper would burst forth), and The Supertones (spirit-filled ska; it sounds like you think it does). Mix in some Paul Simon, a little Keith Green, a warped cassette tape of the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas album, and the occasional juicy cut from Sandi Patty and you’ve got a standard playlist from the Bishop family mini-van, circa 1996. Pretty punk rock.

To be fair, the restrictions I faced were nothing compared with what a lot of my church-going peers were stuck with. At least I wasn’t kept from watching The Land Before Time due to its endorsement of evolution.