What I've Been Reading: Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon
Pastor Greg Laurie has recently taken to writing spiritual biographies of famous Americans. I enjoyed his first offering about Steve McQueen. (I’ll probably share a review of that on here at some point). His latest work is on Johnny Cash titled Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon. I learn a great deal from every biography I read so I decided to pick up a copy.
Johnny Cash’s life is an amazing story of rags to riches. Cash grew up as the son of a poor sharecropper in Arkansas. His early years were spent picking cotton with the family. Cash’s grandfather was a circuit-riding preacher, but his father seems to have been less than enthusiastic when it came to matters of faith. Johnny’s mother was a devout believer and at a young age Cash made a profession of faith in a revival meeting in their local Baptist church. Johnny’s older brother Jack was very strong in his faith and was a formative influence in young Johnny’s life.
Tragically, when Jack was fourteen years old he was killed in a freak accident while working to earn extra money for the family. Johnny was twelve years old at the time but the pain of this loss stayed with him and his family the rest of his life. Not long after this Cash developed his love for music and looked for any opportunity to use this talent. As he graduated high school he bounced around in various jobs from picking strawberries to working on an assembly line in Detroit. Miserable in each of these jobs, Cash enlisted in the Air Force and was stationed in Germany for a good part of his service. During his time in the service, Cash picked up habits that would follow him the rest of his life—drinking, fighting, and chasing women.
Upon returning home he married and moved to Memphis to pursue his musical dream. To support his family he initially worked as a door-to-door salesmen. After being rejected and rebuffed, Cash finally got his big break and his musical career took off like a rocket ship. Just like most celebrities, he had a career filled with ups and downs. His personal life and his spiritual life followed in a similar trajectory. Cash battled drug addiction for most of his career, which contributed to a lot of his other woes. He never completely lost sight of his faith in Christ and in his later years became much more outspoken about his faith in Christ. He even developed a friendship with Billy Graham.
Greg Laurie does a great job of speaking to Cash’s faith and drawing out spiritual insights. For me the book had several lessons. First, the siren song of fame and success truly is not all it is cracked up to be. With social media today so many of us are tempted to live in order to be discovered. The fame and success we seek might be the very thing that will devour us. A litany of Cash’s contemporaries died unnaturally young. The fame and the spotlight are more than most people can handle. Second, the book is a warning about addiction. For Cash, a simple decision to take a pill one night to help him get through a show led him into a decades long battle. These days, it seems there is more than ever to addict us. Not just in the form of drugs, although the opioid epidemic shows how prevalent this is, but pornography and even our 24/7 screen use can become an addiction. Addictions sideline Christians from effectiveness in God’s kingdom. The final caution of the book for me came in regard to family. Cash’s own growing up years were shaped by an alcoholic father who bounced “between the Bible and the bottle” (51). The choices we make leave a legacy for our families. It seems like Johnny attempted to redeem things in his own family but the addiction and the spotlight took its toll. His life is a great reminder of the importance of keeping our priorities in order. God did some great things through Johnny Cash’s life but what could have been?