I'm Praying for Kanye West

 Recently Kanye West was quoted as saying "Rap is the devils music" by his pastor in an interview with Apologia Studios. First of all, I tend to believe anything out of any group that uses the word Apologetics because of the ones I listen to/read, they tend to have a better grip on the word of God than a stadium full of Osteenites.

Secondly I would completely agree with Kanye on this depending on the mood you catch me in. If by chance you asked me "Doug, is rap the devil's music?" within a week of having to ride in  my millennial stepson's car the answer would be a loud and boisterous "YES!!!!" 

I'd probably be shouting to hear myself over the ringing in my ears.

However if you caught me on a more normal day the answer would be a more astute "any kind of music can be the devil's music" including classical music. Numerous pieces of classical music pay homage to Satan, pieces including Giuseppe Tartini's Devil's Trill Sonata, Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns Danse Macabre, and one known to any long time Disney watcher: Modést Petróvich Músorgskiy's Night at the Bare Mountain (Night on Bald Mountain). These are all inspired by Satan, and you can throw in anything with "Faust" in the title to expand your list of Satanic Classical.

One just needs to peruse Good Fight Ministries' music articles to see the horrors that Satan is inflicting on the world through popular music. Country music has so much gospel intertwined that you get a lot of the good, along with the bad. But as for Rap, I'll admit that I don't listen to much at all, but what I hear is horrible. However 30 years ago, MC Hammer begged his listeners to pray, which is more biblical truth than is contained in hours of Hillsong's noise.

I pray for Kanye, I really do. As breathlessly reported through thousands of outlets this summer, Kanye West has converted to Christianity, and I believe it's a true conversion. I was unconvinced until I read that he was feeling “the weight of sin” from “chasing all the things of this world" and converted to Christianity. To me that's a real conversion where one asks "I have sinned, please help me" and not "I'm OK, but what can JC do for me?"

I've never listened to Kanye, but I've read that his first album, the College Dropout, uses "God tinged tracks" and that the album is full of expletives. This has continued throughout his career until recently when it appears that he let the Holy Spirit do His work on him. Kanye is now conducting “Sunday Services,” weekly gatherings for family and celeb friends to fellowship and sing together. And to me he sounds sincere, he recently prayed:

"Let's not be concerned with the opinions of men at all. Only the opinion of God. I know we say this is the culture or that is the culture. To be radically in service to Christ is the only culture that I want to know about... Thank you for saving me, for replenishing me, for delivering me... When I found out about you... I got closer to my children. I got closer to my family, 'cause the devil had me chasing a gold statue, had me chasing cars, had me chasing numbers... the power of God cannot be calculated by a number, a first week sale, by a bank account, by how many cars you drive, by how big your house is, how many acres you got... It's God inside of us. It's God inside of family. It's God inside of friendship that we hold each other accountable" source

But Satan has put a road block in Kanye's path to sanctification - his wife. Kim Kardashian is a "jackdaw in peacock feathers" and has been for decades. She's made millions of dollars off of her looks and her body; photo shoots, a television show, and a mobile app has netted her over $40 million dollars. In 2003 she and her then boyfriend Ray J video taped their sexual exploits and that tape somehow got into the hands of a porn producer who started to sell copies publicly. Instead of suing that producer, Kim hired an agent and netted nearly 5 million additional dollars.

Recently Kim was preparing for the  Costume Institute Gala in NYC (does anyone care what that is?) when Kanye raised objections to her choice of a corset dress saying 

'I just made this transition from being a rapper, looking at all these girls, looking at my wife,' he mused. 'Like, ''Oh, my girl needs to be like the other girls, showing her body off''...'I didn't realize that that was affecting my soul and my spirit as someone that's married and loved, and the father of now, what—about to be four kids?... 'A corset is like a form of underwear, It's hot. It's like, it's hot for who, though?'

Her reply was

'You built me up to be this sexy person and confidence and all this stuff, And just because you're on a journey and you're on a transformation doesn't mean that I'm in the same spot with you.'

And of course she wore the dress to the gala, even though it was so tight she couldn't sit down, and of course she broadcast the disagreement on her TV show, netting her extra money because of a clause in the contract that states she gets extra bucks if Kanye appears on the show.

I'm praying for Kanye, praying that his conversion and salvation is real, praying that he will "man up" and have a talk with Kim and his pastor (and maybe even Pastor Paratus) and help Kim reach the same spot that he is in. As the spiritual head of the family, that's a husbands job.