(Listen and read, you can do it!)
When I first encountered Sandra McCracken’s music as green student of theology, I knew I’d been missing something. I’d given up on any piece of music that was even tenuously connected to the Christian music genre. I was disenchanted with Christian music. Actually, I was disgusted with it. Unfair as it may be and as snobby as it may sound, it’s the truth. But when I heard, “Rock of Ages, when this day seems long / From this labor and this heartache, I have come,” I had hope (from her 2005 album, The Builder and the Architect). I had more than hope. I felt deep emotion and appreciation because I felt the Spirit behind what Sandra sang–that Spirit that ignites and anoints us differently and yet all the same.
I would eventually learn that Sandra is an artist. When she composes, she composes for the sake of Beauty, not for the sake of genre. Like great artists, when one considers her body of work, categorization seems impossible. And it is. With her new album, Desire Like Dynamite, her artistry reaches a new, dynamic height.
Sandra is also a theologian. She wrestles deeply and meaningfully with concepts that have become lost on us. She helps us to find out what believing is, because she is earnestly finding that out for herself. The theological centerpiece of her new album is desire. As she says:
