Sects, Love, and Rock & Roll: My Life on Record

by Joel Heng Hartse

A memoir of 90's Christian rock fandom for anyone who's ever been torn between their love of DC Talk and the Smashing Pumpkins. Church-camp sing-alongs gone horribly wrong, infatuation with Christian contemporary music, teenage love set to indie rock soundtracks, playing rock music in churches and church music in rock clubs, betrayal by Christian rock bands—Sects, Love, and Rock & Roll is a book about how listening to music makes us who we are, and it's an exploration of the intersections between the evangelical church and the pop music scene. In these essays, Joel Heng Hartse, a youth group dropout turned music critic, combines laugh-out-loud humor with thoughtful reflection to describe how his obsession with rock and roll has shaped him, and how living in the shadow of God and guitars can transform us all.

Genres: Music, Memoir, Nonfiction, Essays

198 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2010

About the author

Joel Heng Hartse is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, where he teaches courses in academic writing, TESOL, and education. His academic work has appeared in journals including the Journal of Second Writing, Composition Studies, Across the Disciplines, the Journal of English for Research Publication Purposes, and English Today. His music criticism has appeared in Image, Geez, Blurt, Christianity Today, the Stranger, and Paste, among many other publications. His books include Sects, Love, and Rock & Roll (Cascade, 2010), Perspectives on Teaching English at Colleges and Universities in China (co-written with Jiang Dong, TESOL Press, 2015, and Dancing about Architecture is a Reasonable Thing to Do (Cascade, 2022). He is a former editor of the academic journal Discourse & Writing/ Rédactologie.

Reviews

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a great time writing this book. 12 years later there are things I'd do differently, but I'm glad I got to write it.

[Kirk Bozeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

You kind of have to be an evangelical to get this book. Specifically one who came of age in the youth group subculture of the 90's, even more specifically one who devoured CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) in its more "indie" varieties. That's a pretty layered and dense specificity, but I can heartily say: that's me. Or maybe I'm just trying to sound cool.

Hartse is a music nut and chronicles his early personal history in terms of CCM albums, much like I am and often do. At some point I have owned or heard music by almost every band Hartse mentions, and there were very few emotions and epiphanies he discusses that didn't bring to mind my own experience. I recalled the time I blasted Starflyer 59's "silver" album on my Sony boom box quite loud, and my mother said it sounded "demonic" -- to which I replied in sincere confusion: "But it's Starflyer 59!" He called to mind my own determined patience and unspoken disdain for the awkward evangelism we often begrudgingly shoved into our CCM rock shows. And I remembered my own process of rethinking the entire "Christian music" paradigm, how it is inherently confusing and problematic to label creations and products with a belief system, and how the logic behind this kind of labeling eventually breaks down. I also remembered how much I loved (and still love) so many of those bands and so much of that culture (and am still part of it), in spite its stubborn naiveté and shortsightedness.

What I liked best about Sects is Hartse' positive tone and treatment of his history, even while bringing forth valid criticism of evangelical culture. While the cheesiness and borderline fear-mongering often extant in youthful evangelical experiences can lead to a hardened cynicism for many later in life, the author has not landed there. He gladly pulls the wheat from the chaff, choosing to keep and praise the good parts while also exploring an awareness and avoidance of the bad. That's good advice for anyone looking to examine and make peace with any personal history, especially twenty- and thirty-something evangelicals of such stated specificity.

Oh, and his "Discussion Questions" section at the end of the book is priceless and hilarious, I laughed out loud. But you'd have to be an evangelical to get that, too.

[Clay Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full of nostalgic, witty, and insightful (even if mildly irreverent) spiritual reflections, no book has spoken more directly into my own lived experience. The author is in turns unapologetic in his aficionado status, while being humorously self-deprecating, and ultimately relatable through both. Being a couple years his senior, it makes sense his "Great Lengths" is my "Goldie's Last Day," and his eponymous Sixpence album is my "This Beautiful Mess," but the resonance was there in full force. Suffice it to say, for anyone who came of age under the umbrella of Evangelical sub-culture of the '90s and during the rise of Christian music scene, no book will make you feel more seen.

[Hannah Notess · Rating 5 out of 5]

There was a time in my life when I loved some cringeworthy, vomitously-awful music. "I will love this Christian ska band above all other bands forever," I thought, at age seventeen. I was wrong.

Fortunately, Joel Heng Hartse went through the same phase and wrote about it and made it funny, interesting, and even enlightening. Maybe the whole purpose of all that terrible art was so that I could read this book and laugh my head off. Who knows? In any case, it was worth it.

[Colton Brewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's funny because the author is about 10 years older (I assume) than me, but I felt a lot of similarities in my own thoughts on the Christian music scene. I appreciated the honest appraisal of the Christian music scene that many former youth group kids got sucked into, were ashamed of for a few years, and now secretly long for. Part autobiography, part (sub)cultural history this was a really fun read. Would definitely recommend this book.

[nate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot think of this book in an unbiased way because I have spent time with the author (and his wife) and he once wrote nice things about my siblings in the newspaper. Also, because he turned me on to Hem.

I loved this book and I wish I hadn’t waited so long to read it.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is for those of us who grew up in evangelicalism in the 1990s and early 2000s -- or anyone else who wants a glimpse into evangelical culture. It's hilarious and profound. Heng Hartse is spot-on with his reflections on Contemporary Christian Music, being in an evangelical bubble, and going to a Christian college (back then). I could relate so well to so much of this book; and I look forward to rereading it.

[Jonathan Hiskes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heng Hertse gives a conversational personal history of his lifelong love of rock music, particularly music with one foot in evangelical Christianity and one foot out. There are a lot of references that will appeal to those who know the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) subculture, but as someone who doesn't really know that world, I found it endearing regardless. He does well in capturing the can't-leave-can't-stay ambivalence that comes with growing up in a religion that presents both shortcomings and gifts. I can also relate to the feeling that it's easier to evangelize about music and art than about faith.

"I am wired for Christianity and I am wired for popular music, and the stuff that most moves me, that has really taken over my life, is the stuff that blends the two. I know that I only understand these things when I write about them."

[Dave McNeely · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personally, this is closer to a "five-star" for me, but only because Hartse's life has mirrored my own chronologically. As a fellow child of '90's Christian rock, I could relate to so much of what he experienced and thought, as though everything were an inside joke. I cannot imagine anyone not living through similar experiences would find this book quite as engaging.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joel offers a critique of the evangelical subculture, here, laced with love and humor.

While I lived in the CCM fan experience 15-20 years earlier than Joel, still I enjoy his asides and his arguments with himself and his history.

More fun than I thought it would be. The questions at the end are SO hilarious.

[Kendal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seriously, 5 stars.