ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 28, 1996 TAG: 9601260049
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: The Back Pew
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
We finally had to trade in the Toyota. At 199,000 miles, the rear end was shot, it was starting to leak oil, and it kept dying at stop lights.
I couldn't believe it. The car was only 16 years old. I had been expecting at least another 100,000 miles.
My friends just shake their heads and chuckle. They think that was a bit over-optimistic, even for a guy who nearly always sees the glass as half-full and who believes you can nurse a creaky automobile another few thousand miles with an oil change.
We traded for another small, used, Japanese model. We like it, but figuring out how to program the radio station pre-set buttons just about forced me back to the dealer in desperation.
Before I finally resorted to that bane of males everywhere - the instruction manual - I just kept scanning through every frequency until I heard something I wanted to stop on.
My radio tastes are eclectic, so I tend to hop around the dial a lot anyway, but I hadn't actually stopped on every frequency with a signal in a long time.
I had forgotten how many religious radio stations there are within range of Roanoke. Actually, all of them are Christian stations, though any religious group can apply for a license.
If you haven't listened to Christian radio in a while, you ought to. It's a lot different from what I heard in my youth.
While I was still in high school, my first radio job was working in a daylight-only country-music AM station. In the summer, daylight was longer, so I worked as a disc-jockey some weeknights during that extended-broadcast day. On the weekends, I signed the station on and worked the morning air shift.
At the time, all commercial broadcasters were required by federal regulations to air a certain amount of religious and public-service programing. My weekend job consisted of setting up one of our studios for a rotation of local preachers who each bought a half-hour of air time for $15.
Many of them came with their own little entourage, often including a gospel quartet or a soloist who might accompany himself on the studio piano. One of the preachers had two cute daughters who played guitars and sang "Turn Your Radio On" just about every Saturday morning. It was the bright spot of my shift. I can still sing that song.
Some of the musicians were pretty good, and I loved the music. I have to admit, however, I didn't care for much of the preaching.
It wasn't so much the content as the technique that led me to turn the studio monitor down.
Most of these men - and the one woman, incidentally - practiced what I always thought of as the "beached-fish" method of breathing as they shared the Gospel. As they got caught up in the enthusiasm of their sermons - almost never relying on notes of any kind - they started to gulp air with great, gasping, open-mouthed breaths.
Their delivery fell into a marching rhythm of short, shouted sentences interrupted by mighty sucks of oxygen.
The messages were consistent - a familiar tale of the depravity of mankind, the certainty of damnation, the only hope of salvation from hell's flames through baptism in the blood of Christ.
Those late-1960s sermons sometimes wandered off-track into the special depravity of womankind, or the sin of long hair on men, but mostly they were familiar, orthodox Christianity of the sort preached in nine churches out of 10 in that place.
Today's Christian radio is much different. Stations no longer are forced to carry religious programing, so most of it is aired on stations that carry nothing else.
The result is a broader variety of music, talk and preaching than used to be available. There's black gospel, country gospel, Southern gospel, contemporary Christian, Christian rap, Christian rock, traditional hymns. There are preachers and psychologists and call-in talk shows.
Though the mix leans heavily toward the most conservative end of the Christian spectrum - especially the talkers - there is music to appeal to Christians of just about any stripe.
The heart of the Gospel message hasn't changed, but there aren't too many of my old "beached-fish" preachers on the air any more. The pessimistic message of damnation seems to be couched in slightly less harsh tones, and the emphasis is weighted toward the optimistic "good news" of redemption and salvation in Christ.
Now that I've figured out how to program the car radio's station-selector buttons, I'm going to plug in some of those stations.
Remember to send in your explanations for the establishment of 11 a.m. as the usual hour for Sunday worship. Send your wacky or serious justification to The Back Pew, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke 24010 or e-mail to cloweroanoke.infi.net by Monday.
LENGTH: Medium: 89 linesby CNB