Jesus Died For Our S…ecular beats?

Jesus Died For Our S…ecular beats?

If you’ve been around the Christian Hip Hop scene for any period of time, you’ve heard people say “secular beats are sin.” Even in my most zealous, legalistic days I’ve never really got on board with that idea. I mean c’mon son, sin?!?! Like, you can go to hell over this if you don’t repent of it – sin? Like, Jesus went on the cross and died so that the “Power” instrumental doesn’t separate us from our Heavenly Father – sin?!?! Like, if you’re a Catholic emcee (shout out to ManChild!) you need to go to confessional, do Hail Mary’s and rosary beads – sin?!?! Let’s dig into the matter some shall we? The definition of “secular” is: “not pertaining to religion”. So by definition isn’t EVERY beat secular until someone does something with it? And once you take a gospel song and remove the words, doesn’t it become secular all over again? What makes the beat sinful? Is the memories it conjures up in YOU that makes the beat sinful? If hearing the beat makes you want to grind on a girl or want to take a guy home or go get drunk or blunted, that’s not the fault of the beat. That’s on YOU. Scripture CLEARLY says that we are drawn away by our OWN temptations and lusts.

There is even evidence of “secular beats” in the Bible. Some of the Psalms were written to popular tunes of their day. Have you ever noticed in your Bible where it says “written according to Lillies?” or something like that? Those songs were the pop songs of their day, that were re-written to honor God. They took secular melodies, re-worked them to honor God and God put it in HIS WORD! Some scholars even indicate that some of the re-workings were pagan worship songs they learned in Babylonian captivity.

Now, I’m not saying that all of the reworkings people do today are good. YouTube is FULL of really bad gospel remakes (just go here if you want to see some). What I am saying is the grace, shed blood and eternal sacrifice of my Lord wasn’t necessary for the usage of “secular” beats.

“But what about the fact that the beat was made by someone who isn’t a believer?” Well, this may shock you but some of your favorite Christian songs weren’t produced by believers. Yet you still worship God to them, read your Bible to them and are inspired to seek the Lord through them all the same aren’t you?

Maybe you don’t like it, maybe you don’t think its smart, but to say its “sin” means that Jesus died for secular beats. And if the psalms are written to secular beats then is God’s incorruptible and infallible word, sin itself? Sounds kinda strange when you think about it huh? Comments welcome below.

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