“What Have You Been Hearin’ From the Christians?” Kanye West and Christian Art

Last year’s November launch of Kanye West’s Jesus is King “gospel” album sparked far more discussion than it warranted from a purely aesthetic perspective. A strange amount of this conversation occurred within evangelical Christianity - where discussion of Kanye’s music had until then been largely unheard of. At the risk of adding to a conversation that wholly misses the point of Kanye’s recent musical work, the Christian reaction that was widely shared after the album release gives a concerning insight into a phenomenon of Christian engagement with the arts which denies the value of art made by those that the mainstream Christian consciousness deems to be unworthy.

For those well versed in Kanye’s discography, his 2019 release came far less  from out of the blue than some seemed to believe. Kanye has a history of engagement with gospel themes, from as early as his 2005 hit “Jesus Walks.” Life of Pablo, released in 2016, opens with “Ultralight Beam,” a song which heavily features the openly Christian Chicagoan, Chance the Rapper. Kirk Franklin, a veteran gospel artist, closes the song with this final chorus:

“Father, this prayer is for everyone that feels they're not good enough

This prayer's for everybody that feels like they're too messed up

For everyone that feels they've said "I'm sorry" too many time

You can never go too far when you can't come back home again

That's why I need / Faith, more, safe, war.”

In the year leading up to the release of Jesus is King, Kanye produced a series of performances with his choir, Sunday Service Choir, featuring rewrites of his old music and adapted gospel worship riffs. These are curated worship experiences, embodying the “ultralight beam” that he  imagines as “that connection that goes straight to heaven.” Sunday Services are key for understanding the progression of Kanye’s work in the last 5 years. He’s using music from his previous albums, often with adjustments, but this in itself is a major statement. Jesus is King wasn’t a stark paradigm shift, it’s the product of a journey of faith that has played out in the public arena for the last decade. 

Sadly, for Kanye, the Christian response to his album was not unexpected. He even preempts the response in Track 9 of the album, “Hands On.” There was a general sense of mistrust from many (online) Christians of the “integrity” of Kanye’s faith, accompanied by a critique of the message that he was sharing in light of his previous music. Comments like, “Well will he still play his old songs?” or “But he can’t really be Christian because…”, are criticisms that are wildly irrelevant and completely ignore the declarations of faith that he made in the album. 

Kanye could preempt this response because he hasn’t been the first major secular artist to experience it. Justin Bieber’s public conversion to Christianity was followed up by tracks in his 2015 album Purpose that described his relationship with Christ and the challenge he found in giving grace to himself. No one really listened to this or cared though. Bieber’s conversion was received with similar judgement to Kanye’s, his past actions were immediately recalled as evidence of his lack of faith.

The response to Kanye reveals a troubling double standard in the beliefs that have come to dominate Christian discussion about and engagement with the arts. The question was not whether Kanye’s music was good, or even whether the message he shared was honouring to God (read: worshipful), rather it was whether the musician was “Christian” enough for the music to be listened to by Christians.

His rhymes from “Jesus Walks” hit even harder in the current context: “If I talk about God my record won’t get played.” It feels like he might have overcome this prophecy with Jesus is King. But it’s too Christian for mainstream listeners, and Kanye is apparently not sufficiently “Christian” for evangelical media.

Within art’s industries there seems to be two clear streams that have very little crossover: the Christian and the secular. Focusing on music (although the same phenomenon seems clear in film and literature) artists are stuck in their particular stream regardless of their beliefs. Even Chance the Rapper, who has always been extremely public about his faith, has had very minimal exposure to Christian audiences who only receive media through Christian outlets.

“Jesus is King wasn’t a stark paradigm shift, it’s the product of a journey of faith that has played out in the public arena for the last decade.”

As a young teenager I was challenged by Christian leaders at a camp I attended about the music that I listened to. Their recommendation, that I followed for a number of years, was that Christians should only listen to or engage with art that is made by Christian artists. I wasn’t alone in receiving this message. So many friends who I grew up with held, and still hold this attitude about the arts. A common evangelical attitude expresses fear of the kinds of messages that might be contained in art made by artists who don’t meet our standards.

But the creation of this dichotomy in the arts industry leads to some pretty significant issues. Christians who follow these restrictions only engage with a limited range of expressions of human experience, the sorts of images of human life that only art can contain. There is no denying that the themes in the two arts streams identified are profoundly different. The choice of many Christians to limit their engagement with music and other media to those made by Christians that they deem worthy means that they receive a limited picture of humanity.

This leads into a second issue which arises when art is judged on the worth and actions (including faith) of the artist rather than the quality of the content. It seems foolish to me to deem all art made by non-Christians as intrinsically lacking in value when compared to art made by Christians, or by those who we deem good enough to call Christians in the case of Kanye and Bieber. Regardless of the faith of the artist, art contains great worth, whether it is aesthetically glorifying to God in its beauty, edifying to those who encounter it, or if it presents a challenging picture of humanity that encourages us to consider the relationship of our faith to its expression of human experience. Not all art by Christians should necessarily be considered good or worthwhile by these standards, and certainly not all art by non-Christians should be immediately written off. In many ways, I would argue that there is a pervading sense of complacency in Christian art given that it will be engaged with regardless of its quality simply due to the faith of the artists. I would, potentially controversially, ask whether or not this art is meeting the aesthetic, glorifying to God standard.

Kanye’s 2019 album presented a challenge to Christian commentators on pop-culture, a challenge that few rose to. Kanye asked what response he would receive from Christians given his public declaration of faith and production of music that, by even many of the more conservative standards, could have received airtime on Christian radio. In response, many questioned the faith of a man they did not know, instead of taking the time to consider the artistic contribution that his music provided to our faith.

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Jaimee van Gemerden is the current editor of Metanoia.