Fruit of the Spirit: He Loves You and Me

Fruit of the Spirit
He Loves You and Me (Holiday 12101, 1976)

A great deal of the “Jesus Music” of the 1960’s and 1970’s was performed in coffee-houses. An innovative form of ministry, it broke with the “church” tradition (a breaking churches struggle with perpetuating until this day) and placed the gospel in a laid back venue. At the centre of the coffee-house was its band or group, performing evangelistic music (such as this, an actual coffee-house group) and making coming to Christ a much easier road for the portion of the generation that had turned its back on traditional church. The best known group in this genre was The Way, but there were many others.

But then we had the question: what kind of music? Some coffee-houses gravitated to a more rock style. But this was anathema to others. That was partly an extension of the old “drums in church” argument, but it went beyond that. There was a strong school of thought that the sheer “artlessness” of much of the Jesus Music of the era was in fact spiritual, that venturing into “fancy” instrumentals was worldly. (And these same people went home and put Phil Keaggy’s What a Day on…) Unfortunately this argument also got a good deal of traction in Catholic Charismatic covenant communities, but that’s another post.

This album, from California, sends all of this kind of argumentation to the bottom. It eschews the percussion all right, but the acoustic guitar work (six and twelve string) is masterful, as is the interplay between the male and female vocals. It adds artistry to the message in a way that makes both very sweet, even when it branches out into country (why did we have to have Maranatha 4)?

It’s great music to listen to and even better music to get saved by. So what are you waiting for?

The songs: