Rock star Bruce Springsteen and evangelical thriller author Jerry B. Jenkins were both born on September 23 in 1949 — Springsteen in Freehold, New Jersey, and Jenkins in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Springsteen has released dozens of hit albums and singles since his 1973 debut Greetings from Asbury Park. Jenkins also got his start in 1973, coincidentally, with a paperback titled You CAN Get Thru to Teens. He has since published (by his count) over 175 books — the most famous being the apocalyptic Left Behind series, which he wrote with Tim LaHaye.
It’s actually easy to imagine Bruce Springsteen as an apocalyptic preacher of some kind (especially with that cross in his ear), but a little harder to imagine Jerry Jenkins singing “Born to Run.”
(There seems to be some kind of trend with evangelicals and musician birthday twins: Stephen Sondheim and Pat Robertson were also born on the same day.)
See our full biographies of Bruce Springsteen and Jerry B. Jenkins.