The Petra Zone

Looks interesting, wonder how many others in the business struggled this way....
https://www.fathomevents.com/events/htt ... qpEALw_wcB

LOTS. They are humans like the rest of us, trying to work out their salvation and make a living. JD Sumner was an alcoholic and a smoker.

The link is no longer working, but if it is what I think it is I had heard about it a few years ago. I remember seeing Jim Murray in our town nearly 20 years ago and he said that he had not had a real conversion experience with Christ until years after he left the Imperials.

Updated link...

http://www.turningpointpr.com/news/russ ... this-fall/

I have never heard Russ say had a conversion after the Imperials. I have only heard him say what he says in this video with Mark Lowry. Conversion and deliverance are two different things. They for sure aren't a simultaneous occurrence for everyone. But, we do have people in Christian music who aren't yet converted, just like we have pastors and people in the pews who aren't yet converted. This is why I must consider CCM and SGM clean entertainment and a business. If there were no money to be made to sustain themselves, the majority would not do it for free. We have to test the doctrine of the music, just like we must text the spirits and the doctrine of sermons. You never know what the motives are.

https://youtu.be/WgNoFY__pvE

I apologize for being a bit unclear, Jim was speaking only of himself not Russ. He said that he (Jim) didn't get saved until much later in life, despite singing about it. I only bring this up as a parallel to the video and to support the general premise of CCM being human and more like us than not. Sometimes we get the messenger confused with the message? Depending on the group, they do indeed carry God's word. But the printer who prints the physical bible also play a part and I would not expect them to by necessity be believers also. I agree with the rest of your thoughts.

Anyone go see the movie?

BTW, Russ Taff and Jim Murray rejoined the Classic Imperials minus Paul Smith and Dave Will to say "good bye" on the Mike Huckabee show. They are retiring from public performing. It was a long, good, run. The Imperials and Elvis started Christian Contemporary music as a genre, putting it in front of more people in the 60s and 70s than any other people. Larry Norman is credited as being the father of Christian rock. This is not really true. He popularized the Jesus Movement music, which was hippy Christian music. Two different things.