A Puritan Endorses Unholy Hip Hop

This is the sort of music that I wasn't allowed to listen to as a kid.

Profane, explicitly violent, totally disillusioned with life -- no, I'm not saying that this is music I should have been allowed to listen to as a kid.

But -- of course -- just because I wasn't allowed to listen to this sort of thing, that didn't mean that I didn't. Not this particular artist, no. But to explicit lyrics rapped with anger-fuelled energy and the cynical conviction borne from experience -- that I listened to. And like every other teenage boy frustrated with the failure of the world to live up to my expectations, I liked it.

And some people -- the sort of people who you would call 'puritanical' -- think you shouldn't like this sort of thing. And here I am, someone who you might even describe as a 'puritan' -- I do in fact believe that the Puritans were for the most part right about the big metaphysical questions of life, the universe, and everything: I believe that there is a God, and I believe that the God-Who-Is-There is a holy God, and I believe that we the great mass of mere humanity therefore need to guard our hearts by setting our minds on whatever is true, noble, right, pure lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy; I even go to a church that would still quote the great Puritan theologians.

But I'm going to give this FOUR STARS OUT OF FIVE. Because this music is ferociously honest, philosophically aware and lyrically skillful. I won't give bore you with detailed exegesis -- because that's not what this blog is for. But here are just two poetical snippets which could trigger a far more honest and insightful theological conversation than more conventional Christian contemporary music:

Something has broken my TV //
It keeps telling me I need to be worshiped //
And followed to fill this void -- //
I don't know who I am.
(From 'Junk')

Maybe we’ll evolve to a point where //
Fear as an experience is no longer instinctual //
But rather an emotion we use to enrich our understanding of //
Why our human ancestors killed each other when they could have loved each other//
One day we’ll be holding hands instead of grudges//
We’ll eliminate our territorial circuits and know what love is//
One day we’ll be holding hands instead of M-16s//
Until then every human being is controlled by the fight
(From 'This Story')

Let me make this clear though -- the honesty of the music (as I perceive it) is in its awareness of the total meaninglessness and misery of this life if indeed it is true that we are randomly evolved creatures in a universe otherwise empty of intelligent life. In fact, if we take into account the whole tragic story of Michael 'Eyedea' Larsen, the rapper of these songs, who died aged 29 due to an accidental drug overdose, the tragedy of the meaninglessness offered by a God-less worldview becomes even more apparent.

But this is where we need to come back to the Puritans. And to the message that tells us that it's not ourselves that we need to worship, but Someone Else, and that in worshipping Him we can know who we ourselves are. And then that knowledge -- and not random evolution -- is the thing which can set us free from the controlling urge to fight and bring us to the point where we are able indeed to love each other.