Sound: Doctrine

“What an unspeakable privilege to talk about the Holy One,

His wondrous acts and might, and the sacrifice of his only Son.

Disclaimer: turn this off now if you want a worldly substitute,

But turn the volume up, hear me, if you sincerely love the truth.”

Shai Linne, ‘Table of Contents’, Lyrical Theology Part 1: Theology (2013)

 

I knew it was going to be difficult to think of a good initial picture for this post, so in the end I just didn’t try very hard. Sorry.

So it turns out that ‘lyrical theology’ is more than just the main component of the title of two albums by Shai Linne. It’s an entire subgenre of rap.¹ And I am ridiculously excited about the fact that it exists.

The subgenre does exactly what it says on the tin: theology, lyricised. Actual doctrine is expounded. Difficult questions are confronted head-on. And did I mention that actual doctrine is expounded? Like, real and marvellous truths about God are literally just, you know, said. Laid out. Detailed. It might sound simple, but this represents a significant departure from the norm amongst Christian music generally. A video by John Crist whose accuracy is hilarious and depressing in equal measure features two representatives of a Christian record company explaining standard lyric-writing strategy to a band they would like to sign:²

“Lyric-writing is even easier, you guys,” the guy on the left assures them.

“Oh yeah,” agrees the guy on the right. “You’ve always got to start with a vague struggle, all right, a hard time.”

“Geographical references,” interjects the guy on the left, pointing to a set of handy illustrations in the folder he has with him. “Storm. Valley. Desert.”

“You’ve got to throw in some vague Christian terms,” adds the guy on the right, “and just connect them randomly. Make it really predictable. Watch this.” He picks up a guitar and begins strumming: “Seek his face, mercy…”

“Grace,” finishes the guy on the left.

“Feel his love, blessed from…”

“Above.”

“We could sell that to Casting Crowns or Sanctus Real right now.”

The band counters that they’d quite like to write more honest lyrics about real issues, but the guy on the left is having none of it: “You can only mention your struggles in an abstract-type way. Drowning. Sinking.”

 

“Basically, all you need to know is: MORE WATER REFERENCES.”

It’s so accurate it’s painful. And I don’t get it. Surely there is far greater joy and wonder and comfort to be had in describing who God is and what he does with uncompromising specificity, exploring every aspect of his character in depth and detail, than in veiling these truths with vagueness that robs them of concrete meaning. Plus, the focus on vague struggles frequently ends up amounting to a focus on self: though God is usually mentioned in some degree, he tends to pop up as praiseworthy by virtue of being the solution to the vague struggle at hand, rather than because of his inherent qualities; he loses ground to the self and its issues, and that’s always dangerous. And on top of that, because so many songs are so similar in their content, the listener becomes numb to the little real truth that is being conveyed; there are myriads upon myriads of ways to express realities pertaining to God and the Christian life, yet so few of them are exploited in mainstream Christian music.

Enter lyrical theology: all of a sudden, the gospel is let off the lead. I apologise for the lengthiness of the following extracts; believe me, it was difficult enough even to cut them down as far as I have.³

“God spoke and the formless earth was sculpted,

His poetry producing populations,

Making constellations

With his conversations,

Gazing at his own creation,

Proclaiming it was good –

And there we stood,

Fashioned from the dust.

With authority he orchestrated organisms

And every single cell in every ecosystem …

Infinite wisdom

Intrinsic within him,

Self-sufficient.

Intricate systems

Begin and end with his decisions.

Out of reach

How he procreated with speech,

So it’s appropriate for us to be completely in awe.” Propaganda, ‘Lofty’, Excellent (2012)

And that’s the brilliance of the subgenre: it employs doctrine how it’s supposed to be employed, not to be studied for its own sake, but to prompt awe at the greatness of the God to whom it pertains.

“The Son of Man, one hundred per cent humanity:

The mind stretches to understand how can it be?

You’ve got to see what he does,

Becoming what he wasn’t while never ceasing to be what he was.

Is your mind flipping?

That got you tripping?

Me too.

But the Scripture is true:

Peep Philippians 2.

By faith we believe this amazing Jesus

Who made Uranus and Venus

Became a foetus.

It’s such a secret that few, if anybody, knew it.

Months later, he’s covered in amniotic fluid.

The subject of the gospels,

Praise of apostles,

Armed with eye-sockets, armpits, and nostrils?” – Shai Linne, ‘The Hypostatic Union’, Lyrical Theology Part 1: Theology (2013)

No encroaching of the self on territory that belongs firmly to God here: he is absolutely central, and remains so even if the song is more about a secondary issue pertaining to the Christian life than a specific aspect of God himself.

“Are you the kind

That’s completely consumed by symbols and signs? …

I’ll give you a sign that’s obvious:

One of the most supernatural acts

Is that God through his word has actually

Revealed everything pertaining to life and godliness.

There’s this idea that an individual

Is somehow more spiritual

If he sees these signs and symbols,

And takes what’s normally invisible

And makes it simple,

But I say the mark of a mature man

Is the one who reads God’s word and understands,

And allows that to govern his decisions and his prospective plans.” – Beautiful Eulogy, ‘Symbols and Signs’, Instruments of Mercy (2013)

So lyrical theologists (as we might call them – somehow it doesn’t seem quite suitable to use the term ‘theologians’, though I’m not certain exactly why) aren’t shy about stating doctrine firmly even if it might rather rub some listeners up the wrong way. Equally, nevertheless, they don’t present this as all easy and straightforward, as if anyone who hasn’t already reached the same conclusion is an idiot.

“See religious people on their worst behaviour.

Some non-believers are the nicest people.

Is it all a matter of interpretation?

I’ve seen them do charity.

Maybe they’re not as evil as the church has made them.

Ain’t nobody perfect, ain’t we all just being human beings?

We gon’ make mistakes, nobody said that we wouldn’t …

Folks just ask me how I’m doing; I tell them that I’m good,

But never good enough that I won’t be in need of his blood.

We’re doing good now, pull ourselves up out of the mud,

But no matter how good we do, know it still won’t be enough.

We need a Messiah.” – Da’T.R.U.T.H., ‘The Greatest Need’, It’s Complicated (2016)

There’s so much going on in these kinds of lyrics, and sometimes they are quite phenomenally clever. ‘Curse Reversed’ by Result, for instance, spends its first half describing the hopelessly wrongdoing-riddled situation in which humanity finds itself, and then in the second half uses the exact same words in reverse order to explain how Jesus’ sacrifice dealt with the problem.⁴ Brilliant, right?

This, then, is my question: how come only rappers are doing this kind of thing? I appreciate that rap as a genre more easily lends itself to large volumes of words than other musical styles, but I can’t really think of any other hindrances – and yet I’ve never come across a non-rap musical artist who is anything close to as superbly explicit about doctrine as any of the examples mentioned above. (If you have, please do let me know right away; I would be enthralled.) I mean, I personally like rap a lot, but it’s certainly harder work to listen to a lot of in one go than most genres, and some people just can’t stand it at all. How come, if those people want to listen to Christian music, the industry offers them barely anything but repetitive songs about vague struggles?

I’m thrilled that the subgenre of lyrical theology exists – but I would be even more thrilled if it were not a rather niche slice of one musical style. I would be even more thrilled if it were normal for Christian music to actually expound doctrine, and confront difficult issues head-on, and, you know, actually expound doctrine. The character and deeds of God are definitively the most inspiring subject matter out there. Our own vague struggles? Not so much.

Who’s with me?

Footnotes

¹ I discovered this by stumbling across the following interview with lyrical theologist Result: http://rapzilla.com/rz/features/interviews/13070-result-on-future-of-lyrical-theology-album-the-elementology.

² Do watch the whole thing; it’s really rather well done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwwhkKPEieE.

³ If you’d like a few more suggestions of lyrical theologists worth checking out, Wrath and Grace have emblazoned a good number on one of their rather stylish T-shirts: http://www.wrathandgrace.com/product-page/3109836241.

⁴ The lyric video is pretty magnificent, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY6UhnVcOQk, though I have to say a little more punctuation wouldn’t hurt.