Smith at Universal Wasn’t Too Tempting

No, they haven’t added a “Last Temptation of Christ” ride to the Universal Studios Tour. All that Jesus stuff Saturday night was just the Michael W. Smith concert at the Universal Amphitheatre.

While there was plenty of Christ, there was little sense of temptation--or anything to test and challenge faith. Smith and his seven-piece band’s show merely served to affirm the values of a Christian life, no less (or more) than L.A. Guns affirms a party life as, well, righteous.

The temptation for Smith would appear to be the “George Michael of Christian pop” tag he’s been given. Toward the end of the show he even donned a Michael-like blue jeans and leather jacket outfit and engaged in the silliest of several sillily choreographed dance routines.

Let’s pretend for a minute that Smith is not a Christian popster, that his show dealt with the conventional mainstream pop concerns of love and/or lust. What you would have then would be just a slick, cliched, gimmicky contempo-pop show--and probably an empty house, as the enthusiastic, youthful sell-out crowd was clearly there because of the Christian themes. The gospel truth is there wasn’t much Saturday to tempt a non-Christian.