James Meehan - Should Christians Cancel Kanye?
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Vince Parker: Welcome back to Culture Makers. I'm one of your hosts Vince Parker, with me today is James Meehan. James, how you doing, sir?
James Meehan: So good.
Vince Parker: Come on, we're talking Donda, Spider-Man and answering some of you guys' questions today...
James Meehan: Yup, yup.
Vince Parker: And I'm super excited, but first of all, it's been a while since we've done this...
James Meehan: I know, it's been a long time.
Vince Parker: But you can tell, people on YouTube, they love our other hosts.
James Meehan: Yeah, they do. They're great. Don't get me wrong.
Vince Parker: They're crushing it.
James Meehan: But the boys are back in town.
Vince Parker: Were back. We kicked this off.
James Meehan: The boys are back in town.
Vince Parker: Oh, is that a beach boys song? Is that...
James Meehan: I'm gonna be honest with you, I don't know.
Vince Parker: I don't either. Donda dropped. Have you listened?
James Meehan: Nope.
Vince Parker: Oh, okay, wow.
James Meehan: Bro, you know me!
Vince Parker: I know, I know, I know. We've been waiting for weeks.
James Meehan: Yeah.
Vince Parker: Like it's like four weeks we've been waiting for Donda to drop. And I'm at church. And I didn't know it dropped that morning. Like he dropped like 8:15, and people like it dropped, and I'm serving and I'm in the church and I can't listen to it at all. But you better believe as soon as I got home.
James Meehan: Yeah. Come on.
Vince Parker: Play.
James Meehan: Was it worth the wait?
Vince Parker: Man. Here's the deal. It's good.
James Meehan: It's good? It's fire. If we had a rating system on culture makers.
Vince Parker: Let's just say was five fire emojis, out of five.
James Meehan: Five fire emojis out of five?! Come on, put 'em in the chat, five fire emojis for Donda. Wow.
Vince Parker: I think he stays true to himself. He still loves Jesus.
James Meehan: Oh, that's good. That's good to know.
Vince Parker: In the way he's walking people through struggles...
James Meehan: Yeah.
Vince Parker: ...and the things he's gone through, You're like, oh man, this is, I feel like he's going to reach more people for Jesus.
James Meehan: Come on, man.
Vince Parker: Because when you first hear the album, you're like, like there's a song called like Jail Time I believe. And you're like, I don't know what we're doing, but he's like, if I get pulled over, we're going to jail tonight. And I'm like, oh, okay. But you can just, here's your, I, I think it's approved.
James Meehan: Yeah.
Vince Parker: I don't know, if you watched it, you listening to it, let me know how you feel. Out of five fire emojis, what would you give Donda, let us know what the chat. And the listening party, did you hear about that?
James Meehan: Okay I heard a little bit about it, but like I said, I didn't watch it cause I didn't think it was ever gonna come out. I thought...
Vince Parker: Kanye, we know you watch the show.
— It's no offense. It's not that I didn't believe in him. I just, I thought it was like a marketing scheme for something else. I thought he was going to come at us with something totally different.
— The man set himself on fire.
— This is what I heard.
— You know what's interesting about this, about this show though?
— Yeah?
— So like Kanye finds Jesus, right?
— Yep.
— He's Christian, walkin', Sunday services, He's doing all these things.
— Yep.
— Right, the album's coming out. he still loves Jesus, And he's doing some things with what you would call secular artists now. Right.
— Sure.
— And now, all of a sudden he's at the Chicago stadium, right? And boom, he's there. It's his house. Sets himself on fire, gets basically remarried to Kim, like... But Marilyn Manson shows up, and people lose their mind. They're like, cancel 'em. He can't be a Christian.
— Wait, people were trying to cancel Kanye because Marilyn Manson showed up to the...
— Cause Marilyn was actually a part of the show.
— Oh, interesting.
— Right. And so you see this...
— So people want to cancel Kanye because he was associated with Marilyn Manson.
— Right. But if you listen to his album, there's clear... It's clearly Kanye still loves Jesus.
— Right.
— Kanye, still trying to lead people to Jesus.
— Right. He's reconciling his relationship with his wife.
— Right.
— That if you've been paying attention, was super strained and fractured for the last what, year or so?
— For a minute, yes.
— I mean, at least publicly for the last year or so.
— Yeah. So who knows how long before? And we don't see...
— Right.
— ...only what we saw publicly.
— Right.
— But Marilyn Manson's there and they're like, cancel him.
— I saw some memes and some posts like, hey, and it's like, but some of the responses I saw were good. They were like, Hey, here's the deal. Man, If Kanye can find Jesus...
— Come on, dude.
— Can Marilyn find Jesus? And is the best approach...
— Yep.
— To be like, hey, until you do, I can't associate with you?
— Come on, dude.
— Or is it like, let me invite you to a part of something that proclaims who Jesus is.
— Come on, Vince. Come on!
— To me, that's something cool that Kanye is doing. He's reaching people.
— Yes.
— That people can't do 'cause there's a bunch of people who don't believe in Jesus, who still love Kanye's music.
— Absolutely, man.
— And this album...
— Yeah.
— ...is going out to them and they're hearing, they're listening, hearing who Jesus is and proclaims.
— And the thing I think is so powerful about that, is that even though it was only recently that Kanye found Jesus...
— Right.
— From the beginning, Jesus has been pursuing him.
— Yes.
— And Jesus is pursuing Marilyn Manson.
— Yes.
— Jesus is pursuing every single person who does not currently know him. And Jesus is never going to stop pursuing them...
— Nope.
— ...until they come into a relationship with him. And I think this is the thing that's so mind boggling to me is how the same things that the Pharisees accused Jesus of...
— Yeah.
— We so often accuse each other of, right? When Jesus was called a friend of centers, that wasn't a compliment. That was an accusation.
— It was.
— What they're saying is that, Hey Jesus, because you're so friendly with centers, you are not with us. You're actually against us, because you're with them. The fact that you're so friendly with them, you're eating with them, you're drinking with them. You're making it seem like what they're doing isn't wrong. And if they don't know what they're doing is wrong, then how are they ever going to learn what's right? And for some reason that was okay with Jesus. He didn't try to shame people into the truth. He loved them into it. And I think this is the thing that's so powerful about Kanye's example with this album, is Kanye has experienced the radical grace of Jesus.
— Yes.
— And now he's inviting others to be a part of it. And the way that he's doing that, is a part of what he's always been about which is creating great music, that people want to listen to and be a part of. And if through that music more people will come to know Jesus, we want to celebrate that all day long, easy. Perfect? Nah! He's a human being.
— None of us are perfect.
— Right, come on, man.
— Well, it's interesting, you hear a song, no matter what the song's about, if Kanye has someone featured on the song and he has several people featured on the song, right? Like Dababy, Marilyn, Jay-Z, Future, several, and more others, right?
— Right.
— And so Kanye's, whatever the song's about, he's giving his perspective and how he's walked through it...
— Right, it's fantastic.
— ...and proclaiming Jesus, and say the person on the album may not be a Christian, or may not be in the same place that Kanye's in, but you're hearing their perspective, which I think I appreciate, because there are people out there who are like, okay, Kanye, I got your perspective, you love Jesus, but you're not where I'm at anymore, you don't understand.
— Yeah.
— But you're hearing this other perspective of like, Hey man, I'm kind of starting this walk, or...
— Come on, man.
— I'm a part of this, or here's some of the things I struggle with, or here's...
— Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
— here's why my past is the way my past is, and why I'm the way I am now. God's going to use it in a powerful way. God uses a lot of things. So, excited for Kanye.
— It's amazing.
— I'm glad Donda dropped. Um, it's gonna be good.
— Yep. I'll listen... Hey listen, I'll listen to it at some point!
— Okay listen, here's the deal, I know, when you work it out next time man, now here's the... it's like a two hour album, 27 songs.
— Hey, I'll listen to that in my workouts. That's a great idea.
— Wait, is it on Spotify?
— It's on Spotify.
— Oh yeah, then I'll for sure listen to it.
— Yeah, okay, are you a Spotify only person?
— Yeah.
— Okay, me too. Spotify only. Spider-Man trailer dropped.
— Come on, you know I watched that as soon as it dropped.
— How many times did you watch the trailer? Like six, seven, eight, 900?
— Uhhh I've watched, okay so I've only watched the trailer twice, and I have yet to watch the Easter egg breakdown. Oh yeah, also, check out the kicks.
— Marvel. Those are nice, I like those.
— Yeah, you should like them. You got 'em for me.
— Oh, congratulations. Those are very nice. You're welcome.
— I'm super excited about it. What it looks like is gonna happen, is that this Spider-Man, is going to redeem old school Tobey Maguire Spider-Man.
— Okay.
— Because there's some characters, if you haven't watched the trailer yet, from old school Spider-Man that are going to be featured in this new one. And I'm excited, man.
— So of all the things going on with this trailer, the multi-verse, and different Spider-Mans...
— Yep.
— the old characters coming back, have you noticed one of the things is, is people like, what's with Dr. Strange's outfit?
— I haven't noticed that, no.
— They're like, how does this guy go from wearing Cartier watches, and thousand dollars suits
— Come on.
— To a cape over a puffer jacket, and there's just memes about it, and you're like, hey.
— Okay dude, that's funny, I haven't seen that.
— They're like, hey, what's the deal here, man? Who is this dude?
— Y'all ever have those friends, that get all into like the new age spirituality stuff.
— Right? Yeah. I mean I haven't met... yeah.
— Where all of a sudden, they get into this new age spirituality, they're wearing all these crystals around their necks, they're like stop bathing.
— Okay, you think Dr. Strange stopped bathing?
— No, no, I'm not saying he stopped bathing, I'm just saying, like, he went on this, you know, spiritual journey.
— Right. Enlightenment, all that kind of stuff.
— Enlightenment, like...
— He got here doing all this kinda stuff, you know...
— Right!
— he's out here.
— He went on this journey And now, you know, he wears funky clothes.
— Yeah he's dressing different, but he put the cape over it.
— Yeah, right. But when you've got a Cape that can do that kind of cool stuff.
— Man, I ain't, I ain't going to front, you know, there's a lot of cool things.
— If I had that cape, I'd wear it.
— Daily.
— Daily.
— Hope when somebody say something to me and I'd be like, wrap 'em up. Wrap them up and take them for a float around the building or something like that.
— That's good, man.
— Hey, check it out, excited to see it. We love to answer your questions, we got some of your questions...
— Oh wait hold up.
— Oh, we're not done yet?
— We got to talk about Only Fans.
— Oh my goodness. Wow. How did I skip that.
— Bro, we can't skip this!
— Only Fans. Ooh. Never been to the website.
— Yeah, me neither.
— Don't go to the website, but James, let's talk about some updates, Only Fans, man.
— Come on, dude. Man, they are just pulling some publicity stunts, I think.
— Oh, that's what you think it is?
— Oh I totally think it is.
— Okay, tell them about the announcement, tell them what they did.
— So recently, Only Fans came out saying that they would not feature any sexually explicit content on their site.
— Yep.
— Which if you've heard anything about Only Fans, you know that that is literally what their site is. It's where people make a living, posting sexually explicit videos of themselves, and get people to pay for it. So Only Fans comes out saying that's not going to be allowed anymore.
— Right.
— And then, of course, you know, the internet goes into an uproar. But then, almost as quickly as it came, Only Fans reverses that decision saying, ah, actually we will allow the sexually explicit content to continue. And now some people think that it was because of the backlash. I'll be honest with you, I think it was a publicity stunt. I think they were just trying to get attention.
— You think the whole time they were just like, any news is good news.
— I think so. Cause it's one of those things, where now, again, I obviously could be wrong. I don't know for sure. But it just seems like one of those things where, what would be the reason to shift that when that's literally their entire financial model, getting people to pay for sexually explicit content. Now again, it could have been that maybe somebody up high in Only Fans had a change of heart. Maybe they decided that, you know what? We don't want to promote this anymore. We don't want to encourage people to be producing this content. And if that's the case, that's fantastic. But we don't know.
— I wish that was the case. I wish they would stop, shut it down.
— But I think the thing that's important for us to be able to talk about, is the fact that a website like Only Fans has grown so much, because the demand for pornographic material is off the charts.
— Yeah.
— We live in a society that has made the objectification of human bodies, literally a key part of our economy.
— I know.
— And so there are tons and tons of people that are making money, off of selling sexually explicit material. And the thing is like with Only Fans, they're posting their own videos about themselves and they have that right to do that. But what we don't realize we're doing is that we're actually creating a market for even more graphic material that people eventually graduate from. Because this is what a lot of studies will show is that people, when they first start watching pornography, they'll look at things that are maybe a little bit less graphic, a little bit less intense, but then that stops meeting that need for them...
— Right.
— ...so they graduate to more graphic and more explicit things. Things that are oftentimes violent, oftentimes abusive and always dehumanizing. And I think this is the thing that for those of us who are followers of Jesus, we need to be really, really careful of, is that what we consume, shapes who we become.
— Yes.
— And when we consume material that is dehumanizing other people, that's objectifying them, that's what lust is. It's choosing to see other people, not as people to be loved, but as objects to be used for our own pleasure, then we become the kind of people that only see people that way. And that is so far off of who God's called us to be.
— Mm-hm, true.
— Because Jesus said the greatest commandment is this
— to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. And I cannot love my neighbor as myself. If I stopped seeing them...
— Mm-hm.
— as a human being just like me. And this is why we talk about these things. Because as followers of Jesus, we want to be a community of people that always see the best in others. We always see them as human beings to be loved, made in the image of God, with dignity, with value and with purpose, not a commodity for us to use for our own pleasure...
— Right.
— but people made in the image of God.
— That's good, James. I would say this. If you struggle with pornography on any level, there is a great plan on the You Version Bible app.
— Absolutely.
— That you can check out. Links down below, or maybe it's up here. You know how there's, you know, down below.
— It's somewhere.
— But yeah, find it, check it out, because here's the deal, Know this, we're praying for you.
— Absolutely.
— You know, we believe that God can solve and answer any prayer, and there's no need for you to be addicted, to continue to watch, and if you have friends or loved ones or family members who are like, hey, it's okay. I would say this. It's not...and you have to take a stance someplace and that stance can start with you.
— Come on, that's good Vince.
— So be okay with being the ones who set the example as God has called us to do, and say, hey, you know what? I'm just not going to participate in that. I'm not going to watch that. I'm not going to log in.
— Yep.
— I'm not going to click. I'm not going to check it out, and don't participate in that. So that's what I would say.
— That's good man.
— Question from Chantelle Stewart. How do you witness someone who is happy, and prospers in their sin.
— That's good.
— Or prosperless, pros... What's that word, Jay?
— How do you witnesses someone who is happy and prosperous in their sin? That's a great question. I was thinking about this when I saw it earlier, it's kind of like when you're hungry...
— Okay.
— You can go eat a McDonald's cheeseburger and you won't be hungry anymore.
— Okay. That's very good. That's true.
— But, if all you ever eat are McDonald's cheeseburgers, it will deal with the hunger desire...
— Right.
— but it won't actually nourish your body because it'll fill you up, but it will not nourish you. Come on, somebody. This is what's so important for us to recognize about sin, is that sin will fill us up in the moment, but it does not nourish our souls.
— Yes.
— And so when we are finding ourselves happy and prosperous in our sin, that is a temporary state. Eventually we're going to realize, oh shoot, I've been eating cheeseburgers for the last 10 years and I need a real good grass fed steak to actually nourish my body. Because even though the hunger has been dealt with, the nourishment that my body needs to be like really productive, isn't there. This is the same, that's true for us as human beings, is that we can experience these desires that are only able to be fully met in the presence of God. But we try to satisfy them with things that are so much less than God. That's literally what sin is. It's choosing to go to other things rather than God, to meet our needs. And what God wants to do, is he wants to satisfy our deepest desires. CS Lewis is an author and a theologian who talks about this idea that if we find in ourselves a desire that seems to not be able to be met by the things of this world, then that's probably evidence that we weren't made for this world. And, I think this is a thing that I try to remind myself in is that when I have friends that are happy and content in their sinful acts, I've got to recognize that eventually the time will come where that sin will not satisfy them, where they're going to be hungry for some real spiritual nourishment. And so, I want to be the kind of person that is with them every step of the way so that when they get hungry, when they're fed up with cheeseburgers, I can say, hey, let me tell you about this restaurant that I know.
— Mmmm.
— It tastes good and it will satisfy the deepest longings of your soul. So how do we help people that are happy and prosperous in their sin recognize that there is more to life than that? Man, we show them what it looks like to live a life that is fully alive, and nourished by the spirit of God. So that when they realize that these cheeseburgers aren't cutting it, they know who to go to and who to ask for help to find the nourishment that they're looking for.
— So in other words, continuing to walk with them...
— Absolutely.
— Right. Don't get sucked into their cheeseburger.
— Nah, of course not.
— Right, I'm not saying they're your best friend, or you hanging with them every single day...
— Right, sure.
— eating cheeseburgers, trying to be sinful, but you're saying like, hey, I still love you.
— Absolutely.
— I still care for you, so they can see how God has changed your life, and look at you and be like, man, that grass fed steak.
— Come on, dude.
— Okay, that's real nourishment, and they check that out. I love that, I think that's awesome. That's very cool, and that's very helpful for people out there. So you know what, Jay, this has been awesome.
— Vince Parker.
— No, James Meehan.
— No, Vince Parker.
— No, James Meehan.
— I'm gonna stop there.
— Hey, James, you know what we didn't talk about today?
— What?
— What If...?
— Come on, What If...?, Marvel's new show.
— Man, it's so good.
— Are we talking about it now, or?
— No, we're just like... Hey, thank you guys so much for watching Culture Makers. We love you, you know, we're praying for you. We'll see you later. Peace out.