The new issue of The Atlantic Monthly arrived this week. I haven't had a lot of time to read it, but I saw the enjoyable Ross Douthat's name in the table of contents, so I flipped to page 40. It's a short article about five musicians who changed their faith: Sammy Davis Jr., Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Adam Yauch, and Madonna. I especially liked these entries about Sammy Davis and Dylan:
This Rat Packer was born to Christian parents, but didn't practice a faith until he lost his eye in a 1954 car crash. While recovering, Davis found himself poring over a history of Judaism. His eventual conversion prompted giggles and suspicion among Jews and Gentiles alike. But though his beliefs drifted over the years–toward reincarnation and even Satanism, briefly–he never gave up his adopted faith, and died with a rabbi by his side. And the jokes were great: “I'm colored, Jewish, and Puerto Rican,” he would say. “When I move into a neighborhood, I wipe it out!” . . .
The Jewish singer-songwriter became a born-again Christian in 1979, after experiencing what he later described as “this vision and feeling” of Christ's presence. His songs became explicitly religious, laced with fire-and-brimstone themes, and many fans and critics abandoned him (though some of the music from this era is now considered to rank among Dylan's best). Then his zeal seemed to wane: he reportedly flirted with an orthodox Hasidic sect, the Lubavitchers, and became coy about his exact beliefs. In a 1997 interview, he associated his religion with the music of his youth. “Those old songs are my lexicon and my prayer book,” Dylan said. “I believe in a God of time and space, but if people ask me about that, my impulse is to point them back toward those songs.”
