It has been said that "all truth is God's truth." If, in fact that is the case, and I believe it is, we can find God in places where we don't think He belongs. The church has spent too much time retreating from the world that many of us believe has nothing of value to offer. But Steve Stockman shows us the error of our ways in his new book The Rock Cries Out, with the appropriate subtitle "Discovering eternal truth in unlikely music" (Relevant Books, 2004, ISBN# 0-9729276-5-4). Stockman takes a close look at the music of 12 different artists, most of whom make no real profession of faith, but yet he is still able to mine them for truth value.

Most of the artists Stockman puts under the microscope wouldn't be considered a part of our predominant youth culture (Radiohead and Kurt Cobain are the possible exceptions), but he does offer a useful paradigm for how we should interact with, and think about, music, the arts and the world in general. While Stockman correctly points out that the world should never supersede the Word, we still can learn from the world. He says it can "heighten awareness to the truths contained in the Word that should be released into our lives and society."

In the process, Stockman finds themes of yearning and redemption in the music of Bruce Springsteen and David Gray, parallels with Ecclesiastes in Kurt Cobain, and glimpses of grace in the work of Lauryn Hill. Popular music is filled with songs that magnify the human condition, the search for transcendence and our need for God. With this paradigm, we learn how we can and should listen to the music of our teens as we search for ways to point them toward God.

—Ken Mueller