The Journey from Rock and Roll to the Lutheran Pulpit: A Conversation with Reverend Mark Kleiner

This is the twelfth episode of the second season of What Matters Most and features Reverend Mark Kleiner from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Mark is open, vulnerable, and honest, about the role of the Gospel in his life, his past struggles with alcoholism, his rock n’ roll life, and his passion for men’s health.

As Mark said in the podcast, and as you can find on the Christ Church website, he is the son of the son of a preacher man, with both his grandfather and father serving as Lutheran pastors and as professors at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon. That same website says that “Pastor Mark Kleiner spent much of his youth trying to chart a path far removed from the ‘family business’ of ordained ministry. Following a spectacularly disastrous attempt at rock n roll stardom on the West Coast in the 1990s, Mark returned to his prairie roots in Saskatoon and eventually attended theological school. “To my surprise, and initially to my horror, I realized I actually wanted to be a pastor,” he now says. In 2011 Mark received a call to St Paul’s Anglican Parish and Redeemer Lutheran Church in Biggar, SK, where he lived and served until receiving and accepting the call from Christ Church in 2016.”

I’m not sure Mark’s attempt at rock n roll stardom was “spectacularly disastrous,” because the songs are great and the feedback I get from people who saw his bands and heard him play was that it was terrific music. The songs today say the same thing. A 2019 story from Vancouver is Awesome remembers him as an indie pop hero about town. But stardom itself was not to be and alcoholism accompanied the rock n’ roll, something that Mark is open and gracious about discussing. The 2019 story remembers Mark as “one of the all time great characters from the 1990s Vancouver music scene, who often served as the hilarious and wasted ringmaster of the house parties.” He has battled alcoholism through twelve step programs. Those of you who remember the Dawn Eden Goldstein episode on this podcast where we discuss her book Fr. Ed will remember that one of the first twelve step programs, AA, has deep spiritual roots, much of which came through Fr. Ed, the spiritual mentor and guide for Bill. Kleiner took his last drink of alcohol on April 6, 2002. About his show in 2019, the story says, “for Kleinz’s musical disciples, his rare upcoming Vancouver show this weekend is nothing short of biblical. For the first time ever, it involves incarnations of all of Kleinz’s former bands on one bill. Fittingly, it’s at Kleinz’s former hall of worship, where he first started to see the light at the end of the ’90s: Spirit of Life Lutheran Church at 375 West 10th Avenue.” 

By the way, the band name Jungle came from a Dwight Twilley Album, and Sister Lovers came from a Big Star album. If you have not listened to these bands and singers, you should! Track them down. Some Dwight Twilley tunes you should listen to right now: Looking for the Magic; I'm On Fire; Why You Wanna Break My Heart; Darlin'. Big Star, and its leading force Alex Chilton, recorded some great albums. Take a listen to these songs: In Love with A Girl; and When My Baby's Beside Me. The Cowsills had a few big hits, apart from inspiring the Partridge Family TV show, but the biggest was The Rain, The Park, and Other Things (Love the Flower Girl). Mark also is a Monkees expert and you can find his podcast on the Monkees at this link. 

Here are links to a few songs by Mark Kleiner himself. One is Beautiful Slide, another is Fell in Love With the Girl, and Good to See You, all of which deserve to be hits, though I have no idea how Fell in Love with the Girl did not become a hit. And if you listen to the Mark Kleiner Power Trio’s version of Baby It’s You, a Phil Seymour song – Phil was a part of the Dwight Twilley Band before striking out on its own and one of my favorite rock n’ roll vocalists of all time – I am certain Mark’s vocals transcend the great Phil Seymour’s. Amazing.

What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark’s College that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, members of other religious traditions, and from those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation.

Thanks to Martin Strong, Kevin Eng, and Fang Fang Chandra for all of their help and support in crafting this and all the other episodes. I also want to thank our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. In addition, the Cullen Family, Mark and Barbara, continue to support the work and outreach of the CCE, particularly in our lecture series. 

Since St. Mark’s Centre for Christian Engagement seeks to enable the creation of a culture of encounter and dialogue, let me invite you into that discussion. Send me questions, send me ideas for guests, send me comments. Please follow me on Twitter @biblejunkies, or on Facebook, at Biblejunkies, or on Instagram @stmarkscce. Or email me at jmartens@stmarkscollege.ca. Let me know what you think.

I also want to ask you to help out by letting people know about the podcast. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let your friends know. You can also let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. This lets people find the podcast more easily and lets people like you enjoy the work that we are doing. I think these are important and inspiring discussions and I would like people to have a chance to listen in!

 

John W. Martens

Director, Centre for Christian Engagement, St. Mark's College at UBC