Interview explores Bob Dylan's faith

Bob Dylan's "Jesus" Years
Double Oscar-winning composer, Al Kasha, reveals the inside story

By Dan Wooding,

BEVERLY HILL, CA (ANS) -- Al Kasha (born 22 January 1937) is a Brooklyn-born composer, songwriter and arranger, as well as businessman. He is most noted for his years of collaboration with songwriter Joel Hirschhorn.
The songwriting duo won two Oscars for Best Song, "The Morning After" from The Poseidon Adventure in 1972 and "We May Never Love Like This Again" from The Towering Inferno in 1974.

Along with Hirshhorn, Kasha also received two Tony nominations for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Copperfield, two Grammy nominations and an Emmy, as well as four Golden Globe nominations and a People's Choice award. In all, Hirschhorn and Kasha's songs sold over 90 million records.

But Kasha had a terrible secret; he suffered from agoraphobia and for a while would not leave his Beverly Hills home. But one night, Al Kasha, who is Jewish, turned on the TV late a night and at the end of the program, he prayed to receive Jesus Christ as his savior and Messiah.

After studying at theological seminary, he became an ordained Southern Baptist pastor, and then started a weekly Bible study in his home where he would teach with his two Oscars on the piano.

Kasha said that one of the regulars at his Bible study in 1979 was Bob Dylan and at the recent 10th Annual Media Fellowship International Praise Brunch at the Beverly Hill Hotel in Beverly Hills, he agreed to talk about what happened to Dylan for an interview I was doing for Safe World's IPTV and ANS.

"Well Bob's nature is that he's a very much a seeker and he was interested to see why a fellow Jew would come to know Christ," Kasha began. "He started at the Vineyard church and then when we met there, he came to a first Bible study, and at the second bible study, he gave his life to the Lord." I asked Kasha what exactly happened.
"I prayed the prayer of confession, which he repeated, about his sins and that Jesus was the Son of God and is God, and I pointed out to him in John four that 'salvation shall come through the Jews' and that Jesus came to this earth as a Jew. I'm a Jewish believer now going on since nineteen-seventy-eight so it's a long time.

That Bible study started in seventy-nine and never ended until this past year."

Kasha went on to say, "Bob would stay until three or four o'clock in the morning asking me questions beyond my knowledge. The interesting thing is that he felt a comfort that I was a fellow song writer.

"He wrote 'Slow Train Coming' mostly in our home. I gave him a key and

Cover of Slow Train Coming

I'd be sleeping upstairs with my wife (Ceil) and he'd come in at three or four o'clock in the morning, and I'd hear him picking as he felt a kind of Holy Spirit comfort."

Sadly, Dylan eventually appeared to move away from his born-again faith, and so I asked Kasha where he thought Dylan was today spiritually.

"I think he's a little confused spiritually," he said. "If you want to know the truth, and I always try to be as honest as possible, I think some Christians took advantage of him. 

They would tell him, 'Go out and sing for nothing.' Why should he sing for nothing if he's being paid by other people?' So I think that that bothered and hurt him. But if you look at his life, even before he was saved, he always wrote a song about Jesus. And, as a believer, I believe once you're saved, you're saved forever; you really are. Once that Word has been in you your conscience it will never leave you and Christ will never leave you or forsake you never."

So did Kasha believe that Dylan is still seeking the truth?

"Yes, I believe that he is still seeking and he has never renounced his faith," he said.
For more information on Al Kasha, go to www.alkasha.com.

Note to the broadcast media: An MP 3 audio file of this interview is available for broadcast from Dan Wooding. Just send him a message at danjuma1@aol.com and state which radio station or network you represent, and he will e-mail it to you. (This is not for personal use.)

I would like to thank Robin Frost for transcribing this interview.

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Dan Wooding, 67, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma of 45 years. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS); and US Bureau Chief for the Missionaries News Service (www.missionariesnews.tv) and Safe Worlds IPTV's Christian News Services. He was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. Wooding He is also the author of some 42 books, the latest of which is his autobiography, "From Tabloid to Truth", which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, go to www.fromtabloidtotruth.com. E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com.

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