The Outlaw Larry Norman

I've been knocked down, kicked around

But like a moth drawn to a flame

Here I am, talkin' 'bout Jesus just the same.

Words that Larry Norman penned 30-something years ago in his song, Shot Down.

For those who don't know Larry Norman, allow me to give you a short history lesson. Larry is often referred to as the Father of Christian Rock. Back in the 1960s, Larry started creating rock and roll music with lyrics about Jesus. His 1969 album Upon This Rock is considered the first "Christian Rock" album. Mixing Jesus and rock music was unheard of at the time, and reviled by many.

He released over 100 solo albums in his career, and over 300 cover versions of his songs have been recorded.To make a long story short, Larry Norman was the trailblazer for modern Christian music.

And I was (and still am) a huge fan.

As a teenager and young adult I spent a lot of money on Larry Norman albums. I also saw him in concert a couple of times. One of those times was at my college, where I got to meet him. He did a concert one night and then stayed on a campus for a couple of days, for some reason. He ate lunch in the cafeteria with some students and even showed up in my dorm one evening just to hang out. My dorm-mates and I loved hanging with him and getting a picture taken with him. During that time he also set up a time in a lecture room where he would be willing to answer questions (sort of a press conference). You better believe I was right up front with my little tape recorder. We asked him questions for over an hour. I took that recording and did a documentary radio show for our college radio station. I also turned it in for a grade in my broadcasting class.

As the larrynorman.com website puts it, Larry was an "eccentric visionary whose songs drew controversy from both the conservative religious establishment and the secular music press for his lyrical mix of radical religious, political, and social themes." Not only was there controversy because of his music style, but there was controversy because of his lifestyle as well, which I will get to in a moment.

In the last several years, Larry battled many health problems and in February of 2008 he went to be with Jesus, of whom he had preached to the world all his life. Now, as is often the case when a person dies, some hidden things have come to light.

I always knew Larry Norman was unusual and even a little bit strange, but I still loved his music. His songwriting was incredible. And he was really much more than just a poet/songwriter/singer. He was a musical preacher, an evangelist. Many of his songs were messages to the unchurched, and unsaved. It was evident that he had a heart for the lost. And listening to his songs as a young Christian played a big role in my spiritual growth. But since his death, people are opening up about some things that are very disappointing, distressing and disturbing. There has even been a documentary movie made that talks about some of these revelations. It is called "Fallen Angel (http://www.fallenangeldoc.com/).

I won't go into too many details of his moral failures. You can look that up for yourself if you are interested. But among other things, it seems he had extramarital affairs (one with his best friend's wife), business troubles, and even allegedly fathered a child in Australia with a woman to whom he was once engaged.  He never publicly took responsibility for the child. The boy is now 19 years old, and he and his mother are still trying to get the Norman family to recognize Larry as the father.

All of this news saddens me because I did look up to him so much. And lately I have been thinking about it and asking myself what I can learn from this. Because I think there is more than one lesson to be learned.

First of all, it's the whole "pedestal" thing. We all do it, don't we? We put people up on a high pedestal and we expect them to be perfect, because in our mind, we made them perfect. They can do no wrong. They become idols. I'm reminded of the old DC Talk song, What if I Stumble, which posed the questions to themselves as Christian performers, "What if I stumble? What if I fall? What if I lose my step and make fools of us all?"

Well that's what Larry did. He did stumble. He did fall, and he did make fools of us all. But was it he that made a fool of me, or was it I that made a fool of myself for holding him up on that pedestal for so many years? He was, after all, only human. Which brings me to the next lesson we could take from all of this.

Does Larry's life remind you of anybody in the Bible? He sort of reminds me of David. Or maybe Moses. Or many of the other characters in the Bible that God used in mighty ways, despite moral shortcomings. How about Samson, Solomon, Isaac, Jacob, Lot, even Abraham.

I'm certainly not excusing any of the immoral behavior of Larry Norman, but neither can I dismiss the fact that he was used by God in many ways.

You can bet that when Larry Norman lay in his bed during that last difficult year of his life, he thought about the people he hurt and the damage he had done. I also bet he asked God's forgiveness. And you know what else?  I bet God forgave him.  I read somewhere once that Christians are righteous before God because of God's continuing forgiveness, not because they are "beyond" evil. We are all in need of God's grace and mercy on a daily basis, aren't we?

I have also been reading accounts that Larry had conversations recently with some of the people he had hurt (like Randy Stonehill) and asked their forgiveness, and from what I've read, friendships were mended.

So how did these moral failures of Larry Norman's happen? I don't know and I'm not sure I need to know. However we can look at the biblical accounts of spiritual leaders such as David and discover what caused their failures. The Bible doesn't hide the accounts of the failures. The Bible shows us the good , the bad and the downright ugly. And I think the reason for that is so that we can learn. For instance, there are many lessons to be learned from the story of David and Bathsheba. We won't go into a full study on the life of David here, but in a nutshell, David was in a place where he should not have been, then he acted upon the arrogant, self indulgent lust of his eyes and of his flesh. Then he had to cover his tracks which led to more sin. Is there any among us that cannot relate to that in some way. It's the human condition.

So what we need to do is read the parts of the stories where God's goodness is shown and his mercy is granted. We need to study the spiritual success stories as well. Then we see keys to living godly lives, things like staying in God's presence, studying His Word, and having accountable friendships.

So now that I know what I know about the hidden sins of Larry Norman, I look back at the lyrics of Shot Down and they make more sense now.

I've been rebuked for the things I've said,

For the songs I've written and the life I've led.

They say they don't understand me, well I'm not surprised,

Because you can't see nothing when you close your eyes.

They say I'm sinful, backslidden,

That I have left to follow fame.

But here I am, talkin' 'bout Jesus just the same.

I think it's important for us to remember that a person in the spotlight is still just a person, with the same kinds of hurts and emptiness that all others sometimes feel. Below is an example of that from one of Larry's lesser known songs, Soul Survivor.

I'm trying so hard to forget my pain

and leave my past behind

But when your life is suddenly filled with rain

you keep remembering how the sun used to shine

And I can't stand the loneliness, the constant emptiness

Why has unhappiness come into my life

I spend my mornings walking and thinking

and cry my evenings late into the night

When Larry died, his sister writes, they didn't know what to put on a gravestone until they looked at his note pad that was next to his bed and found a drawing he did of a stone cross that said:

Larry Norman

Evangelist

Without Portfolio

Bloodstained Israelite


.