By Jeremiah Tucker

Globe columnist

What I enjoyed the most about "Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon of Christian Rock" was author Andrew Beaujon's casual, fish-out-of-water observations of "hip," evangelical Christian culture. At one point, Beaujon winds up attending a Christian hip-hop (a phrase a few white guys shy of being oxymoronic) showcase and he wrote: "The headliners weren't scheduled to go on for another couple of hours, and the Christian comedian on stage was explaining the difference between black and white women when it comes to punctuality. Bedtime, I decided."

Here is his assessment of youth pastors in public and on the job: "At Christian rock festivals, it's the adults who dress wacky- turning out in full kilt dress, for instance, or an Oompa Loompa outfit. These people are youth pastors."

If "Body Piercing" was a bunch of clever observations from a foreign traveler wandering through modern Christendom collated into a breezy "Christianity in America," then I would have still happily read Beaujon's book. Luckily, he doesn't settle. God bless him, he actually set out to try and understand contemporary Christian music and by extension the insular, bizarre culture that has made it so popular and profitable.

In the beginning (a little Genesis throwback for you), Beaujon makes it clear he is not a Christian. I don't want to spoil the ending for you, but he isn't converted in an emotionally climactic scene involving a Jars of Clay encore. Nope, by the end he's still the same, self-professed lazy abstainer he was in the beginning - albeit with a better appreciation of "Awesome God." Beaujon's tone, however, while lighthearted, doesn't have a hidden agenda. He isn't condescending or mean-spirited, which is what the book would have devolved into if I were the author and had been subjected to the unedited Dove awards, the Christian equivalent of the Grammys. Beaujon even goes so far as to write that Stryper had a few good tunes.

Beaujon begins his story at the Coner stone Festival, the Christian Lollapalooza, before tracing the origin of modern Christian pop culture back to the "Jesus Movement" of the '70s, when a bunch of hippies formed bands, swapped religious ecstasy for acid trips and took their hirsute, smelly culture to church - hence the subsequent generations of youth groups who have been subjected to numerous sermons beginning with, "Hey, man, I know what it's like to be young and party. I get it." From there, Beaujon covers a lot of ground, and miles. He profiled the successful independent Christian label Tooth & Nail in Seattle, attended church at the booming Mars Hill Church in San Francisco, where thousands of young people didn't balk at the idea of dating being tantamount to prostitution ("courting" is the only acceptable alternative) or that women were inferior to men, and attended both mainstream and alternative Christian music conferences and festivals. Along the way, a portrait of modern Christian pop culture began to take shape.

Madonna is less image -conscious than the contemporary Christian music industry. Beaujon cites numerous examples of former Christian superstars ruined for transgressions that most supermarket tabloids wouldn't bother reporting, even if Mrs. Federline were involved. Boycotts were prompted by Amy Grant telling Rolling Stone she liked to sunbathe nude. Brandon Ebel, the head of Tooth & Nail, prefaced nearly every utterance, no matter how innocuous, with "Don't put this in the book." Staunch Christian artist Sixpence None the Richer's smash single "Kiss Me" prompted the Gospel Music Association to rewrite its guidelines in order to disqualify it from being eligible for a Dove award (presumably because it was pro-kissing) even though Switchfoot, a band whose lyrics and image are as ambiguous and teasing about their Christian status as T.A.T.U. was about its sexuality, cleaned up at the Dove awards this year. Beaujon also makes a good case for the Christian music industry supporting more than a whiff of racism.

If Christianity as a business and cultural force comes off as unappealing, most of the Christians Beaujon interviews are rendered as intelligent and genuinely caring individuals. Many of them were also critical, to varying degrees, of the laziness that surrounds a lot of Christian music and of Christians' sometime unreasonable fear of secular pop culture. My favorite characters were the Christians who were uncomfortable with how Christianity had been appropriated, but like modern martyrs, refused to abandon their faith.

Perhaps no character in the book was disgusted with what Christianity has come to connote in modern America than David Bazan, whose songs of crises of faith and critiques of the Christian milieu under the recording name of Pedro the Lion have earned him a fanatical following in Christian circles. When someone in the crowd at Cornerstone asked if he were still a Christian, he answered that he didn't consider himself a Christian because he wouldn't want his identity to infer that he had voted for George Bush or against gay marriage, even though in the chapter Beaujon wrote about Bazan, it is clear that Christianity is still a huge part of his life.

Some of "Body Piercing" feels like padding, such as the Q&A sessions between chapters and the chapter on abortion where you could almost sense Beaujon adapting to the dearth of Christian music insiders willing to grant him an interview. By the end of the book, I'm not sure Beaujon achieved the understanding of Christian rock and its bizzaro image of American pop culture. Although, "Body Piercing" doesn't end with any profound Revelations, the real treat was the trip to a place not many foreigners venture and all the fascinating detours and people Beaujon pointed out along the way - an accomplishment I would venture deserves a Job well done. (Give it up for Bible punning! I'll be here next week.)