I am going to assume by now that everyone has seen or heard about Kayne West’s new album “Jesus is King.” It is blowing up across the nation especially within the Christian circles and that’s part of where my frustration comes in.
First, let me say that from the outside looking in, I think that Kayne’s life has truly been transformed by Jesus. I am not here to argue that. I celebrate it. I mean just look at his life a year or two ago. Or even his previous albums (on second thought I wouldn’t suggest listening to those other albums). It is awesome to listen to him talk and it sounds like he is genuinely trying to live a life honoring to God. Kayne is disrupting an industry that promotes a lifestyle that is completely opposite of the Christian lifestyle. He is doing it by taking a stand and being different. Is he perfect? No. Does he have a lot to learn? Yes. My prayer for him is that he stays strong and continues to make an impact for the kingdom.
Now back to what has me upset: I have begun to see churches perform songs off of Kayne’s album because it’s “Christian” album. I mean this album has barely been out for a month and churches are trying to emulate Kayne’s Sunday Service Choir in their own Sunday services. My question is why? Why do churches feel the need to do this? Is it to be relevant? To attract new people to their church? I am not against churches trying new methods to reach new people. I think they should be trying new methods and I agree with Paul’s “outreach” technique found 1 Corinthians 9:19-23:
19-23 Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!
(The MSG)
The issue I have is this: For some reason Christians or maybe I should say churches have a strong desire to be liked by culture even while preaching against it. I mean why have they (churches) hitched their wagons to Kayne West? Why is he now like the new spokesperson for all Christians? Is it so “Christians” can finally come out of hiding and say, “See! We are cool because now we have Kayne West.” I loved how before Kayne’s new album pastors especially youth pastors were like, “That Kayne West is a sinner and his music is of the devil! Kids stay away!” But now they are like, “I told you Kayne was amazing. His new album is amazing. You can listen to it because it is Christian!” Yes, I know not all churches have done this but a majority have.
So back to the scripture passage where it says, “I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view.” Paul didn’t begin to act like the crowds he was around but studied them so he could figure out how to introduce the gospel to them in a way that they could understand. (Go check out Acts 17:22-34 to see how Paul did this). He did not take on their lifestyle or try to emulate them but stayed true to the gospel.
I think the main issue for me comes down to the fact that churches in America have lost their backbone. They don’t want to be seen as “judgmental” or “unloving” so they dress up like the culture and then add a little Jesus but not too much because they don’t want to offend anyone. They have “celebrity” pastors who spend obscene amounts of money on their wardrobes just to be cool (Just check out this Instagram account to see what I am talking about Preachersnsneakers). Pastors who do take a biblical stance are usually labeled as being “radical” or just mean because they called out society’s sins. Anymore it seems like churches measure the success of a pastor by how many followers they have and not how faithful they have been to the ministry. I am not against pastor’s having a presence on social media. I think it can be leveraged to reach people just like Paul did but when they lose sight of Jesus then it becomes a problem.
Jesus changed the world by not emulating the culture around him but by living countercultural. He gained followers by speaking the hard truth in love. He constantly pointed to the Father even when people tried to praise Jesus for the great things he did. Jesus was so unliked by the culture that they eventually killed him but that death changed the world. This makes me think of a song by a rapper who sang about Jesus long before Kayne did. Go check out Lecrae’s Rebel.
Yeah I’m a rebel, you know the kind that die in the street
-Lecrae
Cause you refuse to conform won’t eat the king’s meat
Christ rebelled by shunning the culture