Reading the Truth

Back in the early seventies, Emory Boggs was passing around a copy of Truth (or The Truth) that was an free underground Jesus paper published in Spokane Washington by the Voice of Elijah Ministry.  Truth preceded the Cornerstone publication by Jesus People USA (JPUSA).  Cornerstone was a nicer publication, but Truth was my first encounter of it's kind.  Both were excellent newspapers for Jesus Freaks. I'm sure there were other like papers of that day, but we were not aware of them down in our neck of the woods.

At that time, most of the musicians that I was hanging around were singing what we called Jesus Music.  We had a coffeehouse called FREE House where we'd gather and sing our Jesus Music.  We were then naive to the fact that God was anointing people all over the place to interject rock and roll with the Gospel.  Heck, we thought we came up with Jesus Music, but it was divine inspiration.  It wasn't long before we realized that God was doing something on a global level - that there was a movement going on.

Truth was a publication that helped to make us aware of this phenomena. It was the first time I was made aware of the availability of Jesus Music on records.  There within the pages of Truth were the first time I'd ever read the names of Wilson McKinley Band, Larry Norman, Malcolm and Alwyn, and Love Song. I remember Emory sporting bumper stickers and buttons he had ordered from Truth.  I soon had subscribed and enjoyed getting my own copy of the paper.  I read it from cover to cover.

I kept my copies of Truth for a decade or two and I guess I discarded it along the way.  I am now sorry that I did.  I remember the last issue of Truth was an expose' on a cult out in California called The Children of God (COG).  The story was to be continued, but never was. All of a sudden, there was no more Truth.

A few years later someone walked in the coffeehouse door with a large stack of Cornerstones.  That Jesus Paper had a longer life and eventually evolved into a rather unique magazine. We distributed Cornerstone at the coffeehouse, but I sure missed getting Truth.