Kanye West - Jesus is KING

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Seeking_Thy_Kingdom

Puritan Board Sophomore
For a few weeks now there have been rumors of Kanye Wests conversion to Christianity, personally I was carefully optimistic. Today, his hiphop/gospel album Jesus is KING was released to mixed reviews.

I decided I wanted to give it an open minded listen, but as soon as there was any cussing I would turn it off. I have listened to it twice.

Kanye has been viewed by the secular culture as a lyrical and musical genius, even if at times self proclaimed. I have heard his music before, and to be blunt it is simply vile.

Jesus is KING is not great, I don’t like the music at all, but when his lyrics are not corny they are deeply heartfelt and personal. For example he talks about his past as being a slave to the devil, but that he is now living for Jesus. He also talks about his children and raising them in the fear of the Lord, in my opinion the words of a new man.

Listening to his album I honestly have no reason to believe that he is not a brother in Christ. Yes he is a babe still, and I hope he falls under good shepherding. He lives in a world that is run by greed, sex and utter worldliness, his future actions and especially his next album will tell if he truly is saved.

I hope we all can pray for him and his family, his conversion could draw many of his fans out of darkness. God can save anyone He pleases, even Kanye West.

Cut out all the lights, He the light
Got pulled over, see the brights
What you doin' on the street at night?
Wonder if they're gonna read your rights
Thirteenth Amendment, three strikes
Made a left when I should've made a right
Told God last time on life
Told the devil that I'm going on a strike
Told the devil when I see him, on sight
I've been working for you my whole life
Told the devil that I'm going on a strike
I've been working for you my whole life
Nothing worse than a hypocrite
Change, he ain't really different
He ain't even try to get permission
Ask for advice and they dissed him
Said I'm finna do a gospel album
What have you been hearin' from the Christians?
They'll be the first one to judge me
Make it feel like nobody love me
They'll be the first one to judge me
Feelin' like nobody love me
Told people God was my mission
What have you been hearin' from the Christians?
They'll be the first one to judge me
Make it feel like nobody love me
Make you feel alone in the dark and you'll never see the light
Man, you're never seein' home and you never see the domes
I can feel it when I write, point of livin' in the right
If they only see the wrongs, never listen to the songs
Just to listen is a fight, but you booked me for the fight
It's so hard to get along if they only see the slight
From the love of religion
What have you been hearin' from the Christians?
They'll be the first one to judge me
Make it seem like nobody love me
I'm not tryna lead you to Visas
But if I try to lead you to Jesus
We get called halfway believers
Only halfway read Ephesians
Only if they knew what I knew, uh
I was never new 'til I knew of
True and living God, Yeshua
The true and living God
(Somebody pray for me)

Kanye West - Hands On
 
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The problem is that he was talking about this album for months before his convenient conversion. I pray that his conversion is genuine, but it seems like he saw the money Lecrae was bringing in and decided to get a piece of that pie.
 
The problem is that he was talking about this album for months before his convenient conversion. I pray that his conversion is genuine, but it seems like he saw the money Lecrae was bringing in and decided to get a piece of that pie.
I pray that is not so, time will reveal all.

How much does Lecrae make? Is it close to what Kanye would make per album? The love of money does corrupt all.
 
I pray that is not so, time will reveal all.

How much does Lecrae make? Is it close to what Kanye would make per album? The love of money does corrupt all.

Lecrae has been making more and more, as his albums become less and less Christian.
The problem is that Kanye has not been making as much money ever since he came out in support of Trump. I think he figures that since Christians mostly support Trump, he can still sell lots of records to them. And who doesn't like a good redemption story? Again, it is my prayer that I am wrong.
 
I saw this very interesting video from Kanye on Twitter promoting the virtues of localism earlier today. I have also seen quite a few reports concerning him discouraging his wife's immodesty and keeping his children away from degeneracy. (Stefan Molyneux actually did a video on the former.) I have also heard that he is calling his next child "Psalm" ... maybe he is an EPer in the making. :stirpot:
 
I was skeptical, too, until I heard this. This Calvinist pastor has spent a lot of time with him, and really does believe he is converted.
 
We prayed for Kanye's soul at our morning RHB and PRTS prayer time today. Part of the prayer was that his conversion would be genuine and that the Lord would use his platform for the Gospel. We should all pray for him and for the Spirit to guide him in the truth.
 
From what I have observed of Bourgeoise Reformed social media, people are sceptical of his conversion because he was a degenerate BEFORE he professed faith. It seems that some people need to go back to gospel basics. Did not Jesus say something about tax collectors and prostitutes going into the kingdom of heaven before the moralists of his day and age?
 
Cut out all the lights, He the light
Got pulled over, see the brights
What you doin' on the street at night?
Wonder if they're gonna read your rights
Thirteenth Amendment, three strikes
Made a left when I should've made a right
Told God last time on life
Told the devil that I'm going on a strike
Told the devil when I see him, on sight
I've been working for you my whole life
Told the devil that I'm going on a strike
I've been working for you my whole life
Nothing worse than a hypocrite
Change, he ain't really different
He ain't even try to get permission
Ask for advice and they dissed him
Said I'm finna do a gospel album
What have you been hearin' from the Christians?
They'll be the first one to judge me
Make it feel like nobody love me
They'll be the first one to judge me
Feelin' like nobody love me
Told people God was my mission
What have you been hearin' from the Christians?
They'll be the first one to judge me
Make it feel like nobody love me
Make you feel alone in the dark and you'll never see the light
Man, you're never seein' home and you never see the domes
I can feel it when I write, point of livin' in the right
If they only see the wrongs, never listen to the songs
Just to listen is a fight, but you booked me for the fight
It's so hard to get along if they only see the slight
From the love of religion
What have you been hearin' from the Christians?
They'll be the first one to judge me
Make it seem like nobody love me
I'm not tryna lead you to Visas
But if I try to lead you to Jesus
We get called halfway believers
Only halfway read Ephesians
Only if they knew what I knew, uh
I was never new 'til I knew of
True and living God, Yeshua
The true and living God
(Somebody pray for me)

Kanye West - Hands On
Well, he's certainly no Milton.

Praying for him. If this conversion is real, West is going to come under a lot of pressure.
 
Bourgeoise Reformed
This seems to be a new favourite expression of yours!

I think, though, that, written correctly, it should be Bourgeois Reformed. One would normally use the French masculine adjective, rather than the feminine. Not trying to be a bother! I just thought you might need to know if you're going to be using the term in every thread.:)
 
From what I have observed of Bourgeoise Reformed social media, people are sceptical of his conversion because he was a degenerate BEFORE he professed faith. It seems that some people need to go back to gospel basics. Did not Jesus say something about tax collectors and prostitutes going into the kingdom of heaven before the moralists of his day and age?

If God could tear down my wicked strongholds of sin and bring me to Christ, surely Kanye can be delivered to a genuine conversion.
 

“Now that I’m in service to Christ, my job is to spread the gospel, to let people know what Jesus has done for me,” said West. “I’ve spread a lot of things. There was a time I was letting you know what high fashion had done for me, I was letting you know what the Hennessey had done for me, but now I’m letting you know what Jesus has done for me, and in that I’m no longer a slave, I’m a son now, a Son of God. I’m free.”

I have yet to watch it, but this may be informative:
 
This seems to be a new favourite expression of yours!

I think, though, that, written correctly, it should be Bourgeois Reformed. One would normally use the French masculine adjective, rather than the feminine. Not trying to be a bother! I just thought you might need to know if you're going to be using the term in every thread.:)

Perhaps the "mistake" is intentional. (Also, it sounds better when said aloud.) ;)
 
I've been giving the album a listen today and doing a little more research about Kanye. The new album is quite different to what he's done before. I was listening to it on Spotify and I don't have premium, so occasionally they'd load up an old Kanye song -- the difference was astounding, both musically and lyrically. Something has changed with the man -- one can only pray that it's a real spiritual change. As noted above, there's also the interview with Adam Tyson by Apologia Studios. That also gives some hope that his conversion is the real deal. Theologically, some of the lyrics on the new album seem a bit off the mark, but one might expect that from someone new to the faith. I would be cautiously optimistic and let's see where he is in five years time.
 
I already considered Kanye a prophet after he wrote a song about gold diggers and then married a Kardashian.

He might as well make a Christian album because popular Christian music already stinks quite bad already.

I will say that I am glad for his wife's advocacy and recognition of the Armenian Genocide against the evil Turks.
 
The problem is that he was talking about this album for months before his convenient conversion. I pray that his conversion is genuine, but it seems like he saw the money Lecrae was bringing in and decided to get a piece of that pie.
From what I've read, this is simply untrue. He had been working on another album for a good long while, and then he switched to this one following his conversion. He didn't immediately publicize his conversion, and who can blame him? He doubtlessly had a lot to work through. From what I've seen, he began speaking publicly about his conversion and the album at the same time.

but it seems like he saw the money Lecrae was bringing in and decided to get a piece of that pie.

Your impugning of his motives is highly uncharitable, and is an outright violation of the 9th commandment.
 
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Ultimately the Lord will judge. I say to accept a profession with charity so long as nothing grossly inconsistent with a real profession is present. And judgment needs to account for the fact that he is a neophyte. He is going to make a lot of mistakes on basic things (like us), most all of them will reach the public eye (with the help of the media sharks), they are going to be things which a seasoned Christian could have more easily avoided or seen coming, but we should do as Christ does--when we see grace that is weak, do what we can to help move it from an ember to a roaring flame. Then Kanye will be better equipped to turn around and do the same for other brothers and sisters. Or we can hinder him.

And we too are being tested in our response. And the world will observe our response. So will Kanye himself. Let's take care that we do not cause little ones to stumble.
 
For those who are skeptical, doubters, he addresses a lot of this in his song Hands On. First he realizes it will be difficult for people to accept him:
What have you been hearin' from the Christians?
They'll be the first one to judge me
Make it seem like nobody love me
I'm not tryna lead you to Visas
But if I try to lead you to Jesus

And I think he ends it with this good encouragement to us:

I deserve all the criticism you got
If that's all the love you have, that's all 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
 
The problem is that he was talking about this album for months before his convenient conversion. I pray that his conversion is genuine, but it seems like he saw the money Lecrae was bringing in and decided to get a piece of that pie.

According to Rolling Stones, Kanye is the highest paid "hip hop act" at $150 billion estimated for the year. The article goes on to show that he's trying to figure out what to do with all the money he's making and divert it to the church, such as his show line which makes 1.5 million USD a year, the 2nd highest profitable shoe at Nike: "We haven’t completely solved it, but we’re praying for the answer in God’s time for me to be able to work only for the church… Everything that I do is for the church, even designing a shoe for the church. Our shoe names be like John 3:16 instead of 350s. Now, everything is for the church." https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/business-of-being-kanye-west-903407/

Lecrae is worth about $2 million total from estimates I can find. I think you underestimate how popular Kanye is.

When I see interviews from Kanye, I see many things that are incredibly encouraging. He surely doesn't have everything figured out, but I see such a marked change that I'm inclined to believe that the only way he could have such a transformation is the work of the Holy Spirit. But as he asks us, we need to pray for him. Conversions are hard, especially when you are in the public eye and everything you do is being judged.

Edit: Fixed the yearly earning number to match the Rolling Stones article per comment below.
 
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I've never listened to his music, and I have no desire to. That category of sound doesn't suit my taste at all. But I do wish him the best in his new way of life. May God bless him.
 
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