Last December’s Oscar-nominated film A Complete Unknown tells the story of how the budding music legend Bob Dylan made the controversial decision to switch from acoustic to electric guitar at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Many folk-music fans, who revered Dylan as a great hero of the genre, viewed the move as a betrayal.

Some fans of the countercultural musician felt similarly betrayed by a much more profound change that Dylan underwent in the late ’70s: a conversion to Christianity. The details of Dylan’s personal faith have not always been clear. What is clear is that Christ, the Bible and Catholicism have provided inspiration throughout the career of one of America’s greatest songwriters.

Conversion to Christianity

Dylan was raised in a small Jewish community in Hibbing, Minnesota. He had a bar mitzvah and attended Jewish summer camp in Wisconsin each year. His turn to Christianity began very suddenly at the age of 38, well after he had risen to the heights of fame. During a concert in San Diego in November 1978, a fan apparently threw a small silver cross — a crucifix by some accounts — toward Dylan onstage. He picked it up and kept it. 

Two days later, in a hotel room in Tucson, Arizona, he experienced a transformative spiritual experience, during which he says he felt Christ visit him and physically place his hand on him. It kick-started a deeply serious conversion to Christianity. Dylan began attending Vineyard, a large evangelical church in Los Angeles that placed a strong emphasis on the end times.

The impact of the conversion on Dylan’s music was abrupt and obvious. 

Later that year, Dylan released Slow Train Coming, the first of three albums in a row made up solely of songs with clear Christian messages. In the song Saved on his 1980 album of the same name. Dylan sings,

By His grace I have been touched,

By His word I have been healed,

By His hand I’ve been delivered,

By His spirit I’ve been sealed.

I’ve been saved

By the blood of the lamb

While evangelical Christians welcomed Dylan’s transformation, many of his fans were not so pleased. It was seen as a significant rupture from his reputation as a leading figure of the ’60s counterculture. 

On tour, Dylan began performing almost exclusively Christian music, joined by backup gospel singers. Concertgoers clamored for his old songs. Anti-Christian protesters began showing up at performances. Critics lambasted the change. So did some fellow giants of ’60s music. The Beatles’ John Lennon responded to Dylan’s song Gotta Serve Somebody by writing the cynical Serve Yourself. Rolling Stones star Keith Richards dismissed Dylan as a “prophet of profit.”

The nature of Dylan’s relationship to Christianity is murky after his gospel period, which concluded in 1981 with his album Shot of Love. He was no longer vocal about his beliefs and, beginning with the 1983 album Infidels, his music lost its explicitly Christian focus. Some speculate that he returned to Judaism or abandoned faith altogether. With private, reclusive Dylan — the “complete unknown” — it is hard to tell.

Christian Lyrical Themes

Regardless of his personal faith commitment, the Bible and the Christian faith have been regular sources of inspiration throughout his lifetime of songwriting. He has treated faith with admiration and reverence. Biblical themes are present from the beginning of his career, as in these early lyrics: 

•  “Through many dark hour I been thinkin’ about this / That Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss.” (With God on Our Side, 1964)
•  “And the first one now / Will later be last” (The Times They Are A-Changin’ 1964) 
•  “Side saddle on the Golden Calf / And on their promises of paradise / You will not hear a laugh / All except inside the Gates of Eden.” (The Gates of Eden, 1965)

In addition to biblical themes, Dylan has drawn on Catholic imagery as well:

•  “My patron saint is a-fighting with a ghost / He’s always off somewhere when I need him most.” (Abandoned Love, 1985)
• “Ring them bells for St. Catherine from the top of the room / Ring them bells from the fortress for the lilies that bloom.” (Ring Them Bells, 1989)
•  “I can hear a sweet voice gently calling / Must be the mother of our Lord.” (Duquesne Whistle, 2012)

In a popular music environment filled with messages that lack any religious depth — or worse, are openly hostile to Christianity — Dylan’s lyrics can feel like a breath of fresh air. 

Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester in Dylan’s home state, and a Dylan devotee since the age of 14, has called the musician “one of the really great spiritual figures of pop culture.”

An Encounter With John Paul II

Dylan’s most high-profile experience with Catholicism came in 1997, when he accepted an invitation to perform before Pope John Paul II and 300,000 young people at the International Eucharistic Congress in Bologna, Italy. Not everyone agreed with the decision to invite the religiously ambiguous Dylan; Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said he was the wrong kind of  “prophet.” 

John Paul, however, saw an opportunity to draw Christian wisdom from Dylan’s lyrics.

Addressing Dylan in front of the crowd, John Paul reflected on his iconic Blowin’ in the Wind. Reflecting on the song’s opening line, “How many roads must a man walk down / before he knows he’s a man,” John Paul reminded the audience that there is only one road for man: the way of Jesus Christ. Of the refrain (“The answer, my friend / is blowin’ in the wind”), he gave encouragement to follow the “breath of life” of the Holy Spirit.

An Interest in Catholicism

One may be tempted to lump Dylan into the “spiritual but not religious crowd.” Or to make him out to be a figure like Jordan Peterson who, while recognizing the beauty and goodness in the faith, refuses to accept any of its theological claims. In a 2022 Wall Street Journal interview, however, Dylan seemed to reject such a characterization: “I’m a religious person,” he said.

The interview offered a rare, though brief, insight into his beliefs. He revealed that he prays and reads Scripture regularly, lights candles in church and even prays to the saints. He expressed a belief in the Old and New Testaments as well as salvation and damnation. Add to that a love for church and sacred music as well as for Father Brown, a British TV series about a crime-solving priest based on the novels of Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton. It makes one wonder whether the 83-year-old Dylan may have yet another surprising transformation in store.