Christ in the Center of Christian Music

Hello everyone, welcome back. So I wanted to take this episode to talk about, um kind of expand a little bit on what I discussed last week, because I know I kind of just dumped a whole bunch onto you guys.

So this week I was going to um talk a little bit more about certain aspects of it, one of them being Lecrae, and then, um, I'm just gonna give you my thoughts on my question that I got. I asked you guys last week, which was what do you do when your Christian influencers fail you? And then I have some other YouTube video links that I'm going to share with you guys in the notes, but I'm also going to give you the titles now and who does them, that kind of thing.

So it's just going to be a little more unpacking of what I talked about last week, and I'm also going to drop a slightly off topic. Um, I don't want to call it a bomb, but something like that. It's just going to probably upset a lot of people who grew up with VeggieTales. Let's just start there. It doesn't completely have to do with music, but since VeggieTales has silly songs, I figured it would be okay to at least share a little bit of it. I may go in depth with it later at, you know, during a different season or whatever, but yeah, I'm just going to talk about it a little bit.

So let's get into it.

First of all, I wanted to start talking about what I mentioned about Lecrae, the things that I had heard about him and everything. So, with this being me talking to you guys honestly and you know I do as much research as I can for this stuff but I'm also just speaking from my own heart and from what I hear, and I'm just here to help you guys know more, without you having to go out and search for these things.

I'm finding stuff and I'm like, oh, my friends need to hear this. That's why I share with you guys on this podcast, because I view you as my friends and I want to help you. So I may not always have things right, but when I don't have it right, I will try to come on the podcast and clear things up.

So that's what I'm going to do a little bit with that lecrae. Um approves of abortion. You know things like that um. You know that he's kind of fallen away. You know that he did an event for um, I figured out the politician's name, raphael Warnock and you know people were saying he was supporting him and all that stuff.

So all those different things that I had mentioned. I listened to the podcasts and everything that I had heard that from, but I also found some new stuff from a YouTube channel that I follow, and maybe you know who he is or not, but his name is Ruslan, but his channel is Ruslan KD on YouTube and I'll try to link it because he's pretty cool to listen to as well.

He knows Lecrae on a more personal level and he actually had him on his podcast to interview him about this information. And Lecrae has also done some TikTok videos or Instagram videos, I'm not sure debunking or talking through these issues.

Like it seems, lately he's been having to do a lot of damage control, I guess, to explain himself. And the videos that Ruslan talked about in regards to all these and the one he did with his interview is really good and worth a listen or a watch because it's on YouTube. So I will try to link some of those for you guys in the show notes.

So I will try to link some of those for you guys in the show notes.

But I just wanted to talk a little bit about the controversy with Lecrae, he is standing firm in his faith, according to what he's saying. He's saying he hasn't left the faith. He hasn't done this. He still loves God more than anything.

He says that he's not for abortion. He's he's pro-life all the way, but in the sense of from the womb to the tomb, which I've heard other people say this and um, I feel like it's a caveat we don't really need to explain.

If you say you're pro-life, I feel like that kind of just means that. But I guess because somewhere along the lines, people who are pro-life, who are against abortion, have just been lumped in, as we only care about the woman who's pregnant and the baby and we don't care after they're done having the baby.

I don't think that's a correct way to talk about people who are pro-life maybe some of them, that's like as far as it goes for them, but I know for myself I care about the whole person as well. I wouldn't say I care from womb to the tomb, because I feel like that's kind of implied in you care of your pro-life, that that is what life is, from the moment you're alive to the moment you're no longer alive. That just seems like a I don't want to call it an oxymoron, but maybe that is what it is. But I just feel like if you have to say that, then maybe there's a disconnect in what you mean.

And that's kind of where I think he was is that he was explaining what he meant by that. You know he cares about. You know how daycare expenses are expensive, all these different things where it's like that's part of life.

So why wouldn't you care about that if you're pro-life? Like I just don't understand why people feel they have to explain themselves if they say they're pro-life, other than the fact that someone along the lines at some point tried to pigeonhole us into this area where we are just saying we only care about the woman while she's pregnant and whatever happens after the birth. Who cares?

I don't feel that way and I think most people who are pro-life also don't feel that way. Go to a pregnancy center and see what they help you with. I guarantee they're going to help you with more than just giving birth to the baby and then you're done.

I mean this is a tangent that I'm not going to go into right now, but I guarantee at some point in a future season I will, because this is a subject that matters a lot to me, but right now that's not what I'm going to talk about. So I'm going to move on from that and I'm just letting you know that that's what Lecrae said in his video. And I'm just letting you know that that's what Lecrae said in his video.

So he's not for abortion, and I don't know if I had those facts 100% correct or if maybe when I listened to the podcast it was a decent time ago, maybe I had misconstrued it. So I wanted to apologize for that and give you a little bit of a update on that.

But I also wanted to just let you know that um, lecrae is saying that he is very much still into god. He still loves god, he still follows god, he doesn't care about his haters. He's tired of having to constantly, you know, confront these issues. he did mention the Raphael Warnock thing.

He said that he thought it was a bipartisan uh rally. He didn't realize it was for just one candidate. Um, I don't know how accurate that is. He's been saying that all along since this controversy started, so maybe that's true, maybe that's just a story he's sticking with, maybe it's a damage control story. I don't know. I'm not him. I'm not his heart. God only knows his heart. So there's that.

You take it as you will, but I like what Ruslan said and it's something that I'm starting to work on now in my mind when it comes to music. He said he likes to give people a benefit of a doubt and we also need to look at the fruit of the people.

So you shouldn't necessarily just judge a book by its cover. What we should be doing is looking at the fruit of their lives. You know, like I said, I used to listen to Lecrae a lot.

I loved his music, his passion in his rap, the beat and everything was just what I needed when I first came back to Christ and you know, we grow, we mature, you know things change. Whatever, for me, the idea of giving people a benefit of a doubt is something that I'm still working on, because I came from a kind of legalistic background, like I've mentioned before, where, you know, I mentioned last week that I wasn't able to listen to certain music because it was too raucous or because they were boys and I had to listen to girl Christian music.

Just like the restrictions that I had have made it implanted in my brain, certain things. So a subject that I'm trying to work on is looking at the fruit of the person rather than them, their contributions to my life or whatever. I don't know if that's making sense, but I'll use Lecrae as an example.

And it's because of all this controversy around him Do I believe that he has walked away from the faith. I don't know. I think maybe parts of him have been misguided. Maybe he's working through that. Maybe he's doing what I'm doing and he's redefining.

No, he's working through his relationship with Jesus. Maybe that's what he's doing, and you know, maybe he makes missteps, maybe he doesn't. And because he's in the limelight, people know about it more than they do. My stuff, you know. Like that could be what's going on. I don't know.

All I know for myself and maybe you feel the same way is that if I hear about somebody that I have listened to or music that I liked or whatever, and I find out that the person is against something that I don't like, or maybe they're a little on the fence, or I don't fully approve of stuff they're doing, I may not listen to them anymore.

That might just be me. Maybe you're not that way, maybe you are that way. For me, the reason I do, it is not because I hate the person. I pray for them. I will pray for them and maybe at some point I might listen to them or I might cherry pick songs that I know were good and I'll listen to those.

But right now I just don't listen to Lecrae at all and it's because I don't know. I don't want my music to affect me in a negative way. I don't want to be influenced by the people I listen to. I only want to be influenced by the people I listen to.

I only want to be influenced by Christ. Call me crazy, but I want Christ in the center of my Christian music. And if I don't feel that that person is doing that in their own personal life, or if their music just starts to sound a little wonky in my opinion, then I just won't listen to them. And that's a personal preference and I'm not really going to push that on other people. I'm just going to give them the information that I have and they can do with it as they will.

There's people here who probably listen to Lecrae, and they still listen to lecrae, and, after hearing these things, and maybe they've gone and they've checked the videos that I've, you know, posted. Maybe they've seen these videos I'm talking about already and they're still listening to them. That's between them and god. That's between you and god and that's okay. It's not.

I'm not here to tell you don't do this, listen to this, don't listen to this. I'm just here to tell you don't do this, listen to this, don't listen to this. I'm just here to talk to you. We're having an honest conversation about Christians, about Christ, about faith and making sure we're all headed on straight and narrow. I'm a friend talking with a friend.

That's all I am here. I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm not preaching to you. I'm just sharing my heart with you and I'm hoping to help you get in a better place and have a better understanding of the things that we listen to and all that other stuff. So I just want you guys To put your faith in God, not in man.

That, I think, is one of the main reasons why I have a hard time With all the Christian music artists that I've listened to who have fallen away or who are going through some drama right now, like Lecrae is, and I think that's one of the other reasons why I originally have stopped listening to certain people is because it was too much.

I realized that I was putting them on a high pedestal and putting them in a safe space and I realized that was wrong. And I still realize it's wrong and that's why I re-evaluate what I listen to and if I'm going to listen to a certain person again, like with Lecrae.

While I was listening to Ruslan's videos, he was making some good points about the situation with Lecrae and you could see in Lecrae's heart his sincerity in what he was saying. So at that point I was like, do I revisit listening to Lecrae? You know, am I in a place where I know I'm not worshiping him, I'm not putting him above God? I'm not, you know? Just like, do I listen to him again? Do I feel I'm okay to do that?

And for me I haven't come to a conclusion because, honestly, I'm not really a big on rap. I like Ruslan's rap. His lyrics are solid and everything, and I'm not saying that Lecrae's aren't. But for me I really love techno music, I love something with a beat and I know my whole life whether it's Christian or not Christian.

I have been able to listen to music with such a sick beat that if I did not pull myself away from that enough to listen to the lyrics, I wouldn't really know what I'm listening to. I mean, there's some non-Christian techno music that I've listened to that I would have listened to for a long time and then all of a sudden one day something clicks in my brain and I hear what they're saying and I'm like whoa, why am I listening to this? And then I just delete the song and I don't listen to it again.

We can do that too when it comes to Christian music. We turn our brains off, if you will, because they're safe with quotation marks. But we can't do that because if you listen to last week, if you've done any of this diving on your own into christian artists, you know, if you listen to cooper stuff elisa childers, dorian virtue, justin peters, alan parr, all these other people who are talking about different worship stuff if you've done any sort of diving into this stuff, you realize that our, our Christian music is not safe.

Even if you just look at the news, you can see that Christian churches aren't even safe. So it's like we can't check our brains at the door anymore. We have to be engaged in what we're listening to and what we're saying and doing and the people we allow to influence and come into our lives, and that includes our music.

So, as for Lecrae, you can take what you want from what I mentioned, the retractions that I did. You can listen to the Ruslan videos and figure it out for yourself.

I personally am still not listening to Lecrae. As I said, I'm just not a full-on rap person. I have to be in a mood for rap. I may put some of his music back on, because he does have solid lyrics and I do like the way he does it, so I might find those songs and put them back on. But this in general, is a whole situation that I'm working through because, as I mentioned a little bit last week, is that I had a hard time worshiping at church. I'm still working through that.

It's been a very difficult season for me in that sense. Trying to find godly music that I know I can trust because the lyrics are good, and dividing between the person seeing it and their personal life and the true gospel being preached through their music has been really hard for me as well I don't.

I think it's great if people can say you know what? I don't appreciate their politics, but I love their music. You know with, but I love their music, you know when it comes to, you know any sort of band or whatever. Or I can watch a movie with this actor, even though I don't agree with the things they're saying outside of it. I think that's kind of cool.

Maybe that's not how we're supposed to be, I don't really know. I just know that to an extent I can't do that. It depends on what it is. I'm more choosy, I guess. Certain things I'm like you know what I can't do, that I won't support that person because of this and I don't know what that makes me. I don't know how to label that. I'm not going to label myself, I'm just discerning.

And that's what we as believers need to do is discern, especially, especially with our Christian music. We can't just think it's all good and fun and that the lyrics are all solid and the people singing it are solid. We need to discern. Look at the fruit of the people, make a judgment for yourself, understand what God is telling you in the Bible, read the Bible, pray and ask him for wisdom and guidance and he will give it to you to help you discern what you should or shouldn't be listening to.

It's very important because there's a lot of doctrine that gets put in our music not just Christian music, but music in general. There's always a doctrine being taught and we want to make sure, as christians especially, that we are being taught the right doctrine when we're letting our kids listen to it too. You know, we can't just assume that a christian artist is safe because they're on the christian radio. Look at the fruit of their life, look at the fruit of how they're living their life, look at the lyrics of what they're saying.

And this is something that I have been going through the since covid started, and it's been a journey. It's been a stressful journey. It's been one that has given me anxiety to the point where I've had to walk out in the middle of worshiping at church because I'm crying and I don't know how to handle what I'm going through right now. But I have gotten in a more healthy place.

Like I had mentioned, I had listened to the audio book called Sing by Kristyn and Keith Getty, and that really helped me put into perspective that worship is not about me. So now I have a better mindset when I go into worship at church.

I know what to look for in regards to what is sound doctrine and what may not really feel like it's sound doctrine, and what to do if a song like that comes on and I don't feel I should be singing it, then I know that there's a different way I can worship God, because it's not just with singing, that there's a different way I can worship God, because it's not just with singing.

So we need to remember that Christians are always going to fail us. They're human beings. They're not perfect. We can't just write them off. We don't want to cancel culture. There are certain things that should be canceled. There's certain areas where we can say you know, no, I'm not going to support that because of this.

There's times to have convictions. There's times when you know you need to realize where you once were and you know maybe you were at this point that Lecrae is in where you know you went somewhere. You made a, a mistake, you didn't realize it was what you thought it was, and now people are labeling you as somebody who supports that candidate or supports this or whatever.

Maybe he really didn't know that he was going to campaign for somebody who claims to be a reverend but also supports abortion. And that's where people started lumping him in saying, oh, he supports abortion, but maybe he just didn't know. That's what it was. You don't know. You can't put that that on him. That's between him and God.

But between you and God you need to figure out if that's someone that you want to follow. Is that someone you want to listen to? Look at the fruit of his music. He makes really good sound doctrine music. Maybe his newer stuff isn't. I haven't listened to him in a while, I don't know.

I have heard some people say that it's kind of gone off the rails a little bit. Maybe it has, I don't really know. But this is something that you need to be focused on Christ in your life with. Be reading the Bible, praying, asking for wisdom and discernment, and discern for yourself, because it's your relationship with Jesus Christ that will suffer if you choose to do the wrong thing. It's not someone else. So you know, there's that Cooper stuff also John Cooper and his podcast.

Cooper Stuff also did talk a little bit about, or in one of his episodes about a controversy between Lecrae and another rapper called D1. So if you want to look at that, that link will also be in the show notes. But he also talks about another kind of controversy that happened between Lecrae, um back and forth between him and this other rapper, D1. And it was pretty interesting.

So I mean you can check that out if you want. You can check that out if you want.

Another little tidbit that I want to talk about is the guy from DC Talk who's calling himself an ex-evangelical now and his deconstruction, Kevin Max.

I'll be honest and say that when I used to listen to DC Talk, he was a little off for me, like he was always off. Like I love his voice, he's got a very unique voice, it's a great voice. But with his there was always something off about him and then when he made his own, tried to go off on his own and do his own music, it just seemed very new, ageyy, I guess, kind of vibes for me, like I just knew something was off about him.

So I never really listened to his own personal stuff, which is now, I'm noticing is a good thing, because now he's deconstructing his faith and he is, you know, no longer has a faith. So you know, discernment is key here. But John Cooper's podcast also talks about that deconstruction in another episode, so I'm going to also link that for you.

If that is, something that you want to pursue knowing more about for um, that situation, all right, let's see. What else do I have here? Okay, so I want to talk now about what I mentioned when when I mentioned VeggieTales.

Like I said, it's not fully Music related, but because VeggieTales has silly songs with Larry and the voice of Larry Is who I'm talking about, it just feels necessary to at least Bring this up now and, like I said, I may revisit this person at future episodes, who knows, but I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with the name, phil Vischer, but he is the voice of Larry the Cucumber and he was one half of the people who created VeggieTales.

He has gone off the spiritual rails as well and I know for me this really hurt a lot because I love VeggieTales.

My kids were watching VeggieTales. It's a solid thing that I was really trying to give them, and then I found out that this Phil Vischer has a podcast called the Holy Post and it doesn't feel very holy, in my opinion from the different videos that I've seen, opinion from the different videos that I've seen it feels more like he's mocking real Christians who believe real Christian doctrine, which is really hard for me to handle. It was very hard, like I'll be honest, when I first heard this one I was like great, now I can't watch VeggieTales and the kids can't watch VeggieTales, like I just.

I just said that very Frustratedly and I've kind of laxed on that a little bit because I'm trying to, you know, realize that the content in VeggieTales at least older stuff is is still solid biblically, so I'm not going to deprive them of that.

But Cooper Stuff did a podcast episode, a really long one, about um, a candid response to Phil Vischer of Veggietales and he talks, he shares several different um clips of the holy post podcast and the way that they were mocking himself, John Cooper and Alisa Childers for their views on um, how we need to defend the christian faith and the armor of god, deconstruction.

You know they were really hammering against Elisa Childers, mocking her big time, mocking John a little bit, but more Alisa Childers, which was really sad to see.

But they were also talking about other different types of things. You know, somebody who may be a 90s youth group leader just kind of making light of it, almost to the point where if a 90s youth group leader or a youth group leader today were actually listening to the podcast, they would probably feel like what they're doing for God doesn't really matter. They just made them feel like they were less than which is really sad because you're not less than for anything you do for the kingdom of God, especially if you're trying to raise up the next generation.

That's like really big in God's eyes. But he just kind of went in on that, you know mocking with the other three people he has on his podcast. I only know one of them. Their name is Sky and he this guy Sky actually did talk about something which also is very, I think, disrespectful to a lot of Christians, a lot of Christians.

He calls it crotch Christianity, which is basically him saying anyone who really cares about or who thinks that God really cares about what happens with their crotch sorry for this is like just crazy.

Basically, is what he made it sound like is that you know, maybe God doesn't really care about. You know transgender and all these other things. You know your sexuality and abortion and all that stuff like it's. It's just they be, they belittle, they mock, they don't take the time to address issues deeply like believers should true believers. They kind of skirt issues.

They, you know. They said at one point that, um, you know, abortion is bad, but maybe it's not really the worst thing that's going on in the world right now and it's like it kind of is.

But they just they don't go over the top with their beliefs, they don't make waves to the point that the world would hate them. And as believers, we are supposed to be set apart from the world, not in the world. So they're not really living that, they're just skirting around it to a point where they're not going to lose followers, they're not going to lose the praise and accolades they may be getting from the world, but that they can still call themselves a holy host, and that's not okay.

We're not supposed to be on the fence. As believers, we're supposed to choose a side.

Basically and this Cooper Stuff's podcast episode of this is really good and I encourage you, if you have time, to listen to it in depth, if this is something that really interests you is learning more about Phil Vischer and the creator, co-creator of Veggietales. It was eye-opening for me and, yeah, it was very important.

And then one of the last things that I watched a youtube video was something that Alisa Childers posted on her podcast and it was just a short clip of her John Cooper, Dave Stovall I guess he was a former drummer from Audio Adrenaline they were in a panel at some sort of event and they were talking about what is happening with Christian singers and their faith.

So that was like 10 minutes the clip that she posted, although I think they have a longer form. If you wanted to look at it. It's probably on her actual YouTube channel somewhere, but I'm going to post a link for the 10 minute one because it's got enough information in it and it was very insightful, very encouraging to see that some Christians aren't falling by the wayside and they share ideas of how you can keep that from happening. So that might be something that you want to check out. If you get a chance, all right.

So I know I threw some more, a lot of stuff at you guys. If you have questions and you want me to try to answer them, if you want more information, I'm happy to give it to you on a more one-on-one basis. You can find me on Instagram and maybe send me a message. You can always go to my website, authoranamurby.com, and you can send me anything on there. You know questions, comments, concerns prayer requests and I'll try to do my best to help get an answer for you on that, and I'm going to post the links in the show notes today and stay tuned for next week, God willing.

I have a more deeper subject to talk about. In regards to worship music specifically. It's going to step on a lot of toes, I guarantee you, because I'm going to be talking about Hillsong, Bethel, and Elevation Worship Music. It's something that I've felt the need to talk about for a while, but I've been too nervous to do so. But I am no longer nervous to do so because I feel that this is necessary to sharing the true, honest gospel. So we're going to have an honest conversation about that.

Please share this episode with anyone that you can think of who needs to hear this information. You know, if you have an uber VeggieTales fan, send it to them. If you know somebody who loves Skillet, send this to them, because John Cooper and his band, Skillet, are awesome and their testimony is awesome. Anyone who loves Alisa Childers. You know anyone you know who needs to hear this. Send it to them. If you like this episode, share it with everybody you can. Word of mouth is very important for podcasters. All right, with that, I'm going to let you guys go. Have a good day, god bless. Bye.