"Either be hot or cold. If you are lukewarm, the Lord will spew you forth from His mouth"
About this Quote
Leave it to Jerry Lee Lewis to take a biblical threat and make it sound like a career manifesto. “Either be hot or cold” isn’t gentle spiritual advice; it’s an ultimatum that matches the way Lewis played piano: all throttle, no tasteful middle. The image does the work. Being “spewed” is bodily, humiliating, a public ejection. Lukewarm isn’t just boring, it’s nauseating. That’s the punchline and the warning rolled into one: moderation isn’t virtue, it’s rejection.
The intent reads as both sermon and self-defense. Lewis grew up in the Pentecostal South, where Revelation’s condemnation of the lukewarm is familiar thunder, and where music, sin, and salvation are braided tightly enough to strangle you. He spent his life being told he was either a vessel or a contaminant, holy fire or hellfire. So he grabs that verse and turns it into a standard for authenticity: commit fully, even if the commitment is messy.
The subtext is a refusal of respectability politics. Lewis didn’t want to be tolerated; he wanted to be feared, adored, excommunicated - anything but politely filed away. In a culture that prizes brand-safe likability, “lukewarm” is code for compromise: the watered-down self you perform to stay employable, palatable, forgiven. Lewis weaponizes disgust to argue that half-measures aren’t neutral. They’re a kind of lie.
The intent reads as both sermon and self-defense. Lewis grew up in the Pentecostal South, where Revelation’s condemnation of the lukewarm is familiar thunder, and where music, sin, and salvation are braided tightly enough to strangle you. He spent his life being told he was either a vessel or a contaminant, holy fire or hellfire. So he grabs that verse and turns it into a standard for authenticity: commit fully, even if the commitment is messy.
The subtext is a refusal of respectability politics. Lewis didn’t want to be tolerated; he wanted to be feared, adored, excommunicated - anything but politely filed away. In a culture that prizes brand-safe likability, “lukewarm” is code for compromise: the watered-down self you perform to stay employable, palatable, forgiven. Lewis weaponizes disgust to argue that half-measures aren’t neutral. They’re a kind of lie.
Quote Details
| Topic | Bible |
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