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Michael Card (born April 11, 1957) is an American, Christian singer-songwriter, musician, author, and radio host from Franklin, Tennessee. He is best known for his contributions in contemporary Christian music, which combine folk-style melodies and instrumentation with an in-depth study of the Bible. Since his debut in 1981, Card has sold more than 4 million albums and has written 19 No. 1 singles.He has also authored several books, including the Gold Medallion Book Award winner, A Sacred Sorrow.
Card was born in Madison, Tennessee. He is the son of a doctor and the grandson of a Baptist minister. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biblical studies from Western Kentucky University, and was awarded university’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1997. His studies in physics and astronomy led to a job at a planetarium, allowing Card to fund his education. In 2005,[needs update] Card worked on a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) in Classical Literature.
Card got his start as a professional musician when his professor and mentor, William L. Lane, asked him to write some music to accompany weekly sermons at their church. Card’s friend and fellow musician, Randy Scruggs, then requested that Card record a demo tape to help Scruggs get a job as a producer. The record label agreed to hire Scruggs as long as his first project featured Card. Since then, Card has released thirty two original albums and six compilation albums. Card’s project, Starkindler, is composed of Card’s interpretations of traditional Celtic hymns. The compilations often include one or two new songs along with previously released material. With the exception of Starkindler and Hymns, Card writes a vast majority of the music he records.
Many of Card’s albums are structured around a unifying theme. The songs from The Beginning are all based on the Pentateuch. The individual songs have subjects such as Genesis, Leviticus, Abraham, Isaac and Moses. Card is particularly adept at relating difficult or obscure concepts from the Old Testament to more understandable themes from the New Testament. The song Jubilee concerns the period of rest and the release from debts and slavery commanded in the Jubilee year as described in Leviticus 25, but also relates to the rest and freedom from condemnation offered through Jesus.
Card’s most famous song is “El Shaddai”, which was also recorded by Amy Grant. Grant’s recording was named No. 326 on the RIAA’s list of 365 Songs of the Century in 2001. Other popular Card songs include Immanuel, Joy in the Journey, and Heal Our Land. Heal Our Land was commissioned as the 1993 National Day of Prayer’s theme song.
Despite his success in music, Card has always maintained that his music career is secondary to his calling as a Bible teacher. He has distanced himself from the CCM industry by criticizing the promotion of personalities over musical content and the shifting emphasis away from God to sell more albums.
In 2008, alongside the By/For Project, Card produced and contributed vocals and songs to the album Sweet Sacrifice, collaborating with Seattle, Washington based artists Brian Moss, Molly McCue, and Kurt Dyrhsen. The album was made available for free on ByFor.org under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
In 2019, Card released the album, To the Kindness of God, featuring 7 new original songs, 2 hymn covers, and one new arrangement of one of Card’s earlier songs, “Song of Gomer” (here renamed “Gomer’s Song”), which first appeared on the album The Word: Recapturing the Imagination. Prior to its release, Card announced that it would be his final full-length album, but also clarifying that he was not yet retiring from music in general, or writing new music.
Michael Card is the author or co-author of twenty-two books. He originally started writing as a way to share the knowledge he accumulated while researching his songs. He found his studies were too in-depth to condense everything he had learned into one short piece. The books that resulted from album research bear the same titles as the albums. He then branched out to other subjects not specifically based on his music, such as the Gospel of John, homeschooling, and Christian discipleship and mentoring. In 2014, Card completed the Biblical Imagination Series, a four-volume set which takes a deeper look at each of the gospels and the voice of the writers behind them. He followed up on the Biblical Imagination Series next by releasing a new book (and album) on the subject of the Hebrew word חֶסֶד (ḥesed), an idea which he first explored in his two books on lament (A Sacred Sorrow and The Hidden Face of God). The book is about the bibliography of the word throughout the Old Testament, and how we can start to understand this word that is so often used to describe God and cannot be precisely expressed in the English language by the context in which it is used. The book was called Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God’s Lovingkindness, and was released at the end of 2018.
In addition to touring and writing, Card also hosted a weekly radio program, In the Studio with Michael Card. It was carried by stations in 48 states, Canada, and the Caribbean. It was also available via Internet streaming audio and as a podcast.[non-primary source needed] The show was an amalgam of talk, musical performances, and Bible study. The show ceased production in March 2009 but was then revived in the form of a podcast on June 18, 2018, with a mix of completely new and classic material.
