In October, Kanye West released his 9th album, JESUS IS KING. In November, he produced his opera “Nebuchadnezzar” and spoke at Joel Osteen’s church while also performing with his Sunday Service Choir. Public reception for this new Kanye has been mixed, to a sometimes scathing degree. Is this new change the result of a new heart-change or genuine conversion? Or is this merely the stunting of a ego-centric multimillionaire.
Kanye gives enough reason in his new album to give Christians reason to hope his new lifestyle is genuine and at the very least the Christian community should give him enough credit to pray for his heart to be changed and keep him in this new walk of faith he professes to be on.
JESUS IS KING met with a confusing mix of reviews. Some critics considered it to be Kanye’s best produced album with moments of brilliance and talent. Others wrote it off as a too-short, try-hard, cliche-riddled, botched effort.
It’s fair to say the album is unexpected and different from anything Kanye has done before. He beautifully blends the sounds of the gospel choir with his own signature style in an innovative way. His lyrics are largely well done and are especially noteworthy for the moments of bona fide theology. “What if Eve made apple juice? / You gon' do what Adam do? / Or say, ‘Baby, let's put this back on the tree’ 'cause / We have everything we need,” he says in the song “Everything We Need.”
It’s hard to say what exactly all this means to Kanye, but this verse suggests a certain depth to his understanding beyond mere Sunday School examples. There are several other noticeable and impressive allusions to scripture in the work, for example, the song “Selah.” Selah is a word that appears several times throughout the psalms, and it’s meaning is unknown but is usually thought to be a musical term.
Perhaps the best piece on the album for the Christian community to reflect on is, “Hands On.” In this song, Kanye asks the church to pray for him, acknowledging his sinful past and how he deserves the criticism of the Church. The song pleads with the Church listening to not dismiss his new lifestyle but to pray for him that his life would be committed to Christ.
If the Christian community can make nothing else of the new Kanye, this request seems at least the place to begin. If anyone is asking to be prayed for and is seeking to change their life to cling to Christ, surely it would be wrong for members in the Church, whether they believe Kanye to be genuine or not, to refuse him prayer.
After all, Christ calls his disciples to pray for their enemies, how much more should they be able to pray for someone who says he wishes to proclaim Christ as king? It is unnecessary for the Church to search the place of Kanye’s soul or to affirm or condemn his latest releases, but just as the Church is called to pray for the harvest, it should be unafraid to pray for Kanye West and hope he continues to serve the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.