“… the best of them (Dylan’s Gospel songs) surely comprise a body of work that brings to contemporary religious song something fresh yet well-grounded in traditional strengths, something passionate and full of an authentic saturation in biblical teaching.  Anyone can hear that it wipes the floor with all that awful Pat Boonery, that horrid, pallid, acoustic-guitar-and-tambourine sing-song modernism and those gruesome Age of Aquarius lasers-and-love productions offered … over the last thirty years.  Dylan’s religious work has gravitas.”

from Song and Dance Man: The Art of Bob Dylan, by Michael Gray.

Whether or not one is familiar with Dylan’s gospel songs, Gray’s assessment gives us a useful set of criteria for writing new songs for worship:

fresh + well grounded in traditional strengths + passionate + full of an authentic saturation in biblical teaching = gravitas.

side personal note: a couple months ago someone asked me if “Let Justice Roll Like A River” was a Dylan song.  I’m still redface-tickled with that unintended compliment.

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