Ask a Pastor Ep. 70 - Kanye West and Christianity
Episode Description
This episode Dr. Kurt Bjorklund, Joel Haldeman and Dan Shields sit down to have a conversation about Kanye West's conversion to Christianity, his new album "Jesus is King", and his influence in our culture.
Podcast Transcript
Joel Haldeman: Hey, welcome to the Ask a Pastor Podcast. We are experimenting with a little bit of a new format here, spending more time going into one subject and just having a little bit more fun, being a little bit more casual.
Joel Haldeman: Today, we're going to explore the subject that you've all been waiting for, Kanye.
Dan Shields: Dun dun da!
Joel Haldeman: But before we jump into that, since we're talking about music, why don't you share, Kurt, what are you listening to these days?
Kurt Bjorklund: What am I listening to? I've been listening to Slaughter Beach Dog. It's one of the things my sons have gotten me into. So I actually took Nate, my youngest son, to a Slaughter Beach Dog concert the other night. And I was actually probably the oldest person the room. But it was really cool. There were one of these bands that isn't well known. So we were standing right on the stage, like my hands were on the stage as we were there. So that's kind of fun when you get that close to somebody. So I had been listening to their music a little bit just because my kids were into it, but then after going to that concert, I've been listening.
Dan Shields: It like an alt independent type of band, or what is it? I don't know.
Kurt Bjorklund: I'd call it a indie rock alternative.
Dan Shields: Electric or acoustic stuff.
Kurt Bjorklund: Well, I mean, they have electric guitars, but yeah, they're fun. That's probably not a recommendation if you have young kids because there are a lot of drug and alcohol references. But what was actually cool is it gave me a chance to talk about that with my son saying, "Okay. You like this music. Let's talk about how often drugs and alcohol are used as a reference and what the context is how this plays out." So yeah, it was an interesting conversation. First, he was like, "Ah, dad. Come on." But it's like, "Well, okay. I went to the concert with you, and probably half the songs felt like they had some clear reference to drug use or alcohol." So it ended up leading to a good conversation.
Dan Shields: I've done the same with my kids. I've always said I want to insulate my kids but not isolate my kids. You want your kids to be able to be... They're going to have to be independent and out there in the world anyhow. So for them to be able to listen to whatever they want to listen to but wrestle with the ideas, not just intake it I think is important. So I do the same thing with my kids. Yeah.
Dan Shields: So Joel, what are you listening to?
Kurt Bjorklund: Wait, wait, wait. We know. Something country.
Joel Haldeman: Yes.
Dan Shields: No. Lithuania.
Joel Haldeman: What?
Dan Shields: Lithuania I said. I said that's a country.
Joel Haldeman: I love country.
Dan Shields: Do you really?
Joel Haldeman: Last year...
Dan Shields: You admit that publicly?
Joel Haldeman: Absolutely. And I hated it when I was a kid growing up in a place where everybody listened to country. But we went to this Luke Bryan concert like a year ago accidentally sort of. And we come back and Kurt in one of his messages rips on Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset, Repeat. And I'm in the back of the room just like. Yeah! That's my jam!
Joel Haldeman: So, Dan, you're not working. You're just listening to music for fun. You're not trying to find a new worship song. What are you listening to?
Dan Shields: Well, I am really eclectic. I actually still have an iPod. Actually, I just dug up my old iPod that was like 80 gigabytes of music. So I put it on random, and I would say that random is really my listening taste. I mean, I listen to everything from flat picking bluegrass to country to classic music to jazz and all sorts of jazz, into the real heavy stuff. I'd say I'm not as in tune with the pop music today, but a lot of times I'll just put on the radio and listen to it because in my world, I need to know what people are doing because I play on people's records and stuff. And then also we do stuff here and you want to know what leading edge is.
Kurt Bjorklund: So if I asked you if you like the Lizzo tone-
Dan Shields: I don't know it.
Kurt Bjorklund: You would say, "I don't know it."
Dan Shields: I don't know it. Yeah. Sorry, sorry. So I listen to a little bit of everything. I really enjoy all types of music. So I know we're going to talk about Kanye today. The one type of music that I don't know much about is rap music actually, and I've just never really gotten into it too much. So I'm not an expert in rap.
Joel Haldeman: I have just over the past couple of weeks been listening to this album, and I really have enjoyed it, which has been surprising to me.
Dan Shields: There's not a lot of rap on it.
Joel Haldeman: Okay.
Joel Haldeman: It's not country.
Joel Haldeman: It's not country. Yeah.
Dan Shields: Did you know Kurt was a really good rapper?
Joel Haldeman: No.
Kurt Bjorklund: Nobody knows it. That's not true.
Joel Haldeman: So let's get into this. Kanye obviously has had this conversion experience and is redefining himself as somebody who's not going to play secular music anymore. He's only going to play gospel music. Kurt, what's your initial reaction to just having seen this in the news?
Kurt Bjorklund: In terms of just his saying, "I'm not going to do other music," or?
Joel Haldeman: Sure. Yeah. Let's go there.
Dan Shields: Because I hadn't heard that. I didn't know that he was actually had made that turn. I had heard him say, "I'm an artist who's Christian." But not necessarily a Christian artist. Everything I do is Christian because he's a Christian. But I didn't realize-
Joel Haldeman: Jimmy Kimmel.
Dan Shields: Yeah, right. Right.
Kurt Bjorklund: I mean, certainly it brings positive attention to Christianity. I mean, dropping an album called Jesus is King is cool that somebody who didn't necessarily espouse that five years ago is saying, "I have a change of life, and I want to celebrate that. And I want it to be part of my music, part of my life." I see that as something to be celebrated.
Joel Haldeman: Interesting. I had somebody a week ago a friend said to me, "How ironic is it that the number one best selling album in the world is called Jesus is King right now?" That's a substantial thing. What about you, Dan? What do you think about his turn from-
Dan Shields: Well, we're all about the gospel. So if somebody genuinely has a conversion experience, comes to Christ, man, I mean, what's not to like about that, right? So I feel like that's as positive a thing as you can possibly have. Now, we don't know what the end of this thing is going to be, but, man, I am thankful for it. I'm thankful for what's happening. Sounds like he's a part of a good church that's teaching really solid foundational Christianity, and hopefully he-
Kurt Bjorklund: I thought he started his own church.
Dan Shields: I don't know.
Joel Haldeman: I don't know. I didn't research that. But I heard he-
Dan Shields: He moved recently. So that could well be the case. That gives you a little bit of pause just because how long he's been a Christian.
Kurt Bjorklund: Somebody told me he's got like 17,000 people coming.
Joel Haldeman: I think that was a church he was already a part of.
Kurt Bjorklund: Oh, was he already a part of? Okay.
Joel Haldeman: He was at least under some sort of pastoral leadership.
Dan Shields: Yeah, and I actually watched a video with the pastor on it was on some blog called Wretched. Guys a pretty solid guy, and he was interviewing the pastor. And the pastor was just great. I mean, he said all the right stuff in my estimation. He's really solid biblically, all the foundational biblical stuff was really right on. So I was thankful that Kanye's part of a church like that.
Joel Haldeman: One of the things that I think we heard a lot of people saying when he first... Before the album came out, when he first talked about his conversion, people were saying, "Is this just a hoax just to like sell more albums?" What do you guys think of that?
Dan Shields: That's a bad hoax if it is because becoming a Christian artist typically don't go well.
Kurt Bjorklund: Number one in the world.
Dan Shields: Right, right, right. So it did-
Kurt Bjorklund: So in that sense, if it was a hoax, it's worked.
Dan Shields: It was a good hoax.
Kurt Bjorklund: That's right.
Kurt Bjorklund: What's your take on that?
Joel Haldeman: I think that would be a really hard hoax to keep up. At least when I listen to the album and I listen to the lyrics, and maybe he's just consulting somebody else that is feeding him these lyrics. It just seems real. It doesn't seem like someone who has this facade of Christianity. He's preaching lyrics that get to the heart of what I think Christianity is. And saying things like, "I was a servant to the devil, and now I'm not." His one song is Closed on Sundays, and he talks about protecting the family and raising up sons and daughters in the faith. That to me just feels too genuine for me to question whether or not it's real or not.
Dan Shields: Well you do have to ask a question. Like why? I mean, what would be the motivation for him? I really don't think it would be that he thought that it was going to go to number one because he released a Christian record. I don't know that that would be the case because typically artists who have gone that direction, it's gone the other way for them. So you do have to ask, what could be behind it other than something that he genuinely heart felt? It's almost like to me I've heard a lot of people argue the writers of the Bible, the apostles, they were making up these stories. And I always say why would they do that? And they say, "Well, it's for power." And I say, "Well, as I read the Bible, they didn't get any power. They got persecution. They all got killed." I mean, that was the hardest choice that they could've made. If anything, that sort of verifies their faith to me that they were willing to look in the eyes of the fire and say, "I'm willing to go through this because what I believe is true. I saw it happen."
Dan Shields: So I'd say with Kanye, that's what it seems like to me is he's had a genuine conversion, and he's an artist. And he puts out music. And he wants to put out music that reflects what happened in his heart.
Kurt Bjorklund: Questioning somebody's conversion from a distance is always dangerous in my estimation. At the same time, I think Christians can be irresponsible with celebrity. And what I mean by that is when a celebrity all of a sudden articulates faith, we give the person a bigger platform than their spiritual maturity would suggest. In the New Testament, we're told that somebody who's taking leadership in a church should not be a recent convert. And certainly we're not suggesting that Kanye's taking leadership in a church if he's going to a church and all of that. But in the broader church, what happens is celebrity becomes a defacto voice of authority. And so sometimes what happens is we'll listen to somebody because they're a celebrity on spiritual matters that probably we'd be wise to cautious to give them that much sway. And I'm not speaking even specifically here about Kanye. But just saying...
Kurt Bjorklund: So I think it's possible to say on one hand, awesome. I have no reason to question anything. And just celebrate what God has appeared to have done. But that doesn't mean that now every view Kanye has should be considered right next to people who have studied their lifetime and gone through the process of being recognized by the church, ordained, studying at a seminar, those kinds of things that have been traditional markers for somebody to speak with authority for a community. And so I think there would be some wisdom there to having caution while at the same time celebration.
Joel Haldeman: And that's exactly where I went. First Timothy 3:6, he must not be a recent convert or he may be puffed up with deceit.
Kurt Bjorklund: Without knowing.
Joel Haldeman: I know. And fall into the condemnation of the devil. And I just think puffed up with conceit thing is a really big part of that. When you have someone like take Justin Bieber who all of a sudden is put in the spotlight. Like, "This guy's a new convert." He represents Christianity. That's exactly the concern in the church is you have somebody who's new representing Christianity. And that's a position that he's in. I don't envy him for that reason.
Kurt Bjorklund: Right. No, because the scrutiny now will be intense for him. Everything he says or does, he will get criticized from both sides. He'll get Christians who say, "You're not Christian enough because you don't believe the jot and tittles that I believe or practice the way I do." And then you'll have people on the secular culture who will say, "Oh, you're now X or Y because of everything that you stated."
Dan Shields: Nice use of the word jot and tittle by the way.
Kurt Bjorklund: Thank you.
Dan Shields: Very nice job on that.
Kurt Bjorklund: I just had to throw that in.
Dan Shields: I've never heard that before. Some of my favorite foods.
Dan Shields: I think too for me if I was a brand new... When I was a brand new Christian, if people who have just unfolded my life publicly, that would've been an awful thing for me. So my heart goes out to Kanye. That is a really rough thing. When I came to Christ, my life was genuinely changed. I mean, it genuinely took a turn. But, man, God was still working a lot of stuff out in my life, and he still is all these years later. It's not like he's gotten... I've gotten everything right or something. So doing that under the public eye and public scrutiny, especially on that level of stage, I think that's a really difficult thing, and I feel... I don't feel bad for him. I don't even know what the word is.
Kurt Bjorklund: He is used to being in the public eye.
Dan Shields: He is, yeah.
Kurt Bjorklund: If I'm not mistaken, he did marry a Kardashian. Is that right?
Joel Haldeman: I've heard of that. I don't know.
Kurt Bjorklund: So have you seen Keeping Up With The Kardashians?
Dan Shields: I've not. I've never seen it.
Joel Haldeman: Have you?
Kurt Bjorklund: No, I have not. So we have nothing to comment. Josh, have you seen it?
Josh: One of my favorite shows to keep on the DVR.
Kurt Bjorklund: Oh, he's seen Keeping Up With The Kardashians.
Josh: I keep up with the Kardashians.
Kurt Bjorklund: My guess is that if you marry somebody's who's putting their whole life on there, that you're at least comfortable with being in the public eye for everything. But there is going to be something that will change.
Dan Shields: I was just thinking about Anne Rice who's an author. She wrote all these vampire books and stuff. And she ended up becoming a Christian. It was kind of interesting the way she became a Christian actually. I think she was doing... She's like a really research heavy type of person. So James Michener type of person. So when she does her books, if she places in Poland in 1800 or something like that, she'll research a lot for it. I think she was researching around the time of Christ. Maybe she was doing it for like vampires in Jerusalem or something like that. I don't know. But anyhow, she started, as she was researching, she gave her life to Christ. It sounded like a genuine conversion. She ended up writing a couple of books that were about Jesus, a little bit questionable on that. She was, again, a new convert. But she felt so much scrutiny from the church. It was a lot of pain for her, and she ended up really renouncing her faith in the last number of years.
Dan Shields: So my prayer for Kanye is that he wouldn't get beat up by us too much too because we can be extraordinarily critical. The word says, Jesus said, "They'll know us by our love." But, man, it seems like so often in the church, we're known not by our love but by our criticism of each other in our division.
Kurt Bjorklund: Well, if you want to be criticized, go to work at a church.
Dan Shields: Yeah, right.
Kurt Bjorklund: Or become a public Christian figure. I mean, what's Lauren Daigle is another good example. I mean, she's a singer. She's criticized for what she wears, how she sings, what she... I mean, everything in her life, you can find somebody's who's got an opinion. So certainly that's part of, and I think that's part of why there's the idea of not a recent convert. You don't want somebody to get so disheartened with it, and that may have been some of what happened with Anne Rice where just got disheartened with having people kind of pick at everything. But again, that's part and parcel of the celebrity and raising up a celebrity to say now they represent something that maybe they weren't ready to full represent.
Dan Shields: Yeah, that's true.
Joel Haldeman: Can I throw some Kanye lyrics out here?
Dan Shields: Sure.
Joel Haldeman: So this is from the song Hands On, and on the subject of how the church reacts to watching this happen publicly, he writes, "I've been working for..." That was the devil one. "I've been working for you my whole life, told the devil that I'm going on strike." He later says, "Said I'm finally doing a gospel album, what have you been hearing from the Christians. They'll be the first one to judge me, make it feel like nobody love me. Told people God was my mission, what have you been hearing from the Christians? They'll be the first one to judge me, make it feel like nobody love me." What's your reaction to that?
Dan Shields: Yeah. There's two sides of it. One is you feel like a certain level of shame with Christianity and how it can be really petty. It can be really judgmental. I mean, we see that all the time. I mean, you just do a Google search where there's a comment section on something about any sort of Christian question and read the comments. Some of them get very caustic and very ugly. And you go like, "Man, really? This is supposed to be a representative of Christ."
Dan Shields: On the other side, we are supposed to be workman approved, and the truth is the final arbiter of things. Now I know there's some areas where there's gray areas, but on the core truths of Christianity, you have to be dogmatic. You just have to be. You can't let those things go. So there's certain things where if you're talking about the trinity here, the deity of Christ or something, you have to be dogmatic about it. You have to hold your ground, and there is that arbiter of truth where you have to say, "No, if you cross this line, you've crossed over into another zone that is not really Orthodox Christians."
Dan Shields: So I think that's a caution for that. So if he's getting critics from Christians, he probably should bring them to his pastor or somebody that he really trusts and says, "What do you think about these? Are these legit or elegit?" And hopefully that guy has enough understanding, biblical background to be able to say, "Well, this thing, you should be cautious on what you're saying here because this can really be taken wrong. But these things, these are in house debates." You don't have to worry about how caustic people are being with you. Just keep plowing ahead type thing.
Joel Haldeman: That's true.
Kurt Bjorklund: Another thing strikes me, and again, I don't know that this fits Kanye specifically. But one of the ways to avoid scrutiny is to claim that you're being judged. As soon as I'm judged, you're judging me therefore you can't say anything. And there's a both end. So he's right in a sense to say I'm sure I'll get judged and to have a legitimate concern and distaste for it. But at the same time, I think it's okay for there to be legitimate scrutiny and not just to say I'm being judged. So if you are public or in ministry, like one of the things I know I have to do is when people will critic or give suggestions for something at the church is ask the question, is there truth in it. Not just, you're judging me and I'm done. I don't listen. I need to say, "What is there in this that is legitimate that I can hear and learn from?"
Kurt Bjorklund: It's interesting with our teaching that goes out on radio and internet and stuff. We'll get emails from people. Random from different places who will... Like self-appointed. And sometimes you'll respond a few times, and then say, "Okay. Look, I'm not going to keep responding all the time." But my point is that it would be easy just to say, "Oh, judging," instead of saying, "Let me hear." And I hope for Kanye's sake that he does both. That he can say there's time, as you said Dan, to plow ahead, to say this is not something I need to be concerned about, but also say but what is legitimate in some of the critic that might get thrown my way.
Kurt Bjorklund: What do you see in the lyrics, Joel, of that?
Joel Haldeman: It makes me sad, to be honest, just that... I think when somebody becomes a believer and they say that they've become a believer, I think the church just needs to get behind them and cheer them on. And when I say cheer them on, I don't mean go out and buy his album. I just mean encourage him. I guess it's not here. It's at the end of the song he says, "I deserve all the criticism you got to sing of change, you think I'm joking. To praise his name, you ask what I'm smoking. Yes, I understand your reluctancy. Yeah. But I have a request, you see. Don't throw me up, lay your hands on me, please pray for me." And that was convicting to me just that our response to him, he's asking for it. It needs to be to pray for him. I mean, he's got a difficult road ahead to be-
Dan Shields: That humility in there too to say my life has not been perfect.
Joel Haldeman: Which is so against Kanye's personality, right?
Dan Shields: Is it?
Joel Haldeman: I mean, he's generally putting himself in the spotlight. I'm the man. So to say, "I deserve all the criticism," I don't know. That points to some real change.
Dan Shields: What you were saying, your first response to emails that come in that might seem critical of stepping back and saying, "Okay. Is there truth in this?" Because all of our first natural defenses are saying, "This person's just being critical." Exactly what you were saying, but the scripture you brought up earlier, the Timothy scripture. It talks about that you're not puffed up. Pride is a real issue. If you do just say, "They're just judging me, and I'm going to say what I want to say," type of thing, well, you never get to the heart of saying, "Okay. Is there a truth issue here that goes beyond just an interpretation issue."
Joel Haldeman: Yeah. So I want to hear from both of you. Would you sing... I mean, setting aside the fact that it's rap, and that would probably make a lot of people uncomfortable to try to sing along with it in our setting. Would you play one of his songs during a service?
Dan Shields: So I actually listen to a bunch of the record before I knew we were going to talk about this. And the reason I would listen to it... First of all, I do try to listen to new stuff that's out there. But I was actually listening like fishing, seeing is there anything good on this. This guy's putting out-
Kurt Bjorklund: Anything usable.
Dan Shields: Yeah, he's putting out a high budget record.
Kurt Bjorklund: Popular right now.
Dan Shields: People are going to know it, and it's going to be well done because he's put the money behind it to get the right people involved and stuff. So it's going to be a good project. And so my question was is there anything here that was usable for us.
Kurt Bjorklund: And did you find anything?
Dan Shields: There was one possible one. Yeah.
Kurt Bjorklund: Okay. So the rest of it, according to Dan is not very good?
Dan Shields: Well, no, no. It's not that. It's the do-ability. You have to ask the question, okay, if it's got a big gospel choir, we just don't have that. So can we do it? If it's got a big rap section, I know you can rap, but who else on our staff can rap?
Kurt Bjorklund: You.
Dan Shields: Me. I'm the guy.
Kurt Bjorklund: You.
Dan Shields: You do not want to hear that. You don't want to see me dance, you don't want to hear me rap.
Joel Haldeman: A lot of the songs sort of tell his own story.
Kurt Bjorklund: Right.
Joel Haldeman: So that wouldn't play correctly. What about you?
Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah. I wouldn't hesitate to do a song from it from what I know today. I do think when it comes to music that there's a both and to saying evaluate the music and the source.
Joel Haldeman: You guys have axed some bands, right?
Kurt Bjorklund: We've taken some things out of rotation or we're not doing some things that other churches do that are like us do freely. I think you want to be careful not to always just simply say, "I don't like that source," will never do anything because I think music can stand on its own. But in this case, I wouldn't because concerned about the source at the moment. I would say that he's coming in a new place, and if somebody's just had a conversion, I'd be more concerned if in five years, there are some doctrinal errors and things that have crept in, then I might say, "Ah, not as much." So in that sense, that would be there. But right now I wouldn't hesitate. How about you?
Joel Haldeman: I think I'm with you in that I wouldn't hesitate today because you have to act on the information you have. You make a good point that you do have to consider both the source and the content because... So this weekend, and it'll be past by the time this airs, he's going to Joel Osteen's church, which is like the beach head of prosperity gospel in America, right? I think America's largest church that preaches a prosperity gospel.
Kurt Bjorklund: You heard it here. Joel just called Joel the beach head of prosperity gospel in America. Is that not true? I'm just saying. It was Joel commenting on Joel.
Joel Haldeman: Oh no.
Dan Shields: Joel on Joel. Yeah, I like that.
Kurt Bjorklund: That's a fair take.
Joel Haldeman: People when I sometimes meet them for the first time-
Kurt Bjorklund: Why you judging, you're making him feel like he's not loved.
Joel Haldeman: They'll hear my name, and they'll be like, "Oh, like Joel Osteen. I love him." And they'll go on about how much they listen to Joel Osteen. I'm thinking, "You're not going to come to this church for very long."
Joel Haldeman: So I guess let me ask you this question. What should the churches' response, what should Christians' response be who believe strongly in the gospel, who see the prosperity gospel as an error if Kanye really aligns himself with Joel Osteen in that movement?
Dan Shields: One good thing, I did just watch that, as I mentioned, podcast with his pastor who's currently his pastor, and this guy... It was only 20 minutes of talk I think. But this guy to me seemed extremely solid. So there's a good possibility that they'll probably have some compelling conversations that hopefully he'll be able to see and discern those things. For him, that's a big stage, and that might be part of it. I don't know. Maybe he was asked to be there is my guess that Joel Osteen's church actually asked him to be there. But, again, I don't know. Yeah.
Joel Haldeman: I guess it goes to a larger question of how do Christians respond to someone whose sort of a public figure, celebrity, who claims Christianity but there's something in their theology that's like way off? Who is the presidential candidate...
Kurt Bjorklund: I was going to say you have the same issue now with Paula White being an advisor to Donald Trump. Paula White is another well known prosperity teacher who here at Orchard Hill we'd say we don't believe probably a good chunk of what she espouses. And now all of a sudden she's sitting in the White House advising Donald Trump. So yeah, how does that impact how you see something is a fair question.
Kurt Bjorklund: So how do you respond to Kanye going to Lakewood?
Joel Haldeman: I think, and I'm thinking of the presidential candidate who was Seventh Day Adventist. We have to make those decisions probably... That's I guess a much larger conversation in terms of how do you decide who you vote for. But I would say having a segment of their theology that's way out in left field probably doesn't disqualify them from being a person that they vote for. But with Kanye, I think he probably treat him the same way you treat anybody else you disagree with theologically. You keep the good, you celebrate the good, and you mourn the bad. I guess there's a difference between somebody who's... There have been prosperity gospels, preachers that we've looked at and said, "I'm not even sure if this person understands the gospel. Do they really know Jesus, or is this all about the money or something else?" And that's different than somebody who sort of just gets swept along in the movement, who does love the Lord, who does... They're honestly seeking him. So I think the responses to those are different. In one you'd probably regard as a false teacher, and the other you regard as somebody who's sort of being strung along by a false teacher.
Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah. And maybe this is more nuance than we need. But there's nuance to false teachers.
Joel Haldeman: Sure.
Kurt Bjorklund: In that if you listen to anybody long enough, there's probably something you disagree with, and you wouldn't say, "False teacher. I disagree with that." So even to put that moniker down, I'm not even sure when the tipping point is in terms of saying, "Oh, now they're a false teacher."
Dan Shields: Absolutely.
Kurt Bjorklund: And we shouldn't listen to them at all. Because I think there are people, even in the prosperity camp, who I wouldn't agree with who I wouldn't want to put that label on. And then there are some in that camp that I would say that's probably fair, and I don't know that I've thought through exactly where the tipping point is. And I don't know that it's a good answer to say you'll know it when you see it in that. But so even within the prosperity movement and Kanye, there's probably a difference in even where he might align himself.
Dan Shields: Again, if you do a Google search on any famous teacher and just put in their name and the words false teacher, you'll get hits. Billy Graham is the antichrist type of stuff. Where you really do have to question and say, "Man, there's some really harsh critics out there. Where is that line?" And one of the things that I think can be overly harsh because I've seen this time and time again is guilt by association. If Kanye plays at somebody's church and then he's thrown under the bus because of it, but I've seen teachers that I really respect who have shared the stage... Like Ravi Zacharias was a guy that I liked to listen to, and he shared the stage with some people who would disagree theologically on some very significant issues. And then I've seen all of a sudden Ravi Zacharias false teacher because he's had-
Kurt Bjorklund: Because he's hung out with these people.
Dan Shields: He was on the same stage. That's a pretty harsh criticism rather than criticizing them for their own beliefs and their theology.
Kurt Bjorklund: Well, and there is something too if you share with somebody, you are to a degree endorsing them, not entirely because you're not saying, "I believe in everything." But there is something that you're saying, "Okay. We're enough here to..." And you would like people to discern, but they don't always in terms of that. But it's also unfair when somebody says because you have been near this person, you must believe all they believe or endorse all that they are. Rather than saying, "Hey, I'm willing..." Because otherwise you'd never share a stage with anybody at some point because you would say, "Well, we disagree on the 15th point of this minor doctrine."
Dan Shields: Exactly. Exactly. And it's different. If you invited somebody to be on stage here at the church, that really is an endorsement to a certain degree.
Kurt Bjorklund: Bigger endorsement than me going somewhere.
Dan Shields: Right. There needs to be some discernment in that. You don't want to be caught off guard and have them say something that's really unexpected on stage. So you need to know some background. But you've spoken at a number of places where there's a lot of different teachers, and you might not fully agree with all the other teachers. But you're not endorsing them just because you're speaking to an audience.
Kurt Bjorklund: That's right.
Joel Haldeman: All right. We're going to move on to a new segment here that's some rapid fire questions, and as we pivot to that, I want to ask this question. Very briefly, should Christians even care when celebrities become Christians?
Dan Shields: Yes, absolutely. One of the reasons why Kanye's out there, he's speaking to an audience that maybe has never heard about Christianity very much in a very clear or compelling way. He can be a light in the darkness in areas that other Christian voices might never be able to get. But in the same way, the guy who got converted who hangs out down at the local bar and goes to his buddies and starts sharing Jesus, we should celebrate him in a similar way. So there's nothing special in God's eyes about Kanye or anything else who has celebrity. But he does have a fairly large platform, and I'm thankful if he's sharing Jesus. That's a good thing.
Kurt Bjorklund: To a degree, yes. I don't think it's worthy of being obsessed with. But I think because of the influence, it's a story, and people will talk about it. So to have a well informed idea about it is worth while.
Joel Haldeman: That's true. Yeah.
Kurt Bjorklund: What would you say?
Joel Haldeman: I would say yes but we care too much I think. I think we get too wrapped up in, "Oh, look, guys. Christianity's actually cool because Kanye's doing it."
Dan Shields: Like an endorsement.
Joel Haldeman: Right. Exactly. And at the end of the day, let's not fool ourselves. We worship a guy who is crucified. And what we believe, it's a little bit crazy that he rose from the dead. So we should expect that culture's not going to wrap its hands around that and say, "We love it."
Dan Shields: And it doesn't make it more real because somebody who is famous endorses that.
Joel Haldeman: That's right. Yeah. More questions here. This one says I have seen videos on YouTube particularly Bethel Church and Upper Room that are titled Spontaneous Worship. What are spontaneous worship, and is it biblical?
Kurt Bjorklund: That sounds like a Dan question.
Dan Shields: It's not really. There's a couple things to this. I think you have to ask what's the meaning behind the question. If you're meaning, which probably would be Bethel's take on this, is that you're led by the holy spirit in a certain way because the holy spirit's saying, "You need to do this chorus again, and you're going to have a break through and some people are going to have a healing." You have to be cautious with that I'd say. Could that be true? Absolutely. The holy spirit leads people, and he should. I mean, when you speak, you should. Sometimes God might place things on your heart that you didn't prepare, and you say. That's okay. That's what your job is.
Dan Shields: I think to be honest with you though just the craft of music, just to be very blunt. I think oftentimes it's less that then it is somebody seeing where a room's going, and they're just feeling the feel of the room. And sometimes there's basically like I've often told people here. You have your rock and roll performance, which is you perform the song exactly like the recording was. When you go and see a rock and roll band, you want to hear the identical recording of it. And then you have jazz where you don't want to hear the identical recording. You want to hear something totally different. So there's some excitement when people are doing something free on stage, and as far as being biblical, sure. No problem at all as long as you're not adhering too much to some of the theological mysticism that's behind it.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah. All right. Let's do one more sort of theology question, and then I'm going to ask you both another question. This is I have grown up in the Baptist church in which we did not drink or go to bars. What is your opinion of Christians drinking or going to bars?
Kurt Bjorklund: I think that you should answer that question.
Dan Shields: Oh, that's right.
Joel Haldeman: I don't have any problem with Christians drinking or going to bars. Jesus turned water into wine. No matter-
Dan Shields: Was it fruit juice?
Joel Haldeman: It was fruit juice that was fermented. So obviously there's a lot of care that needs to happen there in that can very easily grow into an addiction. It can grow into something that people use to deal with stress and anxiety. And of course drinking too much is a problem. So anything else on-
Kurt Bjorklund: Dan?
Dan Shields: No. I'd agree wholeheartedly with that. And I think the Bible has admonitions about alcohol. It has some very severe ones, especially in the book of Proverbs. But also Psalm 104 talks about God gave wine for the gladness of man's heart. And like you said, Jesus turned water into wine, and he himself said, "This is my blood, wine." And we can go into some deeper stuff on that, but I don't think the Bible says don't drink alcohol. I think the Bible says do not get drunk.
Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah. That parts clear. I think the argument that sometimes people will make is the argument about the weaker brother. The whole idea that does your participation encourage somebody else toward addiction, which a lot of times I feel like when somebody makes that argument, if they can articulate that they're the weaker brother or that they're concerned about the weaker brother, they probably are not because at that point, they're using the text as a club to a certain extent to say, "We want you to live like we live, and now we're appealing to this."
Kurt Bjorklund: At the same time, it can be a legitimate concern to say Christian culture has moved just in the last 15 years I would say. Not that it wasn't part of the culture before. But 15-20 years ago, people wouldn't have all sat around saying, "Hey..." Not nowhere, but it wasn't as common that Christians would say, "Let's go out and drink," or, "Let's have a drink. What's going on?" I think it's like anything. It was a good pendulum swing to say let's not act like alcohol is bad when it's not sinful. Let's name drunkenness and let's say that that's the issue because it is. So let's accept it and talk about it instead of people sneaking around or whatever they were doing.
Kurt Bjorklund: But sometimes the pendulum can swing so far then the other way that you're not asking any of the questions about the culture, about the environment, about addictions, about weaker brothers. And I think that what you'll end up seeing is 10-15 years from now, the pendulum will come back a little bit again because people will say, "Okay. Maybe we got too loose and have actually encouraged some things that weren't healthy." And again, I think it was a right swing to come away from the bars are bad, drinkings bad, people who drink are bad. But now it's almost you can be in a Christian environment and feel awkward if you're not drinking. And I don't know that that's positive either.
Joel Haldeman: All right. Maybe next time we'll tackle the weed question and see if we can disagree. So lastly, give us something that's coming up here at the church that you're excited about that you want people to know about.
Dan Shields: Well, we are on the edge of Christmas, so that's always a really exciting time. And I would say the thing about Christmas that's exciting for me is not just in my mind, it's not the big show. That's not what it's all about. I've had for 20 years my family who are mostly from Catholic background have come and they've been a part of the services. I'm thankful that year after year they're hearing the gospel. I'm excited because people invite friends that they'd normally wouldn't invite to church. And those friends actually show up to church, and they get to hear the good news about Jesus. So that's something I'm really excited about.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah.
Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah, certainly Christmas ahead of us is always a great time, and I'm excited for the new year too. I think new year tends to be a time when people who have maybe become disengaged in church often say, "Well, let's reengage." And that's just a great time to see people say, "Hey, I'm jumping back in and see what God's doing." How about for you Joel?
Joel Haldeman: I would actually say the Vision 2020 events. I mean, they're sort of underway right now, but also extend through the end of the year. And just giving people the opportunity for the, some people for the first time, to ask God what do you want me to do with my resources. That is hugely powerful in someone's life. So I'd just get excited about that from a spiritual growth perspective to see people take that first step.
Joel Haldeman: Good. Well, that's it. Send in your questions to Ask a Pastor. We'd love to continue to answer those in the rapid fire section or if they're super good, we'll spend a half hour digging into them.
