Somehow I did not acquire the fire. But I remember the fire quite well: the columns of flame, the lingering smoke, the ear-splitting loudness that I kept trying not to get startled by. It was the mid-’90s, and for reasons I don’t entirely remember, I had accepted an invite from a friend to a teen religious-revival event, Acquire the Fire, which happened at an arena in, I think, Lansing.

These gatherings, presented by a Christian ministry called Teen Mania, took place all over the country, as the evangelical church sought to build a youth movement in opposition to mainstream culture, appealing to kids with an explosive multi-media spectacle tailored to the MTV generation.

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