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"Praise the Lord with your feet."

The sets and the editing display a mainstream professionalism, the choreography would not look out of place in a Janet Jackson video, and even the music is fairly authentic. Carman avoids, for the most part, the overly mechanical, sing-songy delivery that plagues most whites (especially ones over 30) who attempt rap; he belts out the romantic ballad with Star Search-winner flair; he even gets a little hiccupy Elvis vibe going on the rockabilly/gospel song. The heavy metal anthem is somewhat less convincing--the lead guitarist looks like he would be more comfortable playing with John Tesh than Motley Crue, and the song never quite achieves the chunky thud of true pop metal--but it's not too bad. Unlike most special interest media, Addicted to Jesus is virtually seamless, with a slick, jump-cut tempo that puts it--aesthetically, at least--a lot closer to MTV's 120 Minutes than The Old Time Gospel Hour.

Which is ironic because Carman positions his "cutting-edge Christian programming" as an alternative to mainstream music and TV, which he characterizes as "distracting and deluding the minds of our young people." Of course, the Christian-oriented content of Addicted to Jesus partially distinguishes it from the work of Carman's more profane music industry counterparts, but the simple truth is that there's not that much content here. Consider some typical song lyrics: in "Come Into This House," one of the rap numbers, he tells his audience that if you "jam on the Lamb you're smooth." Later, he encourages them to "Praise the Lord with your feet." In the heavy metal song, "Our Turn Now," he adopts a kind of macho Christian militancy in regard to school prayer; this macho attitude grows even stronger in "Satan, Bite The Dust," the country song wherein Carman uses his six-shooter to destroy a bar filled with demons while boasting that he represents "a whole new breed of Christian" that is "authorized and deputized to blow you clean away." I guess teenage boys respond better to this than they do to stories about Christ the Lamb, but can it really be characterized as substantive religious instruction?