Hopsin, Questioning God, and the Psalms
“Is Heaven real? Is it fake? Is it really how I fantasize it?
Where’s the Holy Ghost at? How long’s it take a man to find it?
My mind’s a nonstop tape playin’ and I can’t rewind it
You gave me the Bible and expect me not to analyze it?!
…
I ain’t tryna take your legacy and torch it down
I’m just sayin’, I ain’t heard shit from the horse’s mouth.
Just sheep always tellin’ stories of older guys
Who were notarized by you when you finally vocalized
Now I’m supposed to bow my head and close my eyes
And somehow let the Holy Ghost arise? Sounds like a fuckin’ Poltergeist.”
These are a portion of quotes from “Ill Mind of Hopsin 7,” a (quite explicit) rap from Hopsin where he wrestles with the belief in the divine but how he feels he can no longer believe in Christianity. He wrestles in this rap with the difficulty of believing. On one hand, when he looks at creation, he believes it testifies to a higher power. However, in his interactions with Christianity and Christians, he finds that his experience doesn’t quite compare. He articulates the desire for God to reveal himself, saying:
“I hate the fact that I have to believe.
You haven’t been chattin’ with me like you did Adam and Eve,
And I ain’t see no fuckin’ talkin’ snake unravel from trees,
With an apple to eat, that shit never happens to me.”
It’s a raw, emotive piece that is full of questions directed at God. Hopsin brings his anger, confusion, frustration, and hopelessness into the rap, which he describes as a cry of help to God.
(Note: I will not be ‘assessing’ Hopsin’s faith, or lack thereof, as I do not know him or his story/experience, and claiming to be able to know so would be far too arrogant. Rather, I will focus on how his artistry can provoke thought).
I encountered this rap during my first year of theological study and found it thoroughly challenged me as a believer. I found Hopsin’s vulnerability to God incredibly challenging. Growing up, I was not taught a healthy relationship with emotion but rather shown them as burdens and things that get in the way of faith. It was instilled in me that expression of emotions showed one's immaturity in the faith, as if emotions were not created by God. Similarly, expressions of doubt led to people questioning my faith and wondering if it was real, as if doubts were things that are not normal to humans. I was taught to pray that God would remove my doubts or questioning, not to bring those questions to God. In contrast with this formation of mine, Hopsin’s ability to be real before God, bring his emotions (as powerful and raw as they were) and to articulate his doubts, became something I aspired to be able to do.
In excitement, I shared the piece with a classmate, who immediately responded by saying that it was a waste of time listening to such a disgraceful piece. They stated it was not beneficial to Christianity; words that have haunted me to this day.
Bringing questions to God is found in other rap songs too, such as Dax’s “Dear God”, where he articulates all his struggles with faith and God, articulating that though he is a believer, he needs to acknowledge the difficulty of faith. Likewise, Andy Mineo articulates in “Clarity” his battles between faith and doubts, claiming “The opposite of faith ain’t doubt, It’s when I get it all figured out,” thus normalising doubt as part of the faith experience. A central thread throughout all these raps is the bringing of questions and doubt to God and the ability to articulate and talk about them. When looking at the Psalms, similar threads can be observed.
The Psalms are often raw and emotive pieces. Walter Brueggemann forms a framework to understand the Psalms, showing that the “life of faith consists of moving with God in terms of:
Being securely oriented;
Being painfully disoriented; and
Being surprisingly reoriented.”
From this framework, Brueggemann notes how secure orientation is a minor theme in the Psalms, as the Psalms more readily come from spaces of disorientation and reorientation.
The Psalms articulate the human experience in honest, raw, and freeing ways. Hence the presence of numerous Psalms of Lament, which “are characterized by complaint, questions, petitions, and sometimes even imprecations (curses) on the enemy.” We encounter the questions of injustice in Psalm 13, where David asks “How long, oh Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” We observe the question in Psalm 22, with the cry of “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” We encounter the anger, sorrow and gloom of Psalm 88, which concludes with overwhelming emotions. The Psalms are full of questioning, and full of emotions, bringing both before the Holy One, in acknowledgement that God is big enough to hear and handle them.
The Psalms stand in stark contrast with some depictions of the Christian life today. It confronts my upbringing which taught me to diminish emotion and hide questions. Similarly, Brueggemann notes how often in public life, the raw edges of disorientation and reorientation are denied/suppressed to maintain public opinion. In contrast, he states, the “Psalms are an assurance to us that when we pray and worship, we are not expected to censure or deny the deepness of our own human pilgrimage.” Instead, they model the bringing of this human pilgrimage before the Holy One. Similarly, Michael Rhodes observes how the Psalms contrast with the popular worship songs. In comparing the CCLI’s most popular worship songs to the Psalms, Rhodes notes: “Maybe most devastatingly, in the Top 25, not a SINGLE question is ever posed to God. The Top 25 never ask God anything.” But when looking at the Psalms, he says “Prick the Psalter and it bleeds the cries of the oppressed pleading with God to act.”
In a similar vein, the “Ill mind of Hopsin 7” shows a rawness, wrestling, in his words. Wrestling continues throughout his pieces, such as “Marcus’ Gospel”, which portrays a cry to God for help.
As I wrestle with how to make peace with my emotions, seeing them as friends, and acknowledging them as part of God’s creation of humanity, I hope my prayers can be that of the Psalms and that of Hopsin. Bringing the rawness, the questioning, the doubts, the anger before the Holy One. In reality, it is bringing myself, as I am, before God.
~
Timote Naulivou is editor at Metanoia.