CHAPTER 3 Against Liberals: Multi-layered and Multi-directed Invocation in Dylan’s Christian Songs

Abstract

Bob Dylan’s conversion to Christianity was a long time coming. So was his protest against protest, his hostility to politics. In this essay Dylan’s gospel songs are appreciated as the pivot of his songwriting, augmenting the multi-layered sense and multi-directed meaning in the invocatory design of his songs, a pattern which of course is also to be found both earlier and later in his oeuvre.