Jesus is King: Church in the Wild

I wish I liked Kanye West’s new album, Jesus is King, more than I do. I really like the stark, alienating sadness of 808s and Heartbreaks, and the strange, jagged spaciness of collaboration with Kid Cuddi, Kids See Ghosts. The weird experimental feel of the second half of the song Runaway and his production on Watch the Throne are both great. Without Kanye’s influence, 22, a Million by Bon Iver, probably my favorite album, wouldn’t be what it is. Some of the snippets I’ve heard from his Sunday Service are better than I expected them to be. And theologically, I’m happy to affirm that Jesus is King. The album, however, falls short.

Jesus is King is best when it's the most Gospel (the genre). The opening track, Every Minute, is a bombastic, choral affirmation of our need for God. On God is, Kanye, backed by a Gospel intro, sings in his ragged voice which he buried in autotune and production on 808s, in a genuine confession of faith. The album would have been better served by leaning on the joy and resilience at the core of Gospel music. At it’s best, it’s like Snoop Dogg presents Bible of Love, a powerful Gospel album further enlivened by the resurrection cognitive dissonance of Snoop and Kanye making Gospel albums. When Kanye gets back into hip-hop is when it gets shakier, basically because as Kanye raps more words, he inevitably falls into the self-aggrandized trappings of hip-hop.

Before I criticize the album, I am aware that the song Hands On is a preemptive strike against the Christians that will criticize the album. As one of those Christians criticizing the album, I’ll attempt to justify myself. First, I am glad that Kanye is being open and vocal that Jesus is King. Like with Snoop, the contrast between perceptions of Kanye and a Gospel album demonstrate the universal nature and transformative power of the love of God. Second, I like hip-hop a lot. I want this album to be good, because when Kanye is at his best, he’s one of the most adventurous and innovative musicians in the game. Third, as someone who agrees that Jesus is King and is striving to understand God, theology is important. Theology is the study of the nature of God. If we want people to know about God, we should be careful to teach correct things about God. That being said, what holds back Jesus is King is Kanye’s still myopic view and a simplistic view of Christianity.

The album feels uninspired. The production feels the hollow shells of his better work. Selah feels like Feel the Love off Kids See Ghosts without a hook, Follow God feels like Otis off Watch the Throne without swagger, and Closed on Sunday feels like Chance the Rapper at his absolute corniest. The lyrics lack the theological depth of Black Thought, Lauren Hill, and Kendrick Lamar. He bandies platitudes like the worst contemporary Christian music and heresies like the worst of the prosperity Gospel. At one point in the song Water, Ye gives a long list of prayers to Jesus, including “Jesus, give us wealth.” I was hoping that the list would end with a rejection of this mentality with the true riches of God, but it all the prayers were played straight. In On God, he raps, “The IRS want they fifty plus our tithe/Man, that's over half of the pie/I felt dry, that's on God/That's why I charge the prices that I charge” seeming to blame God for US tax policy and using that as a means to justify enriching himself. Sanctification is a long and slow process. I didn’t expect Kanye’s ego to dissolve in a single indelible moment, but his lyrics seem to show that he’s missing the very point of Salvation.

My broader complaint is common to both Kanye and many protestant Christian circles. Several times on the album Kanye says that it’s not about religion. He broke his rule against swearing (mildly) to rap, “This ain't 'bout a damn religion/Jesus brought a revolution,” as I often hear people say that Christianity isn’t a religion, it's a relationship. While there is some truth to this, it ends up undermining the mission of the Church by denying its traditional understanding and under-emphasizing its corporate nature. 

Christianity is a relationship. Jesus is King, not Jesus was King. He still is living and active, indwells us through his Spirit, and incorporating us into His Body. It is ongoing, relational, and personal.  

However, being a personal relationship does not mean that Christianity is an individual relationship. A personal relationship neither gives you full, exclusive knowledge of a person, nor does exclude and nullify other people's knowledge of the person. For example, I know my mom, and have for sometime, but I don’t know what all of her life is like, or what all of her thoughts and attitudes are. My dad, her siblings, her coworkers, and everyone else she knows probably have a somewhat different understanding of her than I do, and it would give me a more complete picture of who she is if we got together and swapped stories about her. Similarly, the Church is a wealth of collective knowledge. Sharing in the body leads us to a deeper understanding and love of God, allows us to support each other, and together we can do far more to love and serve others in deed and in truth than any of us could do alone.  

Finally, Christianity being a relationship doesn’t mean it’s not a religion. Christianity is a religion, and that is incredibly valuable. The rallying cry of early science is Nullius in verba, Latin for “take no one’s word for it.” Scientific thought is valid because anyone can repeat an experiment and show the same results, but it would be ridiculous for each scientist to disbelieve all science until they had proved it for themselves. Experiments that are repeatedly validated are crystallized into laws, and those laws become the principles that further experimentation are built on. If there are giants, feel free to stand on their shoulders. Christianity, too, has giants. The beliefs and creeds of Christianity are the crystallization of the repeatedly validated knowledge, blessed and guided by the Spirit, of the apostles and the early Church regarding the Trinity. Kanye considers himself a “Christian innovator,” but insists on standing on his own two feet and not the shoulders of those who came before.
Jesus is King is an okay album. Musically, it’s fine. Lyrically, it’s not great, but it isn’t completely heretical. It is flawed, but it is a work of adoration to God, which by the intercession of the Spirit, I trust, is made perfect. But it pales in the light of those that have come before. Kendrick Lamar, in his struggle to live a righteous life in a fallen world, over takes him. Lauren Hill, in her exploration of love and forgiveness, looms larger. Outside of rap, the work of the Church triumphant shines, a rose resplendent with stars. I welcome Kanye’s incorporation into the Body of Christ, but encourage him to look to those who came before. The orthodoxy of Christianity and living the teachings of Christ are far more radical and powerful than his innovation.