Consider Tartuffe, Moliere’s play about a scoundrel who pretends to be a pious man in order to convince a wealthy dupe to hand over all his wealth.
The play is funny, which you knew became Moliere wrote it. It raises some interesting questions about what it means to be dishonest.
If I act better than I am, does that mean I am dishonest? Suppose I am a terrible person, but in public, I act like a good person. Is that bad? Hard to say Yes to that.
We read this in one of my reading groups. Consider the following situation. Someone befriends a very wealthy person and then spends years being the best friend the wealthy person could ever have. The wealthy person lives and dies very happy to have had such a truly wonderful friend, and then leaves the entire estate to this good friend. That is a great story, isn’t it? But, the friend was only pretending to be a friend in order to get the money. Does that change the story? Is that morally acceptable? The wealthy person really was happier having such a good friend and never discovered the deceit. Yet, the students in the reading group were nearly unanimous that this person pretending to be a friend would be doing a terrible thing.
Curious. Does intention or action matter more?
But, while that is what we talked about in the reading group, what I thought about during and after reading the play was…Kanye West. I realized that the current national discussion about Kanye is highly related to the plot of Tartuffe.
As I recently noted in a blog post, I have been convinced for a couple of years now that if Kanye decides to run for President, he cannot be beat. The last couple of weeks has been a perfect example of why.
Yet, part of the national discussion is whether Kanye is being serious with this album. It appears that many people have a sneaking suspicion that this is all some elaborate scam, that Kanye has not really converted, that this is just another money grab by a guy who has grabbed a lot of money in his time.
Kanye, as you know unless you live under a rock, just released a new album, Jesus is King. I listened to it expecting a sort of mild nod to Christianity. I was wrong to expect that. Kanye, who goes all in on everything, has gone all in here. This is a good old-fashioned gospel album. The lyrics aren’t subtle at all; this is Billy Graham Crusade levels of overt Christianity. You could play this album in a fundamentalist Baptist church and not be able to tell the difference between the content of the lyrics and the content of the sermon.
Why? Why would anyone doubt that Kanye is serious here? It is because we have all been culturally conditioned by plays like Tartuffe to equate expressions of religious belief with charlatans.
Now I understand why people outside the church would think like that. If you do not realize the truth of Christianity, then there is no way you could understand the notion of a life-changing conversion to Christianity.
But, what if you are inside the church? One of the foundational stories of the church, one of those stories we tell each other all the time, is the story of Saul of Tarsus being blinded by the light of Christ and turning from being the Church’s greatest persecutor into its greatest evangelist. Christians believe in conversion. It is central to Christian doctrine. So, why doubt Kanye?
Kanye talks about exactly this phenomena on the album itself:
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
What are you hearing from the Christians indeed. Isn’t it a part of Christian doctrine to accept the convert at his word? Isn’t it part of the role of the church to accept the prodigal son with open arms? Doesn’t finding the lost coin or the lost sheep bring great joy in heaven? Yes, we know that sometimes people enter the church on false pretenses, but what gives anyone in the church the right to prejudge another’s conversion?
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)
A guy puts out what could easily become one of the top selling gospel albums. Every song is a testament to Christ and the significance of conversion and the importance of belief and an explanation of the life we should lead. And people in the church doubt him? Imagine an album with lyrics like this:
Everything that hath breath praise the Lord
Worship Christ with the best of your portions
I know I won’t forget all He’s done
He’s the strength in this race that I run
Every time I look up, I see God’s faithfulness
And it shows just how much He is miraculous
I can’t keep it to myself, I can’t sit here and be still
Everybody, I will tell ’til the whole world is healed
King of Kings, Lord of Lords, all the things He has in store
From the rich to the poor, all are welcome through the door
You won’t ever be the same when you call on Jesus’ name
Listen to the words I’m sayin’, Jesus saved me, now I’m sane
And I know, I know God is the force that picked me up
I know Christ is the fountain that filled my cup
I know God is alive, yeah
He has opened up my vision
Giving me a revelation
This ain’t ’bout a dead religion
Jesus brought a revolution
All the captives are forgiven
Time to break down all the prisons
Every man, every woman
There is freedom from addiction
Jesus, You have my soul
Sunday Service on a roll
All my idols, let ’em go
All the demons, let ’em know
This a mission, not a show
This is my eternal soul
This my kids, this the crib
This my wife, this my life
This my God-given right
Thank You, Jesus, won the fight
Or how about this message for the culture?
Get your family, y’all hold hands and pray
When you got daughters, always keep ’em safe
Watch out for vipers, don’t let them indoctrinate
Closed on Sunday, you my Chick-fil-A
You’re my number one, with the lemonade
Raise our sons, train them in the faith
Through temptations, make sure they’re wide awake
Follow Jesus, listen and obey
No more livin’ for the culture, we nobody’s slave
You really want say this isn’t a Christian album?
OK, some of the lyrics are a bit groan inducing
The IRS want they fifty plus our tithe
Man, that’s over half of the pie
I felt dry, that’s on God
That’s why I charge the prices that I charge
I can’t be out here dancin’ with the stars
No, I cannot let my family starve
Yeah, Kanye, without charging high prices, Kim Kardashian would surely starve.
But the point remains. Kaye isn’t perfect. That too is part of Christian doctrine. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Why assume Kanye is like Tartuffe instead of like Saul of Tarsus?
And note, if (well, when) Kanye does run for President he will be the most explicitly Christian candidate for President since Pat Robertson. Imagine uniting Christians and aficionados of rap music and reality TV into a giant coalition. Who is going to win against that?
Keeping up with the Kardashians: The White House Years. Gonna be a big hit.
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