Special Dividing Line with Voddie Baucham, Shai Linne, and Ivey Conerly!

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00:01

Greetings and welcome. My name is James White and I am a facilitator of a discussion today. We have three guests on the line.

00:07

We tried to do the really fancy dancy video thing. That didn't work too well. So now we're using the old -fashioned phone line.

00:14

But that's more important because, interestingly enough, it almost is related to our subject. Because even though we had all the looks before, we didn't have the sound and communication of meaningful words.

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I think that's actually going to be relevant to some of the topic of the subject of Christian rap today.

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Because I think one of the objections that probably older people have when they first hear

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Christian rap is, I don't understand what's being said. I can't follow this. I'm not getting anything out of it.

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And I have a feeling that some in the Reformed camp who would object to Christian rap probably have in the back of their mind that the key issue is participation of the congregation, communication of information, etc.,

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etc. On the other side, I have talked to a number of people. It's amazing how many people in our chat channel have come in and they have talked about how they listen to Shilin, they listen to Ivy Connor, they listen to these concept albums where they're listening to people communicating on topics like the hypostatic union, the

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Trinity, the atonement, the concept of substitution.

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And they're tremendously excited about that. Now, of course, the older people will say, well, there was all sorts of neat stuff about that in the

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Trinity hymnal a hundred years ago. Why do we need to do it in a different way now? And I think that's where a lot of the conversation needs to take place.

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Over the Thanksgiving holidays, a controversy erupted due to a particular, and I'm starting to hear myself again, coming through somebody is there.

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There we go. And I sort of saw it from a distance.

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I thought, boy, I know some folks are going to be really interested in that particular conversation. But then

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I heard from Ivy Connerly and he said, you know, we'd really like to have a discussion about this.

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Could you facilitate it? And I'm going, well, when or how? And then Votie Balcom called me. And once that happened, then

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I'm like, OK, let's make this work. And they said, we'd like to be joined by Shailene. And so those are our guests today on the program.

02:25

Let me actually start off, not so much with the history of this, but recognizing that some people in the audience might not know what in the world we're talking about.

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Shailene, could you tell us how would you define Christian rap?

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And could you, for those of us who are not experts in these things, help us to understand what the difference, if there is a difference, what you would see to be the difference between Christian rap and spoken word?

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Help us to understand what this movement's all about. Right. So anytime you talk about rap, you need to talk about hip -hop culture.

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So hip -hop culture would be the kind of broader umbrella that rap, as one of the art forms, falls under that umbrella.

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There are different elements to hip -hop. Hip -hop doesn't say a lot to me other than, well, it has a lot of negative connotations in my experience, obviously.

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I mean, I go down the road and a guy pulls up next to me and I'm concerned that my windows are going to shatter because he is next to me.

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And even though I have bop -up as loud as I can on the local classical station, I hear enough four -letter words coming through my closed window that I'm brought back to my days in high school.

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So for someone like me, what's the culture there?

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Has this been around a long time? Is it a fairly new thing? Talk to me a little bit about that. Yeah. So hip -hop was birthed in the 70s, the mid to late 70s in New York.

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And it has its roots in both beat poetry.

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One of the pioneers, as you could say, kind of rap in its earliest forms and he would attribute it to the last poets.

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And basically in the mid -70s there were, you had this youth culture, a lot of gang violence, and rap was birthed or hip -hop culture was birthed as an alternative to gang violence.

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So you had people dying out in the streets and people looking for an alternative to that.

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And so they basically said, let's take this energy that we're using mega violently against one another and let's take it and try to channel it into something positive.

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And so that's the mid to late 70s. And then 79, 1980, the first record started to be released.

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And then many would credit the song Rapper's Delight by Sugarhill Gang, kind of rap's first foray into the mainstream.

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Okay. So real quickly then, Christian rap. I mean, was it there from the beginning or is this a fairly new development?

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I mean, did rap pretty much start off completely secular or was there always a

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Christian sub -element to it? What's the story there? Yeah. There's been a Christian sub -element to it for a long time.

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It goes before my time with it, but in the mid -80s,

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I believe 84, 85 or so, there was a guy named Stephen Wiley who released a song called

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Bible Break, I believe was the name of it. And so yeah, so going back to the early 80s, there were already

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Christians involved in hip -hop culture.

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It's definitely, it's grown over the years and there's been certain winds and turns in terms of, as far as emphasis is concerned.

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But there has been a resurgence. And I would say in the last 10 to 15 years, this growth has been specifically so -called reformed rap, guys who are using rap to spread reformation, doctrinal empathy.

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Okay. Now, this is for both Shilin and Ivy. When did you guys get involved and what initially attracted you to want to seek to communicate a specifically reformed, biblical, deeply theological message by this means?

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Well, for me, the kind of hip -hop that I grew up on was a particular kind of subset of hip -hop culture, which really in its secular form was dedicated towards teaching.

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In terms of what it was teaching, it was kind of Afro -centrism, positivity, upliftment of the black community, kinds of things.

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One famous secular rapper, he coined the phrase edutainment, had an album called

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Edutainment, and basically used it to lay out his philosophy of life.

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And so before I was a Christian, I was already drawn to that kind of intellectual, called it conscious hip -hop.

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And so once I was converted to the Lord, I'm born and raised in Philadelphia, and in Philly, there was a community of Christ -centered,

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God -exalting hip -hop artists. And so that was my natural cultural community in some senses.

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And there's a group called the Cross Movement, who many would consider to be kind of at the pioneers of this particular doctrinal hip -hop with a particular doctrinal emphasis.

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And they were in Philly, so I was connected to those guys. And for me, it wasn't about,

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I'm Reformed, and so I'm going to do Reformed rap. It was more, this is the language of my cultural background.

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I believe that Jesus deserves to be glorified in all things, and hip -hop falls under the umbrella of all things that God deserves glory in.

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And so it was my and the brothers with me, it was our settled resolve to magnify the name of Christ.

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And so the things that we were learning at the churches that we were at just began to come out in the music with a specific emphasis.

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How about you, Ivy? How long have you been involved? I've been involved with Christian rap now for about seven years.

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But as far as rap in general, uh, for about, wow, almost 17 years.

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So I did secular rap or pagan rap for about 10 years and whatnot.

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And what drew me to secular rap, of course, just being out here on the

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West Coast, Southern California, you know, the gangster rap was so appealing, the lifestyle.

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And I grew up in a small city most of my life, Escondido, California in San Diego. And there's a lot of Hispanics there, but there was also a lot of blacks moving from different parts of Southern California and gang members and whatnot.

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And that's how I got involved with that crowd. But I was just really looking up to those guys.

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It was like, it was the manly thing to do. Um, at the time it was a lot of confusion in my life, uh, as far as, you know, my mother, my father kind of split up.

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So I was looking for some guidance and these were the cool guys. These were the guys to look up to.

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So I got involved with the pagan music, um, through that avenue.

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And when I moved from there, uh, to Syracuse and then from Syracuse to Jacksonville, Florida, where God saved me, um, uh, as I, as my life changed, the music changed and I was able to, um, uh, articulate, uh, the truth of scripture and song.

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And I actually was seeking the Lord, um, in scripture and also through other men that were seasoned and, um, the word of God to see if this was still something appropriate to do.

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And through, uh, much study and research and praying, um, I saw that, uh,

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I was able to, uh, freely worship God, uh, in the form of rap.

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And, you know, that's one thing I, I kind of want to get into a little bit, uh, without getting off subject is, um, of course, in, in the black community, for the most part, um, when, you know, when we think of praise and worship, we always think of music.

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And, um, it, it wasn't until, of course, I got, um, uh, uh, reformed or sound and, uh, doctrine when

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I realized that worship is a lifestyle, you know? So, you know, my lifestyle, uh, as a, as a pagan, uh, that's what it reflect and reflect sin.

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And that's what I rapped about. I rapped about what I, what I was doing and all that. So, uh, when

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I became a Christian, when I was, uh, regenerated, um, I started understanding that, um, more and more that this is a lifestyle.

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So I'm writing about a lifestyle. So due to worship is what, what, you know,

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I mean, I'm not much of a singer, so due to my, my worship in life, you know,

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I can express how I feel what's in my heart and the gift that God has given me, uh, even though it was used, you know, um, for, for bad in the world.

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Uh, thank God that since I've been redeemed, you know, um, the, my, my expression of joy, uh, from the way

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I live and would not, um, by the power of the Holy Spirit comes out of my music.

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So. All right. Well, I appreciate those insights. Um, I want to bring Votie Balcombe in now, and I know we tried to address this earlier, but now let's, let's do it again now that we have everybody on board, uh, a video.

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So you don't want to know about my, my history with rap? Okay. Uh, if, if you've got one to share,

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I, I, uh, I missed, um, I missed that when I was at the church recently, but, um, yeah,

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I'd love to hear that. Well, um, I, I grew up in Los Angeles. I was born in 69.

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So when rap was being birthed, um, I, I was coming of age in that, at that era.

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Um, and so I, I did rap. I was part of hip hop culture. That was, that was what

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I was. Um, so, um, yeah, I mean, if you started rappers right now,

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I could help finish it. Um, but, uh, and, and again, the whole idea of the

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East coast versus West coast rap and all that sort of stuff. Um, I, I get all of that. Um, but it's not something that I continued in.

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I've always been much more eclectic. Um, but I, you know, I, I was very much a part of that culture, um, wrote rhyme, you know, um, the whole nine yards.

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Um, so I, I'm, I don't come at this as someone who's just an outside observer, but as someone, um, who watched this grow up, uh, who was part of this when it grew up, um, and, and who had it all around me, um, and even, you know, in my own experience, um, at that time.

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Okay. Then, then when did you become aware of specifically reformed rap and what was your initial reaction to that?

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Probably about, um, somewhere in the last 10 years, uh,

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I was doing an event in Memphis and one of the organizers of the event said, Hey man, there's this guy who wants to meet you.

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You've really influenced him a lot. And you know, he, I just really love you speaking to his life.

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And, uh, it was, it was with Cray, uh, who is, is one of, if not the most popular of the

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Christian rappers. And, you know, we spent time together and, you know, over the years that had a number of, you know, contact, um, with one another, but that, that really was my sort of introduction, um, to the rap scene, the

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Christian rap scene. Um, you know, as, as we know it now, I had no idea.

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I mean, I had absolutely no idea how big it was. I had no idea how influential it was, um, how diverse it was.

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Uh, I, I, I didn't, I just didn't know. Uh, because even though I grew up in that environment,

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I'm not a rap guy. Um, you know, Ivy asked me to, uh, to, uh, to, to be interviewed on a recent project that just came out.

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And, um, when he called me about it, I immediately told him about it. You know, I'm not a rap guy, right? And he said, yeah,

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I, I, I, I know that. Um, but, uh, you know, I can respect, you know, who guys are, where they come from, um, and the things that they desire to do, even if they're not things that, that fit or suit me.

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And even if I don't believe that they would be appropriate for Christian worship.

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That's a subject that we need to address before we finish this up, but we need to let folks know what has precipitated this particular conversation.

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I suppose in, in, in fairness, uh, to, to everybody else who's now given their background and, and stuff like that,

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I'm a Keith Green guy. Okay. All right. I mean, um, I mean, seriously,

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I suppose, uh, I should mention that, you know, my parents probably didn't really have any understanding of why

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I really, really enjoyed the music of Keith Green.

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I mean, I listened to Keith Green when Keith Green was a lot. Um, I remember the night he died.

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I was, I was actually a disc jockey, uh, on a radio station and I, I got the UPI wire and, and, you know,

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Keith Green airplane crash, so on and so forth. I still have it, but that was a different,

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I mean, I grew up with George Beverly Shea. All right. And I'm not sure if any of you guys even know who George Beverly Shea is.

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Um, you bet. That's what, that's what, that's what I grew up with. And, uh, and if it wasn't

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Christian music, I went to sleep many nights, uh, with my parents listening to Nat King Cole, uh, in the other room, uh, going to sleep to red sails in the sunset.

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Okay. So that's the, that's the musical genre. And, uh, and then I, I grew up as a, as a radio announcer in high school playing

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Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra, uh, all that kind of stuff. So musical,

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I have a wide variety of stuff that I like to listen to. Um, but obviously the issue is how does that interface with the subject of the church?

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And I guess that's where all this came from because, uh, Voti, if you could tell us a little bit about this, this, uh, this group, uh, that had gotten together, uh, and they were talking about the regulative principle of worship.

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This, uh, brief clip sort of went viral very, very quickly. Uh, very, very briefly, who is involved and what were they talking about?

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What, what brought all this about? Well, the host organization was an organization called the

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National Cynical Family Integrated Churches, NCFIC. Um, there were people, uh, speaking who were part of NCFIC and people speaking who weren't.

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Uh, some of the guys on the panel were NCFIC guys, some of the panels, some of the guys on the panel were not. Um, there were 40 messages,

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I believe, at the conference and not one of them dealt with hip hop or rap. Um, during the panel

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Q &A, uh, there was a question from the audience about, uh, rap, reform rappers.

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The question was asked and the panelists, I believe there were six of them, um, proceeded to give, uh, their opinion on this issue of, of reformed rap and it just proceeded from bad to worse.

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So it's a worse, uh, it was a nightmare. Well, tell me, basically they all said it is completely unacceptable in worship, right?

20:48

Yes. Uh, one, one gentleman said that, uh, you know, individuals in this, again, the most famous comment, uh, disobedient cowards, uh, one called rap the death rattle in the throat of a dying culture.

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Um, again, there was just statements upon statements upon statements. Um, and again, the guys are come out, as you said earlier, um, offering apologies, um, for what they said, uh, reaching out, uh, trying to, uh, create dialogue, asking for forgiveness and so on and so forth.

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And that's wonderful. But what struck me about it, um, again, first of all, these are individuals who

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I know, um, uh, not all of them, but about half of the guys, the guys

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I know, but what struck me about it was the response, the type of response, the level of response and the scope of the response, uh, that people who have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with hip hop culture or rap, um, who have, you know, extremely high profile positions, um, in broader evangelical world felt the need, uh, to, to chime in on this, um, and, and condemn this.

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And again, it was condemnable. Um, I immediately got on the phone and started calling guys on the ones, you know, whom

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I knew, uh, about this, um, and just saying that this is, this is a horrible, this is beyond horrible.

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Um, this is, this is condemnable. And, um, interestingly enough, they're responsible. I know, um, which raises questions about, you know, why do you put that up in the first place, but that's neither here nor there.

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Um, but I, I just, if you think about all the things that have happened in recent, uh, years, um,

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I can't think of anything, um, that, that is akin to this in terms of the scope of the response.

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And to me, that was what was a bit worrisome. And the fact that much of it, um, that, you know, guys were called racist, um, you know,

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God, again, condemnable statement, but you know, it was just going, you know, way out of bounds as far as far as I'm concerned.

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So, so, so what you're saying is you're concerned about the imbalance of the response against the panel, not the imbalance of the response.

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That's not the issue because there was, there was no balance needed. It was condemnable. I mean, there was, there was no balance needed.

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I was worried about the scope of it. People who just, what does

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Paige Patterson have to do with this? You know, why is

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Paige Patterson responding to this? And I think it comes down to two things. One, modern evangelicalism is enamored with the urban.

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Um, if you want people to swoon, tell them you're an urban or any inner city minister or missionary, and they will swoon because we're enamored with the urban because, you know, if you're doing urban ministry, you're doing real ministry.

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If you're doing suburban ministry, you know, you're faking and God forbid that you should be doing rural ministry.

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You probably don't even deserve to live. But we're enamored with the urban and we fear the ire of the ethnic.

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Last thing you want to be called is a racist. And I think because of those two things, hip hop and rap bring together urban culture and ethnic culture.

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And I think a bunch of white guys felt like they needed to cover themselves and prove that they weren't racist.

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Many of whom have absolutely no knowledge of this rap culture.

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And, you know, we know guys like Paige Patterson, that anything that, you know, coming down the pike that you put reformed in the front of, and you can get him to come in defense of, there's something else going on.

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Oh, there's much I can say about that that would take us way off track. So what I'm hearing you raising here is, for example, even

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Al Moller commented on this on his program, The Briefing. Now, he did in the process promote

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Bach -only -ism, which is a whole new movement that we don't want to get into today. And he even informed me that my favorite piece of classical music was written by Pantheus, which really,

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I don't even know why he had to tell me that. But he did choose to tell me that.

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But a number of the things that you just said scare me to have to ask you about them because of exactly what you're talking about.

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In other words, these are ethnic issues, and I feel the pressure as a guy whose ancestors came from Scotland, I feel the pressure to not step on landmines, say the wrong thing, all the rest of that kind of stuff.

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I feel that. I think in our culture today, even within the church, you can't help but feel that kind of pressure.

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Now, one of the things that you mentioned to me on the phone that really caught my interest was your concern that the breadth of the response from people who didn't really have anything to do with hip -hop culture or rap or anything like that might indicate that we could have problems in the future bringing proper criticism if imbalances developed even within what might be called the reformed rap movement.

26:51

Absolutely. Explain what you're thinking there. Well, here's what I worry about, and I used a phrase on your program before when we talked, the phrase of ethnic

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Gnosticism, this idea that people treat ethnicity and culture like something that you can only understand if you're an insider and you can only critique if you're an insider.

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And so you do that and it blunts any criticism. And so I see ethnic

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Gnosticism at work here. I think what that does is it puts us in a position where it's been said, and in some instances it's been said openly, basically, if you are white, you can't speak to this issue.

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And I think there's a lot of conversation that needs to be had over the propriety of hip -hop culture in the church, rap in the church, ska, punk, metal, anything else.

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By the way, if that panel had addressed ska music or punk or metal, 90 % of the people who responded to this would not have said a mumbling word.

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True. True. It's because of this issue of ethnicity and because of this issue of urbanism.

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Can I chime in? Yeah, please do, because I was about to chime in and ask Shailen a question. So go ahead.

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Okay. So I want to push back a little bit on what Bodie is saying.

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So while it may be the case that the issue that you raised in terms of the infatuation with the urban and the fear of being perceived racist,

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I think that may be the case in some instances. But I think a more charitable read on the situation is that many of these guys have started to actually form relationships with guys from hip -hop culture.

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So I looked at a Legan Duncan who responded or an Al Mohler who responded or Mike Cosper from Sojourn who responded.

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These are all people that I've had a good amount of interaction with. So when they hear reform rappers being called disobedient cowards, for them, it's not just this abstract kind of thing.

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They're talking about my brothers. They're talking about people that have over -forgiven. I know their love for the

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Lord and their desire to exalt Christ. And so the thing that actually encouraged me about the response is that this is bigger than the particular philosophical issue, as important as that is.

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I think it's broader in the sense that this is about a group of people, people who need to be reached with the gospel and that God has, in His kindness, raised up people who speak the language of this group of people that need to be reached.

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And then along those same lines, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, there was very little cross -cultural interaction between the hip -hop world and the so -called white reform world.

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And I see it as a good thing that these worlds have come together to even enable this kind of dialogue.

30:50

So I just wanted to add that balance. Let me throw something in there, and then we'll see what, you know, sort of throw it open there.

30:58

One of the thoughts across my mind was my interpretation,

31:05

Voti, of—and again, I don't know how wide the response is. I mean, I noticed, you know, when it makes it onto the briefing with Al Mohler, you know, that's normally right up there with nuclear weapons,

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Iran, and the Supreme Court, okay? It's pretty well up there at the top of things.

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And my interpretation, the thought across my mind was, I would see, if I had decided to comment on it—and

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I was in the middle of all sorts of other conflicts, so I didn't—but if I had done so, I probably would have done so for two reasons.

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First of all, I'm sure all of you know that Ivy and I have worked together on a couple of videos on, well, on marriage, a couple on Islam.

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And so I know I have at least some connection there in that we've worked together and tried to reach out in that area.

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And then, you know, Shailene and I don't know each other very well. We've had some brief contact over the time, and I know he's aware of me and I'm aware of him, so on and so forth type thing.

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But the thought that crosses my mind when I hear Shailene is excellence in theology.

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It's a willingness to address vitally important theological issues and a skill in presenting them in this amazing way that has obviously caused a lot of people who may not put

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Shailene or Ivy Connerly on their iPod to listen to in the car, because that's just not their background, that's not the means by which they listen to things.

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But they have a tremendous respect because they've looked at the words and gone, wow, not since Top Lady or somebody like that have we had that kind of theology put into verse or something like that.

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So I would think that would be part of the reason, anyways, why some people who otherwise just don't have that in their normal experience spoke out, because you look at that and go, man, it takes some guts to put that stuff out there and to take the hits you're going to take, especially because if you're very specific in your theology, you're not even making friends in the entire

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Christian community. Not only that, but to write a song like False Teachers and call people out by name, absolutely,

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I get that. And it is not my contention that every person who responded responded for that reason.

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My contention is that it is an issue, as you said, you worry about that yourself, it is an issue.

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That idea of what I call ethnic Gnosticism, cultural Gnosticism, it is an issue and it tends to squelch conversation and to blunt debate.

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And there are many issues that need to be addressed and discussed across the board, regardless of whether it's, like I said, hip hop or ska or punk or metal or whatever, you name it, when you talk about sort of niche

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Christian music and whatnot. And my worry was that this would blunt discussion.

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And as I saw the snowball gaining momentum, I became more worried, because then not only do you have this broad list of people who are responding, but at some point,

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I don't know about you, James, but sometimes when things happen and there are a number of people who chimed in, my response is,

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I'm glad they did that, now I don't have to. But in this instance, there was none of that.

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People weren't going, hey, I'm glad that boom, boom, boom, boom, boom did that, now I don't have to. It's like everybody felt obligated to get in on this thing.

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And I'm saying that those two issues, the idea of the urban and the idea of the ethnic are playing a part in this, and that's what worries me.

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Because I don't want that to blunt the discussion. And I don't want it to be just chalked up to, these guys were white, therefore, they can't understand, and that's why they have issues.

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Because I believe even Shy and Ivy have issues with some of the things that they see within the context of Christian rap.

35:58

Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead, Ivy. Absolutely, if I may,

36:04

I'm sorry. Yeah, go ahead. Excuse me. Like what

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Bodie was saying, there are people even within our own camp, who are not fond of us.

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Even my brothers and sisters, so to speak, ethnically, you know, they don't rock with me anymore, if I can use that term, like they used to.

36:32

Like the moment that, you know, when I first became a Christian, obviously I wasn't immediately reformed, but I was sound and orthodox, and by God's grace,

36:45

I started getting into the reformed theology. So the moment that I started talking about election and started talking about false teachers and things like that, is when a lot of, you know, even the black church was pushing me away, like, hold up, you're going against my idols, you know, you're going against some of the people that I really look up to.

37:10

And I remember the first time me and you had an encounter, it was when the

37:15

YouTube video was up on election, and everyone thought it was you in the beginning of the election song.

37:22

And then that's how we, you know, kind of interacted through email and stuff. And then I'll tell you, it was a guy named

37:28

Daniel Uros or something like that out here in Southern California, but you guys sound so much alike.

37:35

And, but I was, you know, but you said also that, great song though, even though you wasn't into rap, you was just giving the compliments to the theology in the songs.

37:52

And so I appreciated that. And then that's when we did, you sort of mentioned the justice system, helped me out a lot on that.

38:01

And you did about, I think, like Bodie, like three different interludes on that particular album, not because you were fond of rap, but because of the theology.

38:14

And that's what matters. But earlier today, I was reading a, it's on my Twitter feed, so I don't know exactly where it's at, but people are welcome to go check it out.

38:23

It's, it was a, it was the article and a guy said,

38:30

I don't know who wrote the article, but he says lyrics, they're talking about the lyrics are sound, you know, and people are arguing that, you know, from that perspective, if the lyrics are sound, that's a bad argument.

38:41

Because he says that if the presentation violates

38:47

Jesus' prescription of true worship, then there are no more than just devils masquerading and whatnot.

38:57

And I'm just like, wow, that's a crazy statement. Because first of all, you know, there wasn't one scripture that was used to convey how the

39:10

Lord is to be worshipped. You know, like we see, and I catch myself bringing this up a lot, like in Habakkuk 3, when you got the form of poetry, shigging off the shigayon in the

39:24

Hebrew, which was perhaps a wild, passionate poem with rapid rhythm. So truly what is the issue?

39:33

Is it tempo? Because if it's a tempo, then we got to really search the scripture and see how many beats per minute we're able or we're allowed to have in our music in order for that to be acceptable to God.

39:48

But that's not, that's not the case at all. So it is content. It is the way we live our life from, of course, the right perspective, you know, with a mindset that is totally sound.

40:05

And then out of that, you know, living that life and expressing the worship that doesn't, you know, that isn't forbidden in scripture and expressing that, you know, and I wouldn't tell anyone how they ought to worship

40:20

God if you can't find it in scripture, if their lifestyle is... Before I ask a question about that,

40:28

Shilin, did you want to chime in on that? A lot has been said.

40:36

Yeah, I know, I know. Yeah, so I want to say something back about what you were saying, because I agree that there needs to be an open space for things to be critiqued biblically and that, you know, no one should get a pass just because they're from, you know, a certain ethnicity or cultural background.

41:02

So that's definitely not what I'm arguing for. And the irony for me as I watch the panel is that in these brothers using a broad brush to paint us all, they didn't realize that there is a lot of variety within Christian hip -hop and that there are many things that we would be in agreement on with the guys from the panel and things that we've seen in Christian hip -hop that are concerning and need to be addressed.

41:43

And so... Could you just sort of outline broadly what are some of your concerns?

41:52

So I have philosophical concerns, methodological concerns.

41:59

So one of the things that I've seen is what appears to be a reliance on man's wisdom as it relates to methodology, pragmatism.

42:11

So, you know, we... And Ivy and I have had some of these discussions.

42:18

So the desire to so -called reach the world by doing things like collaborating with secular artists, secular artists who are known for ungodliness, and then partnering with them and the idea of being to reach the world.

42:43

I would have questions about that. I would have questions about taking explicit

42:52

Christ -exalting content and minimizing it for the sake of a broader appeal.

42:59

I would have questions about that. And yeah, so these are things that have come up in our discussions within Christian hip -hop.

43:09

Well, let me ask everybody on the panel, because these are the questions that are running through my mind and maybe that has nothing to do with the listening audience or maybe it has everything to do with the audience.

43:20

I don't know. When you are...

43:25

Specifically, I'd address this to to Shilin and Ivy, but I'd also like to hear what

43:32

Voti thinks as a pastor of a church. The conversation on the panel was about the regulative principle, which is about worship within the church.

43:42

Do you see a difference between you, Ivy, Shilin, you are asked to a conference and you are asked to present some of your music, some of your rap on a particular subject.

44:01

Do you see a difference between you doing that in that context and the actual specific worship of the church?

44:10

And also, what is your thought, and this is a very practical question, I'm a part of a church where that would just be so foreign to our experience of worship in the church.

44:28

I mean, we use the Trinity Hymnal. We sing Amen for crying out loud, okay? I mean, does anyone...

44:35

We used to have in the Trinity Hymnal before we got the Baptist edition. You have the Baptist edition, don't you,

44:40

Voti? Yeah, that's what we use. Yeah, that's what we use, but you guys almost caught me up when

44:46

I was there because you don't sing the Amens, and I think that's wrong. I want to publicly bring that up right now.

44:53

I was almost left doing an acapella Amen after the first hymn, okay? And that's very embarrassing.

44:59

It really is, especially for me. But we sing the Amens, and in the ones before the

45:06

Baptist Hymnal, they had El Shaddai, you know, the El Shaddai song that Amy Grant made popular.

45:13

We sang the Amen to El Shaddai. Can you believe that? We may be the only congregation in the world that has ever sung an

45:22

Amen to El Shaddai. Okay, so that just gives you an idea of just how completely disconnected from where a lot of people are that we are.

45:31

But the point is, it would just be like shattering glass to have a rap song in the middle of that.

45:41

So how do you all see? Do you see a difference when you perform in a service or outside of a service?

45:50

Do you recognize that there might be some people that just would really have a hard time even following what you're saying?

45:57

How do you put all this together? I think it's where a lot of people's questions are right now. Yeah. You know what?

46:04

I think it's a... Oh, I'm sorry. Well, I think it's just a preference issue.

46:11

You know, there's a lot of songs that you'll hear from Shy, that you'll hear from myself, that is melodic, and that's, you know, a little bit on the softer side.

46:25

Also, an awesome group, Humble Beasts, a beautiful eulogy. Those guys,

46:32

I mean, you know, when they perform, I get a sense of, it's like the praise and worship team then came out and, you know, delivered, you know, some good, you know, praise and worship and song.

46:46

So there are songs that I have, like on, you know, The Unknown God, that a lot of people would say is very acceptable in their church when they're singing and, you know, praising

47:03

God, however they do, because of just the, you know, maybe the tempo and whatnot.

47:09

But there are faster songs that are more aggressive, and it's just a preference issue, you know.

47:15

As long as the lyrics don't defy God, and as long as it's bringing glory to God, then amen.

47:25

And I see in the songs, I see in the scripture that music was created to, of course, praise

47:35

God, worship God in music and singing and with these instruments, and also it was used to encourage the body.

47:43

Now, it was never intended to be an evangelical tool at the same time.

47:49

Since the Bible doesn't prohibit that, I thank God for that tool, that we're able to use it and be evangelical and actually, you know, preach the gospel through that medium.

48:02

And, you know, when it comes to the, you know, to different churches, like I was at a church where they did not care for rap at all until they heard the lyrics, they heard the

48:13

CDs, and then next thing you know, we're right there, you know. And the pulpits and more reformed rappers are at the church, and the pastors totally changed their view on it because of the content.

48:29

And, you know, whether it's slower, fast, it's a preference. How about you, Shailen? Yeah, so I would say that I don't think it's merely a preference.

48:41

So when it comes to the corporate worship of God, biblically, there's an emphasis on congregational participation.

48:54

And so one of the challenges with the medium of hip -hop is that is that you have a rapper who's proclaiming, and the audience is often passive in terms of just receiving what's being said.

49:12

And so there can be a challenge with using rap in the corporate worship of God's people with it just being a performance or just entertainment.

49:25

And so that's something that as hip -hop artists, we need to be aware of.

49:31

I don't think that that rules it out. Inherently, I think what it does mean is that those who are within that cultural context need to make sure—you just need to be thoughtful and theological as they walk through what it would look like amongst the people of God to use this particular form.

49:56

So one of the first churches I was at as a believer was 10th

50:02

Presbyterian in Philadelphia, James Boyce, Phil Wyken. And I'm familiar with the regulative principle.

50:12

I'm familiar with the arguments that are made. You know, oftentimes at 10th, one of the things that would happen is you have this kind of category of special music, right, where either the choir or a soloist would sing a hymn.

50:30

And that was completely acceptable within that context because the words were not exhausting.

50:38

But yet there was a lot of care taken by the musical director to make sure that it didn't come off like a performance or like entertainment.

50:48

And so I wouldn't rule it out, particularly amongst those within hip -hop culture who have the vernacular.

50:59

I think I've seen it done, and it is possible to do it, but I wouldn't just say, you know, take what you're doing on the

51:07

CD and just do it in the church service. That makes it okay. Okay, Voti, now you heard

51:12

Shilin say, bring up the main issue that would be in my mind, and that is corporate worship.

51:23

I can't rap along with somebody. I mean, everybody can sing

51:28

A Mighty Fortress or Before the Throne of God or something like that. I'm sorry?

51:35

A Mighty Fortress hurts my throat when I sing it. I'm sorry. Well, look, everybody knows that the test of whether you're really reformed or not is whether you need the hymnal or don't need the hymnal to sing

51:52

A Mighty Fortress. Okay, I mean, come on. That's a giver.

51:58

I mean, seriously, as soon as we start singing A Mighty Fortress, I put the hymnal away. And if you're really, really reformed when you sing it, as well as my soul, same thing.

52:10

But you need to do that a little bit more secretly. But anyhow, Voti, what is your view in regards to this and the worship of the church?

52:18

I mean, if you had—let's put it this way—if you had been on the panel, which you might have been, what would you have said?

52:27

It depends on if I was early or late. If I was late and some of that stuff had been said,

52:34

I probably would have sang Being Slave in the Spirit or something. Now, that I'd like to see a video of, personally.

52:43

But anyways, that leads us to a strange fire conversation. We don't want to go there right now. No. Let me say this.

52:50

Let me say a couple of things. One, I don't believe that culture is neutral. I don't believe that culture is in the eye of the beholder.

53:01

I believe that scripturally, God gives us a standard for truth, beauty, and goodness.

53:09

And that none of that is neutral. So let me say that.

53:15

Secondly, let me say that words are not enough. Because even the package needs to be considered.

53:24

If I'm going to buy an engagement ring so that I can propose, I don't want that in a

53:30

McDonald's happy meal package. The package needs to be consistent with the content of the package.

53:37

And so we can talk about—again, that's a much more complicated discussion about how we determine truth, beauty, and goodness as it relates even to musical forms.

53:50

But it does need to be done. The other thing is,

53:56

I'm a classicist. And here's what I mean by that. Everybody's a cultural elitist.

54:03

Everybody knows and is comfortable with his own culture and wants his own culture. And so what

54:10

I mean when I say I'm a classicist, my desire is for the Word of God and for the history of the worshipping people of God to lead me toward the highest and the best in order to guard me from just going with the spirit of the age.

54:29

I want to be in the world but not of the world. And so the scriptures and the history of the church to show me what

54:39

God's people have presented as the highest and the best. Number one, again, to guard myself from my own selfish desires and wanting my own culture.

54:49

But number two, so that I can unite myself with the church in history and unite myself with as much of the church today as I possibly can.

55:01

And so I don't want any niche genre to dominate the worship of God because I don't want to say that the church is this group or that group or whatever.

55:17

I believe the gospel unites us. And as it unites us, what we do is we work toward the highest and the best.

55:26

And so again, those are some of the broader reasons that I bring to this.

55:33

Oh, go ahead. No, no. What I was going to say is we've gone an hour with people being able to understand us now.

55:40

So what I wanted to ask each one of you to do is, in just a couple moments each,

55:48

I know we don't get to say everything we want to say, etc., etc., but what do you want to communicate?

55:57

We'll start with Ivy and then go to Devotee and then go to Shilin.

56:07

In light of what happened last week, week before last, whenever it was, and what is taking place, what's the most important thing you want people to understand from your perspective, your experience, in regards to what was said and to what you do?

56:25

What do you want people to hear? Well, I want to make it clear, by the grace of God, that every single

56:36

Christian artist that does rap is not the same.

56:42

And so it's unfair to throw everyone under the bus. I don't know the hearts of all of the

56:53

Christian hip -hoppers, Christian rappers. I do see, like what

57:00

Shy was saying, that there is some issues that are in Christian rap and Christian hip -hop that I've discussed even on my latest album.

57:13

But what I want them to realize is that we're aware of that, and that's why we express that even in the music, our dislikes, or I would just speak for myself, my personal dislikes when it goes against scripture.

57:30

And I'll convey that in a song. And I would want to challenge everyone on the panel and so forth to go and get an album by myself or Shy Lynn.

57:44

I just dropped an album December 2nd called The Unknown God, of course, based on Act 17, featuring both

57:52

Dr. Bodhi Bakum and Shy Lynn.

57:59

And most people, when they listen to the album, they give glory to God.

58:06

And that's what I want them to see, that it's based on scripture, it's not pointing to myself, and it's not, you know,

58:15

I'm not being a coward, you know about it, but proclaiming the truth of God.

58:22

And that's just what I want to get across. Okay. All right, Bodhi? Yeah.

58:29

What I want people to take away from this is that we belong to each other.

58:35

We don't belong to camps. We are all one in Christ. And this idea that we shut ourselves off within certain ethnic circles, you know, and circle the wagon against other individuals who belong to the body of Christ is wrong.

58:53

I mean that from the standpoint of the panelist or from the standpoint of any other group that wants to do that.

59:02

And so what I want is I want the kind of brotherly love that will speak the truth in love and the kind of brotherly love that will receive that and not immediately, you know, respond by closing off.

59:21

I want people to see, and this is why I these guys here, that you can disagree agreeably and that just because you disagree doesn't mean you castigate or throw away.

59:35

I disagree in some ways with the two brothers right here, but as I've said, when he called me and told me what he wanted to do,

59:45

I said, amen, because I can respect him and I can respect his efforts.

59:51

You know, even if we have those disagreements and I want us to be able to do that and have these discussions, but I also don't want us to throw away those men just because they put their feet in their mouth, you know, because believe it or not, there's a couple of men on that panel who have

01:00:13

Shilane's album. It's been funny to me to listen to people who say, oh, these guys don't know, these guys haven't listened.

01:00:20

There's a couple of guys, and I'm not going to out anybody, but there's a couple of guys on there who have lyrical theology and can quote you some stuff from lyrical theology.

01:00:31

So again, that's what I want. I want us to understand that we're brothers. Brothers mess up and our brothers messed up, but I don't want how bad our brothers messed up to close us off from real discussion and real debate or to lead us to this kind of idea that culture is neutral and there's no discussion to be had.

01:00:56

Well, before I go to Shilane, let me just mention just in passing, and Voti's been here too, I've been on panels and I've had to sit there.

01:01:05

It's almost always at the end of a long period of time you've been speaking frequently, even during the breaks.

01:01:13

You don't get a break because people come up to you and they want to talk and you've been talking for hours and then, and so you're there and you don't even know what the questions are going to be.

01:01:21

You don't have no time for preparation whatsoever. So please, for everybody, no matter where you are, realize that those of us who are put in those positions, sometimes we're just not at our level best at the last session and we're asked questions that we have no time to prepare.

01:01:40

Something tells me that if they had been asked that question and asked to write something about it over a couple of weeks of time, things would have been a lot different than they were.

01:01:50

But there's also the pressure of the panel. I mean, once it started at the beginning, it's hard at the end to stand up and, well, even

01:01:57

Voti said, I think I would pretend to be slaying the spirit, because you know you're going to have to start a debate right then and there.

01:02:03

So just keep that, it's just the sort of thing that popped into my mind as a conference speaker once in a blue moon.

01:02:11

Most of the big conferences are scared to death of me for other reasons, so I don't really get to go to those, but it does happen.

01:02:18

So let me just mention that in passing. So finally, Shailen, you get the last word. One of the thoughts that I had as I thought about it this week was, imagine if one of your worst moments as a

01:02:33

Christian were recorded and put on YouTube, your worst five minutes as a

01:02:39

Christian put on YouTube for everybody to see, and then even after you repented of it, like, it's still on YouTube, and comments are still coming in.

01:02:50

Just how awful that would be. So I think there needs to be a posture of grace, a willingness to dialogue.

01:03:01

I appreciate what Voti just said. It reminds me of 1 Corinthians 12, 14, says, the body does not consist of one member, but of many.

01:03:10

If the foot should say, because I'm not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less of a part of the body.

01:03:18

And if the ear should say, because I'm not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body.

01:03:25

We are all, as Christians, we've been redeemed by the blood of the

01:03:32

Lord Jesus Christ. We are equally needy in need of the cross and God's grace.

01:03:39

And so the love that Christians should have for one another, that should be our identifying mark.

01:03:47

And so part of what that means is not reading motives into people's hearts and speaking in a way that you would want to be spoken to, having, you know, even as we disagree, to be able to disagree with the charitable spirit.

01:04:04

I think this is an important discussion. And if this leads to some more conversation, not just over the internet, but inviting people who are different amongst us, as is possible, praise

01:04:20

God. This is an opportunity for us to not be outwitted by the evil one, and it's a very important conversation.

01:04:28

So let's continue to dialogue. We are all concerned about the glory of God and Jesus Christ being magnified maximally, and that's something that we would all fight for.

01:04:40

And so let's continue the discussion. Excellent. Well, gentlemen, I thank you very much, first of all, for your patience.

01:04:48

We managed to work through the technical issues there eventually, and from what

01:04:53

I'm seeing, people have benefited from the conversation. So I thank all of you for your participation in the program today, and obviously

01:05:01

I do hope that, what I'd like to hope is that this conversation would get a whole lot more

01:05:06

YouTube hits than the panel eventually would, but I may be somewhat naively optimistic at that point.

01:05:14

Okay, you're a disobedient coward. Oh, that'll make it work. There you go. Gentlemen, Rich Pierce here, and I just want to pop in real quick.

01:05:26

I'm going to go ahead, and what we've been doing, the entirety of it, is streaming into a

01:05:32

YouTube file right now. We're going to consider that, and for the listening audience, if you're listening to this part, we're going to consider this a raw file.

01:05:40

I'm going to download this file, chop the garbage out at the beginning, and put the proper bookends on it, and then repost it to another

01:05:48

YouTube link. So this YouTube link is not meant to be permanent, and I really hope we've done you justice today.

01:05:55

I really do. Yeah, I think it'll all work out, and it will be available. Obviously, what we can try to do is drop you guys a note when

01:06:03

Rich gets a chance to do the editing to put that up, and then you guys obviously link to it and get it out there, and hopefully, it'll be very useful to folks.

01:06:14

I appreciate you all being with me today. Hey, thank you for having me. Appreciate it, Bill. All right. Thanks a lot, guys.