If anything sparks rejoicing in the church, it’s a new believer coming into the fold. Is there a more joyous occasion?
Jesus explained:
Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent (Luke 15:4-7).
According to Curvine Brewington, a pastor at Crossroads Church in Lafayette, Louisiana, who attended Kanye West’s Sunday Service Friday night at Bethany Church in Baton Rouge, over 1,000 people gave their lives to Christ. This came two weeks after the release of West’s gospel album Jesus is King.
On the same day of the Baton Rouge service, Time released a story titled “How Kanye West's Controversial ‘Jesus Is King’ Is Dividing the Christian Community.”
Really? Are we divided?
Though the writer of the article works hard to make a case that a fracture exists in the body of Christ over the rapper’s album, you will discover something altogether different if you read it with a discerning eye.
Alicia Crosby, quoted in the article as a “minister and activist,” is perhaps the most critical in her assessment of the album, calling it “vapid” and “weak in theology.”
Crosby is not someone whose perspective should be taken seriously as a representative of the Christian community, however. She is the co-founder of Center for Inclusivity in Chicago, an organization that pushes for the acceptable intersection of faith and sexual perversion.
Aside from identifying as pansexual (not limited in sexual choice with regard to biological sex, gender, or gender identity), her focus is on “intersectional equity,” an anti-biblical worldview.
Watch here for an enlightening discussion concerning the theology driving social justice concepts like intersectional equity by Abraham Hamilton and Meeke Addison on AFR’s The Hamilton Corner.
It’s about division. Identity politics. Victimhood.
The social justice tri-pack, consisting of critical theory, critical race theory, and intersectionality, insists that society is inherently racist, necessitating a societal class system giving oppressed groups (based on ethnicity, sexuality, economic background) a better vantage point from which to critique the broken structures around them. It concludes that individuals who start off as oppressors will always be oppressors. And those who are victims will always be victims.
The conservative views espoused by West, which press for personal responsibility, are plainly incompatible with this tri-pack of victim mentality. Here we find a line in the sand. The author of the Time article admits Crosby’s “greater issue with West comes from his ongoing comments about Donald Trump and slavery.”
And now, as West is discipled in the faith and spreading the message of Christ, he is an even greater threat. Redemption, forgiveness, love, and unity in the Spirit just don’t fit into their genre.
Crosby said West’s lyrics from the Jesus is King album “will confuse white audiences about what gospel is and isn’t.” Seriously?
My skin color is buff beige. At least that’s the shade of my foundation. If that qualifies me as “white” for Crosby, she needn’t be concerned. West’s lyrics aren’t confusing me about the gospel at all.
When people are surrendering their lives to Christ in droves, that only brings clarity… and unspeakable joy!
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4:2-6).
