Mohler: "people who would argue about the unworthiness of rap music often think of Bach as the quintessential Christian musician"

Having grown up on the south side of Chicago and now ministering just north of Detroit for nearly 30 years, I can appreciate the racial sensitiveness being expressed. Our church sponsors nine “Boys and Girls Bible Clubs” in Detroit proper and the surrounding communities. We work with many black students, teachers, and leaders. Our clubs have great success in the varied ethnic environments that surround our church. In all of our clubs we use conservative, traditional hymns and Christian songs. None of our constituents misunderstand our songs, the lyrics, the beautiful melodies, or the stories taught. It is simply not true that one must borrow from the hip hop genre to communicate to the black community. Since that genre from the beginning has been closely associated with the worst elements of criminal violence, gang identification, sexual indulgence, misogynist attitudes, and unbridled passions as much of the rock industry has done for decades, I think it best in the spirit of Philippians 4:8 to use a worship expression that is free from those elements.

[Mike Harding]

Since that genre from the beginning has been closely associated with the worst elements of criminal violence, gang identification, sexual indulgence, misogynist attitudes, and unbridled passions as much of the rock industry has done for decades, I think it best in the spirit of Philippians 4:8 to use a worship expression that is free from those elements.

Actually, the beginnings of hip-hop and rap, going back to the late 1970’s and 1980’s did not have the worst elements that you describe. Maybe some sexual indulgences but hardly any of the other. In fact, much of the music dealt with certain social/economic issues and the music was created to be an alternative to violence and criminal activity. It was in the early 1990’s when hip-hop was marketed more mainstream and became much more commercial that the criminal violence, gang identification, even more and more sexual indulgences, misogynist attitudes, and etc…., took the genre down a path of depravity that you describe. Even in the 1990’s there were many hip-hop artists that did not embrace the elements you describe, but they did not get the commercial exposure because sex and violence sells, and the gatekeepers within the record labels pushed the depraved and shallow elements because it was making so much money.

I appreciate the work Mike’s church is doing in Detroit. Yet I wonder if “clubs” done in these areas are an accurate measurement of the impact of music. I also wonder if there are church plants in Detroit which have found a way to incorporate elements of rap. If so, I’d like to hear from them.

I’m not a rap connoisseur and don’t listen to it regularly, mostly because it’s not part of my culture. I have listened to some Reformed Rap from Shai Linne and others and have found some of it interesting and refreshing. I loved his song on prosperity preachers. This past summer our church did an outreach with an African American church. Rap was part of that and communicated in that venue better than Bach ever could. It can be a powerful medium for the gospel.

With the men on the panel the opinions were fairly predictable. I am looking forward to the discussion between Scott Aniol and Shai Linne who charitably disagree and yet are able to treat each other fully as brothers in Christ without the righterism exhibited by some who feel they know what’s best, not only for their own geographically/demographically limited, culturally bound and conditioned viewpoints, but know best for others as well. Once they ride the high horse on this they leave behind a lot of manure and aren’t taken seriously. I’m with Thabiti Anywabwile that “I wish the video had been left in the obscurity it deserves.” But I’m glad that he and others are responding. It’s revealing.

Steve Davis

I thought this was a really good rebuttal article, and wanted to share some of it.

http://www.mikedcosper.com/home/creation-culture-redemption-and-hip-hop…

In a conversation like this, we are quick to say things like, “these guys don’t get culture,” and I think that’s true. But if we stop there, it’s probably too generous. Not only do they not get culture, they don’t get creation. Culture and creation are inextricably linked, and to talk about one is to talk about the other.

Culture is what happens when image bearers live and work in creation. We were made when God took dust, shaped it, breathed life into it, and it became something new. That’s both our origin story, and the origin story of everything we’ve made: trees and rocks become homes; petroleum products, plastics and metals become cars and iPhones. Culture is image bearers playing and working in creation.

After all, what is music? The most rudimentary definition is that it’s sound arranged in time, and clearly both sound and time are God’s ideas. He made creation so that it hums and buzzes and resonates. He wasn’t surprised when Stradivarius found a violin hiding in a maple tree, or when Leo Fender found a Telecaster in a block of ash, and he wasn’t surprised when DJ Grandmaster Flash (amongst others) started mixing vinyl records and beats to give birth to Hip Hop. Even the idea of sampling is derivative of the Creator’s imagination: have you ever heard sound echo in a canyon?

To dismiss these cultural artifacts as evil is to give the devil far more credit than he’s due. He’s never made anything, he’s only corrupted. Human handiwork, too, is always and only derivative; we haven’t so much invented as we’ve discovered. We are merely “Thinking God’s thoughts after him,” as Johannes Kepler once said. God is the first musician, the first inventor, the brains behind it all, including hip hop. He is the greatest DJ in history. The Providential Producer of every good thing…

Culture is the milieu that emerges when lots of image bearers start playing and working with creation, and in a fallen world, it’s always a mixed bag of glory and tragedy. It’s glorious because humanity is glorious. We are shockingly imaginative, capable of great compassion and generosity. It’s tragic because we’re blind and broken, capable of hatefulness, selfishness, murder and exploitation.

Wisdom recognizes that all cultures are just such a mixed bag. This is just as true of Western European post-reformation culture as it is of medieval culture, contemporary middle Eastern culture, and contemporary Hip Hop Culture. Each has their idols. Each has their glimpses of glory. Each has a way of showing off the beauty of creation. And each one desperately needs the purifying power of the gospel.

The members of the panel want to highlight all that’s wrong with Hip Hop culture, but they seem blind to their own culture’s problematic history. (For instance, it includes Jim Crow.) Apart from the gospel, their culture too - their western European, classical, hierarchical culture – is filthy rags.

Come to think of it, these men not only get creation and culture wrong, they seem to have misread the end of the story too. The saints of God don’t gather around God’s throne and sing “When the Role is Called Up Yonder” in English. Instead, the story ends with cacophony. With the greatest expression of multiculturalism the world has every known. “Every tribe tongue and nation” will be gathered around the throne, worshiping the Lamb. This isn’t monoculture.

But the panelists don’t see it that way. Christian maturity, they argue, is to look more like them. To transition to more “culturally appropriate forms” for discussion about God…

…Second, if Hip Hop can’t be separated from its cultural milieu, what other forms of communication are defiled and condemned? Did Wagner’s sexual deviancy, antisemitism and German Uber-nationalism defile and condemn all classical music? Did Robert Maplethorpe’s homosexual erotic photography defile and condemn all photography? Has porn ruined the whole internet?

Again - we come back to the creational issue. Wagner’s ideas are a corruption, but the things themselves - music, art, and media - remain useful.

The truth is that any cultural artifact can become a stumbling block, like food sacrificed to idols was for some of the Church in Corinth. Perhaps, for the panelists’ consciences, hip hop is too sensual. Maybe they watched one too many Digital Undeground video back in the day, and they can’t hear a sampled kick drum without thinking lustful thoughts. If so, they are wise to avoid it - but that’s a matter for their conscience, not a matter for their legislative authority…

Make no mistake about it: this is a gospel issue, plain and simple. I want to say this very carefully. Christian rap is not a gospel issue because Christians need to do it, but because their freedom to do it - their freedom to let the gospel take root in the soil of their culture and bear fruit in their communities, with their voices, sounds, and heart language, is something worth dying for.

It’s a gospel issue because what they demand - abandoning and replacing their culture with something more “appropriate” - is another gospel altogether.

It’s the reason Paul wrote the book of Galatians. It’s the reason he rebuked the Judai[z] ers. To condemn a whole culture, to demand cultural conformity is to add on to the free, culture-renewing grace of Jesus and say, “Jesus plus our cultural norms.”

“Foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?,” Paul roared. Today, he might roar, “Foolish Euro-centric-classicists, who has bewitched you?”

Ultimately, all six of these men start from the wrong place. They approach Hip Hop as suspicious outsiders who need to protect the church from its encroachment. They fail to start from creation, where all culture - including hip hop - has its roots. They fail to see the beautiful diversity of the church, where there is no Jew, Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, Slave, or Free.

Hip Hop is the marriage of musical impulse - a creational gift - and technological impulse - also a creational gift, and ultimately, it was God’s idea. To demean it as a cultural artifact is to demean his work, and to demean it as an expression of his church is to disparage the bride of Christ in the midst of their worship.

It reminds us how easily old controversies can reemerge. It’s guilt-by-association, cultural hierarchy nonsense that has been trumped about since Peter and Paul had their argument about dinner guests in Galatians 2:11-14 – an argument that Paul clearly won. Peter didn’t want to be associated with Gentiles when a group of Jews joined the church at Antioch. Paul called this hypocrisy. Peter repented. Game over. Let’s hope that happens here.

I don’t go quite as far as Cosper does, but he’s made quite a few salient points on this subject, and has crystallized some of the random thoughts bouncing around in my head. I appreciate his argument and think that we need to talk about music on a much deeper level than ‘style’ and ‘sound’.

Steve,

Good to hear from you. I just saw Dawn at the Bill Schroeder 60th anniversary last weekend. It was great to see her and she updated me on the two churches you and John are planting. I also spoke with the men from “Restore Detroit” a few weeks ago. They are involved in church planting and are using some of the methods you mentioned. Doran and others are planning on planting about 10 churches in Detroit proper over the next 15 years. We discussed some of these issues together as fellow pastors. More than likely there will be different kinds of churches planted by various groups based on one’s assessment of appropriate worship and other doctrinal issues such as cessationism and dispensational theology. I in good conscience could not use or endorse any form of the rock genre in worship. I understand hip hop to be an extension of the rock genre with some very egregious baggage. Nevertheless, I do not question the heart and motives of the men from “Restore Detroit,” only their methods.

Since I just discovered we were mentioned I’d thought I’d share a 6 minute video reflection a first time visitor of Restore (last Sunday) just created. Closer to the issue, you can watch a powerful spoken word, D’rusalem, composed & ministered by a Restore brother a few months ago.

If Revelation 7:9-10 is a preview of eternal worship, I think a few may be a bit taken aback;)

For the advance,

Mike

Jay,

I don’t believe Mike Cosper fully understands the significant impact of the fall upon man’s artistic expressions. Cultural egalitarianism does not properly evaluate the influence of depravity and the counter-influence of common grace. God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Gen 1:26). God, the creative genius, spoke all things into existence and then made man analogous to God. Like God, man is inventive, imaginative, creative and thus able to arrange and depict God’s world in an orderly way.

“God saw all that He had made; and behold it was very good” (1:31). The biblical basis for the production and enjoyment of artistic expression is simply that God declared it to be very good. All of His creation is very good including man’s sanctified creativity which is part of the image of God in man. When man sinned, however, by wanting to be God, his creative imagination was no longer perfect or holy, but instead was marred by sin. Apart from the grace of God, both common and saving, man no longer necessarily reflects the order, beauty, loveliness, or virtue of God and His creation in his artistic creations. Now we have the possibility of good art and bad art on a continuum. Man struggles to produce good art and music. We, therefore, must use the special revelation of God to interpret God’s general revelation in order to discern good artistic expression from bad artistic expression.

How can we judge good artistic expression from the bad? Good art is the work of man by which man uses his God-given creativity to produce artistic expressions for the enjoyment of man and the reflection of God which meet God’s standards of contemplation. Philippians 4:8 gives us a divinely inspired formula which authoritatively guides us when choosing those artistic expressions in the world which are conformable to the virtues of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Gospel.

Philippians 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Philippians 4:8 is unique in Pauline literature and is similar to Hellenistic moral literature. These six adjectives and two nouns are the objective standards by which we “take into account” these virtues in the world which are conformable to Christ. We are to examine, consider, evaluate, reflect upon, and take into account (logi,zesqe) the artistic expressions of man in the world and see if they are praiseworthy in the light of Christ and His Gospel message. Whatever is right for the Christian must be defined by God and His character. We are to “examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thess 5:21-22).

If you don’t think Bach was the quintessential Christian musician, who would you nominate for the role?

What is there about Philippians 4:8, either by itself or in its context, that makes it the biblical passage “which authoritatively guides us when choosing” “good art”? On its face and in its context, the passage does not appear to be directed particularly to art. Nor does it explicitly claim to be an exhaustive list of things to think on — Paul doesn’t say “and don’t think on anything else.”

Also, are we ignoring the language “if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise”? Mike Harding reads the verse as requiring that we not think on anything that is less than perfectly wholesome (to paraphrase the six adjectives and two nouns), but the actual phrasing of the verse seems to endorse thinking on things that are partially virtuous/praiseworthy.

Mike,

Good to hear about the bible clubs in Detroit! Where do they meet & what locaI churches are they part of? I could not find a link on the FBC website about the bible clubs but would love to learn about them.

Thanks

Mike

Hi Pastor Harding-

I’m not sure what yardstick you are using to define ‘good’. You say that we have the possibility of ‘good’ art and ‘bad’ art, and that man struggles to produce ‘good’ art and music. I agree with you there. Yet it seems as though the ‘good’ music or ‘good’ art is that which you define as ‘good’. Appealing to Phil. 4:8 doesn’t work because for someone who is involved with rap/hip-hop music, that style of music is good, lovely, etc. Stylistically, I’m not sure we can even define rap as a genre, let alone decree it in its entirety as being without “virtue or praise”.

I’m not recommending that we adapt Eminem’s “Survivor” rap song for churches - a cursory look at the lyrics will make it very clear that it fails the Phil. 4:8 test. (I pick that song because it’s the background music for the video of the popular Call of Duty: Ghosts game that was recently released.) But it fails because the lyrics are not pure, lovely, or of good report, not because I say it fails Phil. 4:8.

The same fallen culture that gives us Bach, Jazz and County gives us Rap/Hip-Hop. So I’m not sure that appealing to the intrinsic value of any one given form of music and saying that this specific genre of music passes the Phil. 4:8 test and is therefore acceptable to God will really work. Not when we’re all sinners and we’re all under the Curse.

Christian Rap? No.

Our worship is not for ourselves, it is for God. We seek to please Him, not men (Gal 1:10). Instead of asking our children and spouses, “What did you get out of church today,?” we ought to be asking, “What did God get out of church today?”

Every part of our corporate worship, the dress, the music, the preaching and the prayer, says something very definitive to God about how seriously we take corporate worship. That being the case, we should consider why we use the kind of music we do in church. Is our motive to please ourselves or the lost community round about us, or is our motivation to please God? What is the driving force behind the selection of a particular musical genre? It had better be the desire to please God. Once we allow this perspective to shape our thinking, then in my experience, this entire issue becomes quite clear. The notion that we must be “relevant” becomes irrelevant. Our whole perspective on worship, beyond just music, will change.

Therefore …

• We shouldn’t dress for church in a T-shirt and ripped jeans. It says something, both to God and the congregation, about our attitude towards worship.
• We shouldn’t have strobe lights complete with rock/rap/hip-hop music in corporate worship; we are borrowing distinctly un-Godly genres to worship our God with. Take your lyrics, which may be very God-honoring, and set them to a somber tune appropriate for our Holy God!
• We shouldn’t preach in a T-shirt and ripped jeans; see above.
• Our prayer shouldn’t be “me-centered.” It should be God-entered. Instead of always coming to God with petitions like He is a cosmic Santa, perhaps we should include praise, thanksgiving and confession in our individual and corporate prayer, along with petitions.

This argument over music (and worship in general) will continue for a long time; remember the infamous NIU thread from this past Summer?! I expect that many people here have made up their minds, but I only ask you to consider what the motivation is to change the musical style in your church and outreach ministries.

Mike,

Great to hear from you again. Enjoyed meeting you at our church planing meeting. Our church runs nine clubs in the public schools. Each club team consists of about five members. We meet for about 30 weeks per year in each club. Ben Michalek, my pastoral assistant, is putting together a list for you of our clubs, other Detroit clubs, and public schools in the adoption program. Boys and Girls Bible Clubs are looking for more people to run Bible Clubs in Detroit. Ben’s number is 248.764.0054.

Tyler,

I am one of the pastors of a church where Hip-Hop is occasionally used within the worship service. Ripped Jeans? I’ve never seen it happen in a hip-hop church (I’ve visited a few) Come to think of it, out of the dozens of Christian Hip-Hop concerts that I’ve been to, I’ve never, ever seen an artist dress the way that you’ve described. Maybe a t-shirt and baggy pants (not saggin though) with a snap-back hat, but even the T-shirt matching the hat and shoes has a dressy, sharpness to it. What would be appropriate dress for worship? Do we go back to the age of the 1940’s-1950’s where people even wore suits to baseball games? Therefore, because it was the culture back then, it made sense to dress up in a suit and tie to go to church.

A somber tune? Who’s to say that Rap can’t be somber? One of our joys this past Easter was baptizing a single mother that is now a Grandma that had been a drug addict for over 20 years. Her addiction was so powerful that when her children were young, she used to sell Christmas presents meant for her children that she received from Toys for Tots and other Christmas Charities to the pawn shop and then blow all the money on drugs. A few years ago, her oldest son, DD, a gang-banger in our neighborhood came to know Christ and his life radically changed. He introduced his mother to Christ as well and she’s been clean from her addiction ever since. On Easter, he co-wrote and rapped a beautiful testimony in the genre of Hip-Hop that described what God did in his life and his mother’s. He didn’t glorify himself through the song, it was all about Jesus. It beautifully described II Corinthians 5:17 in a way that was uplifting to God.

I’ve never seen prayer among Christian Hip-Hop artists focus on themselves.

Tyler, in my opinion you have grossly stereotyped Christian Rap and Hip-Hop. I am stunned by the lack of inaccurate information that gets around about something that most fundamentalists know little or nothing about.