The Flint Journal, Flint, Michigan, November 16, 1995
Rich Mullins isn't sure exactly what drew him to songwriting. It may have been his farm upbringing near Richmond, Ind., where his great-grandparents lived next door.
"When the Mullins family would get together, it would be this huge storytelling event," he remembers, "where people were jumping on top of each other, each telling a story more interesting than the last. As the numbers increased, the stories got gorier, and cooler."
Then again, it could be that the God he reveres in song chose this avocation for him.
"It just has to do with the equipment you come with," the Christian pop singer says by phone from his home in Kansas. "Like some people have an aptitude for math or mechanics. I have no aptitude for those things. I think I always liked words." Not that he thinks he's anything special. Mullins says he's just trying to write and sing about the human condition from his uniquely Christian perspective, a view nurtured from an early age on that Indiana farm.
"We're all pretty much the same," he says. "So if I say something that is very personal, chances are I've only said what everybody else has felt. It's kind of the job of a writer. I think just about articulating things for people."So Mullins decided a long time ago to put his love of the language together with his love of music and the Lord. But Mullins isn't one to rubber-stamp Christian dogma. A self-described "born dissenter," Mullins is often critical of " Christians" and their intolerance of certain views and beliefs."
He likens his role as a writer to that of a journalist who has to report the facts. "What I have to do,", he says, "is put myself in a place where I look at life head on."
Mullins has had to take his lumps for views. But he seems to accept that as part of the job. He thinks we need to tolerate all points of view," not dictate our own. That message is made clear on the title song of his eighth and newest album, Brother's Keeper, which he's supporting with a 65-city tour.
"I will be my brother's keeper," he sings in his grainy tenor, "not the one who judges him."
That sentiment isn't much different from what Mullins has expressed before. Songs on his seven previous albums also have delved into themes such as God's grace, mercy, forgiveness and acceptance.
He's also one to practice what he preaches. Mullins returned from an Asian trip eight years ago "a changed man" who wanted to find a way to share his faith with other cultures. Last May, he completed a music degree at Friends University in Wichita, Kan., and arranged to teach music to Navajo Indians in New Mexico.
He's spent the last few months acclimating himself to the Navajos and will move to the reservation-next fall under a program sponsored by Compassion International, a relief organization.
"The Navajos, among the Indian nations, have a somewhat stronger identity, in connection to their faith, than some other tribes," he says.
Christians on the reservation have invited him into their hogans, taken him to sacred grounds and brought him to pow-wows. He's fascinated by the contrasts he sees between their culture and mainstream America's.
"We see ourselves individually, while the Navajo sees himself as part of a thing, rather than something unto themselves," he says.
He laughs at the oft-uttered suggestion that he's disenchanted with Christian music.
"A lot of people went, 'Wow, he's really burned out on the Christian music scene.' No, I'm still a Christian, I love touring. I don't like making records, but I love to write 'em, so I have to make 'em."
Mullins, who's single, thinks he's found his calling, which allows him to music and teach it while sharing his faith.
"My grandpa was a very cool guy and he said, 'When you graduate from high school they're all going to want to know what you're going to do. Jesus was God's son and he didn't know what He wanted to do until he was 30, so there's no reason to presume you will at 18. The first 30 years are a gift.'
"Well, I was a little slow," Mullins says, "but it's not like I'm God's son or something."
