The Question of the Christianity of Kanye West

In the kitchen of our church building today I watched a toddler girl stick her hand into the trash, pull out a piece of soggy food, and bite into it before her mother could stop her.  I'm sure there was something nutritional to that bite.  Maybe it was a decent leftover that had just hit the top of the heap.  Even though I laughed, I understood her mom's disapproval.  It's not acceptable to pick through the garbage for food.  That's also how it is to find something good in the Kanye West, Jesus Is King, album.  Whatever good nibbles are in there, and there are a few, are ruined by everything around them.  They do not testify to the heart and life of a saved person, which is reinforced by what Kanye said in interviews in the weeks around the release of the album.

Considering all the lyrics and their medium, they're common and profane.  They aren't worshipful, solemn, or reverent, requirements for biblical worship.  They are not holy or acceptable unto God.  They are conformed to this world.  They're not good either.  They are lustful, childish, silly, and inappropriate.  They are on the level of Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham, which isn't even right for children's literature, except as a joke.  They are not transcendent, substantial, or beautiful.  They are trite and trashy.

Kanye writes:

What have you been hearin' from the Christians?
They'll be the first one to judge me
Make it feel like nobody love me
They'll be the first one to judge me
Feelin' like nobody love me
Told people God was my mission
What have you been hearin' from the Christians?
They'll be the first one to judge me
Make it feel like nobody love me

I'm going to use the second person often through the rest of this piece.  We love you Kanye.  Paul wrote the church at Thessalonica, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."  Your album is not good.  That's what you be hearin' from this Christian.  If Christians do say your album is bad, and Brad Pitt, Katy Perry, and David Letterman say it is good, you should pay attention to the Christians.  Don't expect Christians to give approval to false worship and continued sin.

Leave the public eye like the Apostle did after he was converted on the road to Damascus, if you are really converted.  Follow the description of repentance in 2 Corinthians 7:10-11 and the example of Zaccheus in Luke 19.  Spend time first getting distance from your former life.  Move off of the entire licentious, pornographic scene. Stop promoting yourself.  Learn your Bible and what it teaches first.  You don't know it.  Your theology is bad.  Much of what you say is unbiblical, but it's also disrespectful as a proclamation of worship.

Rap is more than just another genre, unlike your "pastor" told you.  You were much closer to the truth, when you told him, "Rap is of the devil."  It isn't fitting as worship of God.  God doesn't receive it.  It isn't lovely.  Stop saying things like the following in Jesus the King:

I've been tellin' y'all since '05
The greatest artist restin' or alive
That's on L.A. Reid, that's on Clive
That's no Jive, that's on God
Off the 350s He supplied
The IRS want they fifty plus our tithe
Man, that's over half of the pie
I felt dry, that's on God
That's why I charge the prices that I charge
I can't be out here dancin' with the stars
No, I cannot let my family starve
I go hard, that's on God

To start, who complains about the IRS in a worship song?  God has more power than the Internal Revenue Service of the United States.  More so, the "on God" concept of your lyrics, Kanye, is blasphemous.  Jesus said in Matthew 5:33-37 in His Sermon on the Mount:

33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:  34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: 35 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. 36 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.  37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

This is a flippant use of God's name, that is, God's name in vain.  Not only are you not "the greatest artist restin' or alive," but it's proud to say it.  Just saying these things you do and enunciating the name of God along side of them is profane.  Consider the following verses of scripture:

1 Chronicles 16:25 says, "For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised: he also is to be feared above all gods."
Psalm 48:1, "Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness."
Psalm 145:3, "Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable."

Your music isn't great, Kanye.  It isn't appropriate for God.  It isn't holy.  It isn't sacred.  It isn't even gospel, like you and others claim, even though "gospel music" itself is not historic, biblical worship.  It arose in the late 19th century as a means of manipulation and pandering to a fleshly crowd under the guise of promoting the gospel.  The gospel is to be preached, not sung to an audience, like what you are doing.

Somebody who is saved has all the power of the universe within him.  Scripture doesn't teach like your choir sings:  "Sing till the power of the Lord comes down."  The believer yields to the Holy Spirit, Who, as God, has all power.  Singing won't bring the power of the Lord down.  This is a perversion of the power of God.  This is "second blessing" experience promoted by the same charismaticism that originated from the same source as "gospel music."  The way your choir Kanye swings its hips fits more into this ecstatic charismatic "worship," then true biblical worship, acceptable to God.

Watching a young man give Kanye an only positive review on youtube, he brought forth the idea espoused by Charlie Pride that there are "three basic ingredients in American music:  country, gospel, and the blues" -- which isn't true.  Country, gospel, and the blues are not sacred and sacred music exists in America, is truly the original music of the American people.  Perhaps someone could say those other three are the foundation of wicked, worldly pop music, but those are not the basis of sacred music, which isn't popular music.  Those three and all the genres proceeding from them are not sacred and not fitting of the nature of God.

The music of the Pilgrims wasn't country, gospel, or the blues.  It was sacred.  The churches of early America sang sacred music, hymns and psalms.  The very first book published in the entirety of British North America was the Bay Psalm Book, first printed in 1640 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  The title page reads:

Whereunto is prefixed a discourse

declaring not only the lawfullness, but also

the necessity of the heavenly Ordinance

of singing Scripture Psalmes in

the Churches of God.

The churches of God in early America sang Psalms.  Someone filled with the Spirit will sing to God psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Ephesians 5:18-19, Colossians 3:16-17).  Jesus the King does not fit that teaching.  It doesn't read like anything close to the music God's people have used to worship Him.

Something gospel is also not, as the Apostle Paul wrote, "greedy of filthy lucre," and as Peter taught, "making merchandise of you."  But as Rolling Stone reported:

At Coachella this year, you could buy $50 socks emblazoned with the phrase “Jesus Walks.” At four Jesus Is King: A Kanye West Experience events held in Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, in honor of an album that missed two release dates, he sold Christian-inspired sweaters for $140. 

This isn't about -- "I can't let my family starve."  Laced through your lyrics and in your interviews is a prosperity theology in which you declare that being a Christian is a way to greater monetary gain, when Jesus called it, "Deny thyself, take thy cross, and follow me."  Nobody begrudges a Christian of earning a living.  He should earn a living, but no one should profit off of God.  God isn't a commodity.  The Apostle Paul said it confuses the gospel.

In the positive review of Kanye I referenced earlier, the deceived or rebellious young man said Kanye will bring unity to the country with his Jesus Is King.  Radio host Glenn Beck said with complete seriousness that he thinks that Jesus Is King might be the start of another Great Awakening.  No and no.

Unity and great awakening arise from the truth of scripture practiced in a biblical manner.  They will start with being poor in spirit, mourning over sin, and yielding to the control of the Lordship of Christ.  Unity includes biblical separation, because Jesus came not to bring peace, but to bring a sword.  When God destroyed the earth with a flood, eight people only were in unity, and that was all the unity, the only unity God would accept.  He killed everyone else.  God has chosen the foolishness of preaching to save them who believe.  That is the way to unity.  So much is lacking and mostly contradictory to biblical unity and spiritual life coming from Kanye West.