{"id":10204,"date":"2006-08-11T14:03:18","date_gmt":"2006-08-11T21:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/08\/11\/phat-jesus.html"},"modified":"2006-08-11T14:03:18","modified_gmt":"2006-08-11T21:03:18","slug":"phat_jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/08\/11\/phat_jesus.html","title":{"rendered":"Phat Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ran across this article in a few-weeks-old Newsweek<\/em>, and had to look it up online. It’s all about how hip-hop church services<\/a> are all the rage in some congregations.<\/p>\n

\n

The white, middle-aged Rev. Timothy (Poppa T) Holder doesn’t look like someone who would shout “Holla back!” in his priestly blessing. But, noticing the power and ubiquity of rap in his South Bronx neighborhood, Holder created a hip-hop mass in his Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania. Now he wants to help other churches get in the act, and has devised a hip-hop service for the more buttoned-up St. Paul’s Chapel of Trinity Church. <\/p>\n

Hip-hop services are popping up all over. Lawndale Community Church in Chicago packs the house with its rap-inspired version. The leaders of Minneapolis’s Sanctuary Covenant Church do hip-hop services six times a year to boost youth attendance. In Tampa, the Rev. Tommy Kyllonen’s Crossover Community Church gained 10 times as many congregants when it started using hip-hop in youth outreach programs. Holder has developed “The Hip Hop Prayer Book,” inspired by the Book of Common Prayer, which he wrote with help
\nfrom dozens of rappers, musicians and poets.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On the one hand, so not my bag, baby. But, then, if someone finds it inspirational, no accounting for tastes (especially mine). Of course, the problem with being so “hip” is that it’s easy to get very dated very fast.<\/p>\n

So, for example, take this “hip-hop” rendition of the 23rd Psalm<\/a> from the above-referenced Prayer Book.<\/p>\n

The Lord is all that, I need for nothing.
\n<\/em>He allows me to chill.
\nHe keeps me from being heated and allows me to breathe easy.
\nHe guides my life so that I can represent and give shout outs in His name.
\nAnd even though I walk through the hood of death,
\nI don’t back down, for You have my back.
\nThe fact that He has me covered allows me to chill.
\nHe provides me with back-up
\nIn front of player-haters, and I know that I am a baller and life will be phat.
\nI fall back in the Lord’s crib for the rest of my life.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(“Stewardess, I speak Jive …”)<\/p>\n

(And for those of you wondering what a “baller<\/a>” is …)<\/p>\n

I don’t object to the above based on some bizarro sense of the inerrancy of the English Bible translation of your choice, like some do …<\/p>\n

\n

Eric Turner, the assistant pastor at Bible Baptist Church in Creedmoor, N.C., says that when you alter Biblical passages, “you take the author of those writings down. God is completely different from us, and trying to make him like us is incorrect … Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(Which is, of course, why Rev. Turner will, this Sunday, be reading Scripture in Aramaic.)<\/p>\n

No, my objection is that it just feels … stupid. Artificially hip and trendy, adults trying to sound “hep,” in a way that the youth they are seeking to reach this way will find goofy and unrealistic. I may well be wrong — it’s not my idiom or age bracket — but I find it more aesthetically and liturgically unpleasant than theologically so.<\/p>\n

To each, though, their own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ran across this article in a few-weeks-old Newsweek, and had to look it up online. It’s all about how hip-hop church services are all the rage in some congregations. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-writing-and-language"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":16680,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/02\/05\/slipping-into-an-alternate-dimension-of-evil-liberal-revisionists-eek.html","url_meta":{"origin":10204,"position":0},"title":"Slipping into an alternate dimension of Evil Liberal Revisionists! Eek!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 5-Feb-10 8:22pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been reading a lot over the past several months about all the reactionary Right-wingers appointed by Gov. Perry in Texas to the State Board of Education (ten of the fifteen now being fine, upstanding, Texas Republicans).\u00a0 Texas is currently going through a review of its social studies curriculum, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"School days, school days, dear old Golden Rule days ...","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/teacher-286x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":129525,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/20\/sarah-palin-in-her-inimitable-way-endorses-donald-trump.html","url_meta":{"origin":10204,"position":1},"title":"Sarah Palin, in her inimitable way, endorses Donald Trump","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 20-Jan-16 10:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"And by \"inimitable\" I mean, \"What the hell drugs did she take before writing and delivering this speech, and does anyone else thank their lucky stars that she's not 'a heartbeat away from the Presidency'?\"It's a remarkable speech, full of random campaign sound bites, unrelieved bitterness from 2008, and a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6975,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/11\/20\/timing_is_every-3.html","url_meta":{"origin":10204,"position":2},"title":"Timing is Everything","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 20-Nov-04 11:58am","format":false,"excerpt":"So as a grand, climactic, cathartic finale to our big church construction project, we're having a large pot-luck dinner, dance, dedication by Bp. Winterrowd, big excitement, etc. Two hundred-odd folk...","rel":"","context":"In "My Parish"","block_context":{"text":"My Parish","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion\/religion-my-parish"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33270,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/19\/hip-young-lincoln.html","url_meta":{"origin":10204,"position":3},"title":"Hip! Young! Lincoln!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 19-Apr-13 7:41am","format":false,"excerpt":"The Lincoln Motor Co. brochure I got that I wrote about yesterday. I can't find this particular ad campaign online.Still trying to figure out the guitar player in the upper left hand corner. 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IKEA Centennial = hell ten days after grand opening (PHOTOS) - Denver News - The Latest Word - Oh, yeah, definitely knew it was a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}