For me the term “Christian Rock” has always been synonymous with “bad music.” It’s happy, it’s slightly arrogant in that “I’ve been saved” kind of way, and more often then not it just seems manufactured (think: N’Sync with the Spirit of Jesus running through their veins). But these days I am finding (though I admit I’m slightly skeptical) that as all good well-read twenty-somethings should do, taking an old approach to living and making it radical again is as American as a log cabin in Brooklyn.

Introducing: The Psalters. Think Desert Fathers (and Mothers) with dreadlocks, banjos, face tattoos, and a healthy dose of anti-capitalism and anti-communism while attempting to walk the talk of so many Christian Luddites before them. They travel the world in a black bus and maintain a relatively nomadic lifestyle. They’ve been to corners of the Earth people like me only dream about (most recently picking banjos on the banks of the Tigris) and seem to take literally “The meek shall inherit the Earth.” Amen.

However, lets give credit where it is due. The pathways for spiritually inclined people who simultaneously crave an independent approach to music in order to express that inclination have been cleared for some time now. For the past ten or twelve years independent music minded people have been realizing (remembering?) that Jamaican roots music (rock steady, dub, and reggae) is very hip, old timey Appalachian banjo music is pleasantly eerie and refreshingly confrontational, and the best music to sit around a campfire singing to is the music of God (read: all those old psalms you sung in Catholic school if you were a little Catholic boy like me). All of this has coalesced in a decade long resurgence of folk-inspired bands finding homes in the stocked artistic ponds of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

But somewhere along the line, punks realized that all these musical movements shared something in common… this music has at its core a homegrown, raw, and independent “Bible religion” so salty you can taste it. AND, the belief is that this Do-It-Yourself style of religion can still be rebellious and empowering. Mix that with a fascination with Christian antinomians (Levellers, Diggers, Adamites, Ranters, et al.), and the fact that Foucault may someday become a household name, and you find yourself wading in a sea of appropriation and discovery—a sea I’m not so shy to swim in.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m still slightly skeptical as to whether the merging of music and religion can remain honest when that honesty rides on the back of self-promotion. For instance, would the Gnostics of old have a MySpace page if they had the technology? Hard to say. But as far as religion and music cohabitating is concerned, this is nothing new. A person could easily argue (and so many people have) that music actually birthed from the spiritual. So when a group of people come together (giving new meaning to the term “band”) to sing the praises of Jesus, nothing should shock us. But what if that group of people tries to actually live the “shed your riches” lifestyle for real, the way all those Christian boy-bands don’t?

So, it’s my hope that the Psalters and the handful of other groups that form this blossoming scene of anarcho-Christianity will have life spans longer than those who have set out before them. However, I wonder if it it’ll end up being just another Cajun-flavored Dorito fad, all image and no substance. We’ll have to wait and see as the proof is almost always in the pudding.

Here’s to hoping it tastes half as good and lasts at least twice as long.