CHAPTER 7 Hard Rain: The End of Times and Christian Modernism in the Work of Bob Dylan

In Denmark it is still common to characterize Bob Dylan as a left wing protest singer. However, this view is unjustified. On the contrary, Christianity is central to his songwriting, and not only in the period around 1980, when he presented himself as a believing Christian. Religiosity is not only the basis of Dylan’s work from the debut in 1962 to today, but the very core of many of his songs. Sustained by a large number of quotes from, and references to, the Bible, the theme of the flood and judgement day is one of the themes running through Dylan’s songs, and, based on a belief in providence, it is used to criticize secular modernity. However, this criticism is formulated in a modernistic language of images, and therefore Dylan can be characterized as a Christian modernist. He can be compared to T. S. Eliot, and uses an indirect, dialogical and dialectical method reminiscent of Søren Kierkegaard: to speak of Christian belief in the language of modernity with the purpose of re-Christening modernity.