"Are 'Christian' and 'rap' mutually exclusive? Hardly."

More proof that Mark Dever is not one of us.

Who is us? I don’t even know who you are. I’m Presbyterian, so if “us” means Presbyterian, then I guess Dever’s not one of us, although I’m not sure what that has to do with rap. ;)

By the way, the link on your signature goes to an expired domain.

Did you listen to the interview? Dever said that fundamentalists listen to these interviews although by the time he asked a question about the style of music being “inherantly sinful” he said that the fundamentalists who listen would have already turned off the interview.

Anyway, Shai’s answer was weak - let’s be objective about what we call inherantly sinful, but when it comes to the arts, it’s relative. Since when is “the arts” not subject to the objective truth of God’s word and God’s mind? Who is the one who ultimately assigns beauty to something? It is God not “your ears”. So, how do we go about finding out what God considers beautiful? We look at how close does it represent the holiness and character of Jesus Christ.

Christian rappers need to make a convincing case for how their style of “music” so called, reflects the holiness of God. These guys just like to say “it’s a cultural thing and that makes it all ok!” No. How does this kind of music (excluding lyrics) reflect the beauty and holiness of God? I would really like to hear them give me a “what’s holy about it” instead of defending “what’s wrong with it?” kind of attitude.

Whether Rap can be redeemed in any way or not is one of the questions on my “Not worth the trouble to answer” list. What I mean is, I can’t bring myself to see anything in Rap worth even trying to redeem.
To put it another way, what would our culture or the Christian faith lose if there was no Rap? Speaking optimistically—not much. So I’m making a pragmatic argument here… you can’t Christianize everything and on the list of things to try to put to good use, Rap would be long forgotten before I got around to seriously trying to find a good use for it (and I would not live that long… say, two centuries?). Just a snob, I guess. :)

[Aaron Blumer] Whether Rap can be redeemed in any way or not is one of the questions on my “Not worth the trouble to answer” list. What I mean is, I can’t bring myself to see anything in Rap worth even trying to redeem.
To put it another way, what would our culture or the Christian faith lose if there was no Rap? Speaking optimistically—not much. So I’m making a pragmatic argument here… you can’t Christianize everything and on the list of things to try to put to good use, Rap would be long forgotten before I got around to seriously trying to find a good use for it (and I would not live that long… say, two centuries?). Just a snob, I guess. :)

Aaron, I think there is a confusion of issues here. The “Christian faith” is composed of people in particular social contexts. Your use of “our culture” begs the question, since rap is a part of some Christians’ culture. The question is not whether middle class white people raised in Fundamentalist churches that deplore post-1950s music should appropriate rap, but rather, what should people for whom rap is already a component of life do with rap? One option is to say that they should just drop it. Another option is to say that they can and should Christianize it. Either way, a “pragmatic argument” certainly isn’t going to be decisive.

Aaron, well to our “civilized” (aka white) culture, rap may not convey much value at all. But, perhaps this art form is a way one can communicate to other cultures in a more meaningful way than can Scott Aniol’s style of music.

the line is basically - is a drum machine with a bass sinful or not. - Is that objectively or relatively sinful or not sinful. I think most of us are pretty comfortable on one side of the line or the other.

I’ve never heard Shai Linne or Voice (or any other Christian rap for that matter), but it’s not responsible to toss all rap in the same basket. There’s a respected and established line of rap that repudiates the common perception of hip hop culture. I’m no expert on rap, but I’m informed on rap history by a good friend of mine is a believer and a musician. He uses rap, though not exclusively rap, in his music. Though his work is not “Christian music” it is certainly thoughtful, responsible, and not at all out of bounds for a believer, in my opinion.

To answer Charlie, “us” means Fundamentalists (isn’t that what unites us on SI?).

I do realize that our church’s Website is currently down. I did not know so many people visited it until it went down! :-) Our “shadetree Webmaster” hasn’t paid our hosting fee yet.

If rap can be used in other contexts, then it isn’t inherently sinful, at least.

Nothing is unclean of itself. Nothing is wrong inherently. Of course, there are other reasons you might have for finding it sinful. But not reasons inherent to the style.

So, no, of course, as long as we’re going to obey Scripture, rap and Christian are not mutually exclusive.

To be fair to these guys, they both said that their music is not condusive to Sunday morning worship but that it could still convey Biblical truth. They also said that their art form is not anywhare near the level of preaching. I was impressed with their testimonies and understanding of Biblical truth. I guess here is where it gets interesting. I do not condone the use of rap, but there many songs that we (as fundamentalists) have sung in our churches for years that don’t reach the doctrinal level these gentlman’s music does (I listened to two songs on youtube). I think the reason that we are having so many YF’s be more open to doctrinally good music like this because for years we have allowed shallow silly music in our services. I am reminded of the thread on the old SI, “you know you are a fundamentalists If.” One was when in the same services where CCM is condemed for being shallow, you sing. “Are you downhearted.” That was funny at the time because it is true. We did do alot of that.

What really gets me upset with guys like John Piper is that anything goes as long as they claim to be Calvinists - christian rap, cussing preachers, whatever, as long as it has the reformed label, it has to be “God centered” as if the two were mutually exclusive and so anything that claims to be so.

[Dan Miller] If rap can be used in other contexts, then it isn’t inherently sinful, at least.

Nothing is unclean of itself. Nothing is wrong inherently. Of course, there are other reasons you might have for finding it sinful. But not reasons inherent to the style.

So, no, of course, as long as we’re going to obey Scripture, rap and Christian are not mutually exclusive.

This is the point I was driving at in my nearly incoherent post. Sorry all - was on the way out the door to get good off-the-ears-and-collar haircut. ;)