No Compromise
by Melody Green and David Hazard

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Biography

Keith Green died a few months after I was born, so though his music wasn’t a huge part of my childhood, I do remember my mom liking his music when I was younger. I don’t generally base my rating of a biography on the content, because what the author chooses to provide about his/her (or in this case, her husband’s) life is really their choice. Based only on the writing and style here, the book is easy to read and gives some really interesting insight into the lives of both Keith and Melody Green before, during, and after their conversion to Christianity. She doesn’t sugarcoat their drug use and time spent following New Age or eastern mysticism practices as they both searched for spiritual truth. Lyrics of various songs written by Keith Green (again, before and after he became a Christian) as well as quite a few snatches of writing directly from his hand in the form of journal entries pepper the pages.

I have to admit that I didn’t agree with a lot of his philosophy or his approach to evangelism, but I appreciate how on-fire he was for God. As his own wife noted, when he became a believer, he didn’t hide away somewhere to learn about God before then presenting himself to the world as an evangelist. Maybe he should have, though, because some of the way he treated his audiences, both believers and nonbelievers, may have been more harmful than helpful. Going to a church, for example, and assuming that everyone there was a lukewarm Christian and needed to be confronted from the stage to repent of hidden sins really shocked me. I suppose if there were people in attendance who truly were right with God, they may not have been guilted by Green to confess unnecessarily, but it seems to me that Green made the assumption that every Christian he encountered (except select people he met in person and looked up to) was either a fake Christian or at least an apathetic one, simply because he could see that those types did legitimately exist in Christian communities.

Overall, I’m glad I read this book. Despite my concerns about both Keith and Melody Green’s understanding of God and the Bible, it was an interesting insight into the mind of someone who sought God before understanding exactly what it was he was seeking. Keith seemed to be working out his belief and understanding through his music, which might be a legitimate way to do so, except that by becoming more and more famous, he wrapped others up in his confusion. I do recommend this book to anyone who’s interested in biographies of famous musicians, especially fans of Keith Green, because I think knowing how he thought and believed might be an important lens through which to view his music.

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