Kanye, James Cordon, and the King

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This ain't 'bout a dead religion

Jesus brought a revolution

All the captives are forgiven

Time to break down all the prisons

Every man, every woman

There is freedom from addiction

Jesus, You have my soul

Sunday Service on a roll

All my idols, let 'em go

All the demons, let 'em know

This a mission, not a show

This is my eternal soul

— Kanye’s "God Is" song from the album Jesus is King

Kanye is a cultural force.  With his new album, Jesus is King, he became  the first artist to occupy all top ten spots on the US Christian Songs and Gospel Songs charts, and the first artist to simultaneously top five separate US charts: the Billboard 200, Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, Top Rap Albums, Top Christian Albums and Top Gospel Albums.  This was also his ninth consecutive album to debut top of the US Billboard 200, tying him with fellow rapper Eminem, and tying him with Justin Bieber for most number one albums of the decade.

But Jesus is King is more than all that … it is signaling permission for artists to explicitly explore their deepest held religious beliefs.  Kanye West and Dr. Dre are working on Jesus Is King Part II and plan to drop Jesus is Born on Christmas day, which, if it follows its predecessors, will include other A-list artists.

Kanye has said that his faith was deepened by working in the studio with Chance the Rapper, but also with gospel singer Kirk Franklin, who has worked with Chance and other mainstream artists.

The original Clapham Group members William Wilberforce and Hannah More believed in the importance of working with elite leaders to shape society.  In their “reformation of manners” efforts, they recruited nobility to make goodness fashionable. Even though some of the aristocrats were not particularly religious, Wilberforce believed that it was better for there to be social pressure for bad people to behave well than for good people to behave poorly.

[On a side note, “making goodness fashionable“ was one of the objectives that Fred Rogers and I discussed over lunch as a “great object” we both shared.]

Jesus is King embraces the radical "good news” that Christians of all colors and creeds believe: that Jesus was born as flesh, incarnate, in a dirty and smelly manger, to save a world that He made, loved and that He foreknew would reject Him.

I was reminded through Kanye’s album how revolutionary this news is, and in turn may be to  peers and friends of his, not to mention his fans, with whom he has the opportunity to share it with. No one can leave unchanged after watching James Cordon's “carpool karaoke” episode with Kanye, in which they sing along to "Jesus Walks” and Kanye shares his new walk.

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Wilberforce and More’s Clapham Group understood the importance of “cultural conversation launchers”, and pioneered the use of them to promote their causes. A good example is the “icon” that Josiah Wedgwood created with the image of a slave in chains and the challenging question "Am I Not A Man and a Brother?” —  a question that was later answered by Martin Luther King and the sanitation workers in Memphis who carried signs proclaiming "I Am A Man."

In the same way, Chance and Kanye have created “launchers” through their music and have given other artists permission to do the same. Their lyrics challenge listeners to explore not just faith but its relationship to personal and social liberation from addiction and expectation.

Kanye is on a mission. His album “launched” me this Christmas to embrace anew the bloody birth of a newborn baby in a humble manger … a birth which foreshadowed the humiliation and the blood that would be shed on the cross … a birth expressing a Love so radical that it was willing to die for its enemies.

May we incarnate His redemptive work by being agents of grace in a world that is in desperate need of healing and reconciliation. And may it serve as a reminder to the world that following Jesus is not a dead religion — it gives new life and sets the captives free.