Antedating of "Happy Clappy"

[Shapiro, Fred]

There is an interesting website, www.dictionaryofchristianese.com<http://www.dictionaryofchristianese.com>, which presents OED-style historical citations for terms from "Christianese," which I don't understand very well but which appears to mean something like the informal language of contemporary Christianity.  In general, the terms are not included in OED, or OED has the same or earlier first uses, but here is one antedating yielded by the website:

happy clappy (OED 1990)

1984 _Drum_ (Johannesburg, South Africa) 14/1-2 88  Who would have thought that his mother's futile efforts to turn him into a happy-clappy Bible thumper would have come in so handy?

While I'm at it, here's an antedating of "happy clappy" as a noun (OED 1990):

1988 _Sydney Morning Herald_ 14 Apr. (Nexis)  Pentecostal services are full of daning and up-beat singing ... which is why Pentecostals are nicknamed "happy clappies."

Fred Shapiro

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