Rap Music and the "Christian" Background of Western Culture

I enjoyed reading Scott Aniol's "Can Rap Be Christian" series of articles. He's provided a useful assessment of the issues and presuppositions, and he's asked some reasonable questions, which proponents of "Christian rap" (and, by extension, other "Christian" musical forms) need to answer.

Scott also, quite honestly, exposed a potential flaw in the conservative argument. If this flaw can be demonstrated to be genuine, it's a fatal flaw. And if it's a fatal flaw, conservatives will need to radically reexamine their presuppositions and conclusions.

Here's what I'm talking about: Many conservatives argue that Western culture has been more profoundly shaped by Christianity than any other culture. Here's how Scott frames that argument:

I think it is undeniable that Western culture by and large has been influenced by Christian values more than perhaps any other in the world. That is not to say at all that there haven’t been anti-biblical influences as well; there certainly have been. But by God’s common grace we haven’t been influenced by Satanism or Eastern mysticism to the same extent as other societies. That has influenced the development of culture.

Notice how Scott hedges several times in that paragraph: "by and large," "perhaps," the acknowledgment of anti-biblical influences, and the relatively narrow focus on the minimal influence of Satanism and Eastern mysticism. Later in the same article, he admits that the Christian influence behind Western high art was Roman Catholicism. His conclusion to that article qualifies his statements even more:

On the other hand, there are aspects of Western culture that are deplorable, especially with the influences of secularism and commercialism. There might be some aspects of tribal African culture that has [sic] escaped those influences and are therefore superior. At the end of the day, I believe that the inner culture of the Church will never sound exactly like the culture around it. Christians always have to pick and choose (and sometimes invent) the best forms for the expression of Christian sentiment. It’s just the case that in some culture [sic] that have been influenced for centuries by Christian values, there may be more from which to choose.

So at the end of the day, I think Scott is more honest than other conservatives who simply stipulate the superiority of Western culture. I'll say it a bit more forcefully: As much as I love baroque music, I think it's quite possible that the musical forms of the 17th century were detrimentally shaped by medieval Roman Catholicism—a religious system that was not Christian at all. Monotheistic? Yes. Well, maybe. Or maybe not so much.

That doesn't preclude the possibility of critiquing how the medium of rap music shapes the message of Christian rap. But it ought to give the conservative anti-rap crowd something to chew on before they assume the superiority of their preferred forms as a vehicle for the Christian message—whether baroque or SoundForth-esque.

So can rap music be Christian? Hmmm . . . well, in my first 5 minutes of exposure to Christian rap a few years ago (I think it was Curtis Allen "The Voice"), I heard a more detailed explanation of substitutionary atonement and election than in any sermon I can remember before I turned 30 years old. Maybe that doesn't make it Christian. But if it's not Christian, then let's be honest: neither are your kids Patch the Pirate tapes and quite a few of the hymns in your Majesty Hymnal.

At the very least, I think we have to say that music—whether a rap or a hymn—must articulate a Christian message in order to be Christian. Only music that articulates a distinctly Christian message makes it inside the door where the argument about musical form begins. Music with a message of moralism (clean your room, don't grumble) or some yammering about an old guitar doesn't make the first cut.

When Network News Asks Good Questions

Terry Moran of Nightline asks Mark Driscoll about idolatry. Read the story and watch the video here. Moran and Driscoll play off each other in the concluding line:

So in the end, the commandment that to many people may look like it doesn't have a lot of relevance to us . . . may be the most relevant commandment of all.

On Cessationists and Their Ironic Mysticism (Bonus)

One more reason to STOP using this language:

"God chose me for that moment" and "I know that God had called me for such a time as this."





And is it just me, or is there a remarkable hollowness in a "values" movement that looks for inspiration to someone who likes to be judged for how she looks in a bikini?

99 Baroque Masterpieces: $2

From the people who brought you 99 Bach Masterpieces for $3, you can now get the baroque collection for $1.99. The Bach set is $8 now, so the deal won't last forever.

On Cessationists and Their Ironic Mysticism (Part 3)

Some resources:

First of all, the hands-down best public teaching I ever heard on guidance and God's will prior to my present church was a series of seminars taught by Greg Mazak of Bob Jones University. As best I can tell from his comments in the audio it was a singles retreat at the Wilds, probably in the mid-90s. A colleague gave me audio tapes and I'm pretty sure I wore them out. Mazak argued 3 points: 1) Obey the commands of Scripture. 2) Apply the principles of Scripture. 3) Do what you want to do. (If you're obeying the commands and applying the principles, your desires will be shaped to reflect God's priorities and desires.)

Second, the hands-down best public teaching I ever heard on the "call to ministry" I ever heard prior to landing in my present church was an Entrust conference at Covenant Life Church in February, 2009. I blogged on it and made some new friends in the process. Ironically, this teaching from continuationists was less subjective than any I'd ever heard.

Decision Making and the Will of God was by far the most influential book on the topic in my development. This link is to the second edition, which I'm told is condensed, augmented, and more cautiously worded than the first edition. It's essentially the same stuff Mazak taught.

What I like about Bruce Waltke's Finding the Will of God: A Pagan Notion?is that it, well, exposes how the mysticism I've discussed in this series is more pagan than Christian.

I haven't read Guidance and the Voice of Godbut it's the cornerstone text for the Core Seminar at my church, which I've attended and benefited from. By the way, those lessons are available free here.

I haven't read Kevin DeYoung's Just Do Somethingeither, but here's a link to Mike McKinley's review on the 9Marks blog. Follow the Amazon link on this one to see the best book subtitle since Jonathan Edwards.

Should Premillennialists Accuse Non-Premillennialists of Rejecting Literal Interpretation?

In recent weeks I've heard a few assertions that non-premillennialists reject a literal hermeneutic. Here's just one example from a well-known pastor:

Amil has to discount the literal hermeneutical approach to the entire definition of the [Kingdom of God] in the major and minor prophets.

B.B. Warfield, in The Westminster Assembly and Its Work, expounded and defended the biblical basis for the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646). But he also attempted to demonstrate how the Confession merely summarized the theology of the Continental Reformers. Though, as a Baptist, I don't agree with every point of the Confession or Warfield's defense, a paragraph from his discussion of Chapter 1, "Of the Holy Scripture" caught my eye.

In this chapter, Warfield quotes extensively and in broad affirmation of Heinrich Heppe's summary of the theology of the Continental Reformers, Dogmatics of the Evangelical Reformed Church (1861). Heppe argues (see the long quote below) that the literal meaning of Scripture is the one meaning the author intended. Though the author may or may not employ figurative language, the literal meaning is how the author intended that language (whether figurative or normal/non-figurative) to be understood.

In other words, both Premillennialists and non-Premillennialists* may employ a literal hermeneutic. (Individuals in either group may or may not, or at least not consistently.) Though they disagree on the interpretation of numerous texts, their disagreement is not over whether the normal ("literal") sense ought to be our default position. Rather, the disagreement is over certain texts—whether they were intended by the author/Author to be interpreted normally or figuratively.

And that's where the debate ought to take place. Premillennialists ought to argue with non-Premillennialists on how prophetic texts should be interpreted. Premillennialists ought to make the point that when we can point to biblical prophecies that we know have been fulfilled, they've been fulfilled in a "literal"/normal sense. But once and for all we ought to stop suggesting that non-Premillennialists reject a literal hermeneutic. By the standards of Premillennialists, Premillennialists often reject a literal hermeneutic too. By the definition Warfield advances via Heppe, both groups can be literalists. We can and should wrestle exegetically over the debated texts, but we need to avoid the strawmen and the canards.

Here's that long passage in which Warfield quotes Heppe:

The true sense of Scripture, which interpretation has established, can always be only single, and, in general, only the real, literal sense, the sensus literalis, which is either sensus literalis simplex or sensus literalis compositus. The former is to be firmly held as a rule; the latter, on the other hand, is to be recognized wherever Scripture presents anything typically; and only when the sensus literalis would contradict the articuli fidei or the praeceptis caritatis, where therefore Scripture itself demands another interpretation of its words, is the figurative meaning of them, the sensus figuratus, to be sought. Besides this, the allegorical interpretation has its right in the application of the language of Scripture to the manifold relations of life in the accommod. ad usum. (p. 168)

*Warfield was a Postmillennialist, a position now largely out of favor that was different in its interpretations from Amillennialism, but possessing some of the same tendencies to differ with the Premillennial "literal" interpretations.

On Cessationists and Their Ironic Mysticism (Part 2)

In Part 1 I argued that when cessationists use the language of "God told/spoke to/led/called me, they accomplish three undesirable ends: 1) They contradict their cessationist theology; 2) they manipulate congregations unjustifiably; and 3) they introduce extra-biblical (and perhaps constraining) expectations to people who might enter vocational ministry.

Here in Part 2 I want to clarify #1 and push it just a bit further on the language of calling. Obviously, God "calls" people in the New Testament. Jesus called disciples and made them apostles, Paul was called to be an apostle, the elect are called to salvation, and the regenerate are called to spiritual growth. Though it's been a while since I've surveyed the NT usage, I don't recall any other application of "calling," least of all some internal "calling" to pastoral ministry. If you can offer a contrary example, I'd be glad to discuss it.

Please know: I'm not arguing that we should never use an extra-biblical term. "Trinity" is one such term. Rather, I'm arguing that loading an extra-biblical usage on a biblical term seems imprudent and very likely dangerous. This redefinition can shape our understanding of both the biblical usage of the term (salvation/sanctification/apostleship) and the concept to which we apply it (the desire for pastoral ministry).

In Part 3 I'll comment briefly on a few resources.

"Fundamentalists have preserved and defended something less than the whole counsel of God."

Yup, no kidding, but that's only the beginning.

Find this statement and access to the rest of Kevin Bauder's in-progress series updating the history of fundamentalism here.

How Blogging Kills Fear of Man

Bob Bixby writes:

[W]hen chided just this summer by one leader in the Fundamentalist Baptist Fellowship that my blogging did not make me “likable” to a number of the leaders, I responded sincerely, “I don’t want to be liked by them.” It surprises me that anyone would think that I am so dense that I had yet to realize that my blogging was not making me “likable” with certain people within the establishment of what I call denominational group-think.

When the time comes that I call it quits as Bixby has, and I certainly will, I have every certainty that one of the best fruits in my life—even if it's the only one—will be complete and final liberation from the snares of ambition and groupthink that Bibxy has so aptly described and keenly exposed over these years.

On Cessationists and Their Ironic Mysticism (Part 1)

Perhaps like many of you, I've spent many years in a slice of American Christianity that is utterly convinced that revelatory spiritual gifts have ceased, at least in any sense remotely close to what we see described in the New Testament. Though there are some really good reasons to reach that conclusion, the notion that 1 Corinthians 13:10 is referring to the completion of the canon of Scripture is, in my opinion, utterly indefensible.

The strange irony to me, is that in this slice of Christianity that denies ongoing revelation persists a contradictory mystical view of divining God's will. Phrases like "God told/spoke to/led me" are often paired with presumptuous directives and spiritually abusive manipulation from the pulpit. ("I was going to preach X sermon, but a few minutes ago God told me I needed to preach Y instead." [And oh, by the way, Y has pretty much nothing to do with the pretense of a text that I'm about to read to you."]) This sort of thing makes me think of the comment I've heard Dave Doran and Tim Jordan make: One day some of you preachers are going to stand before God and hear him ask you, "Why did you tell people I said that? What made you think that? I never said any such thing."

But spiritual abusiveness isn't the only problem, because the pattern of mystical revelation that's modeled in the pulpit teaches people how to make decisions in their lives outside the church building. The simple fact is that this sort of terminology, used by people in positions where they're perceived to be exercising responsible leadership, can impede discipleship and sanctification.

The popular language of "calling" to ministry can be among this harmful terminology. As missionary martyr Jim Eliot observed:

Our young men are going into the professional fields because they don't 'feel called' to the mission field. We don't need a call; we need a kick in the pants.

How many young men in America attended Bible college never pursued pastoral ministry because they never had the experience their idols described? How many finished seminary and never seriously considered international church planting because they never got the mystical buzz they were taught to expect?

J.D. Greear, no radical knee-jerk cessationist himself, has a nice little two-part series, "The Confusing Language of 'Calling' " at the Resurgence blog (part 1, part 2). I wholeheartedly commend it to you, and I like the way he echoes Eliot's words:

I say this because we have so many people sitting around waiting on a warm, fuzzy, and goose-bump-inducing vision from God before they embark on some ministry. Maybe we've invented the whole language of calling to mask the fact that most Christians don't want to live missionally.