It’s hard to turn on the radio in Seattle these days without
hearing the pulsing rhythm and repetitive saxophone refrain of Macklemore’s hit
song, “Thriftshop.” Last week, I actually heard the song being played
simultaneously on two different radio stations – one a top-40 hip hop station,
the other known for playing alternative hits.
The song is so catchy that
apparently some people can’t stop singing it – even at the threat of bodily
harm. A woman in Colorado was arrested last night for strangling (non-fatally)
her boyfriend when he refused to stop singing the chorus of “Thriftshop,”[1]
even though she had asked him “25 times” to stop. Clearly, Macklemore’s music
has a strong appeal.
While “Thriftshop”
may be Macklemore’s signature tune nationally, he is best known in his hometown
of Seattle for “Same Love,” his anthem calling for the legalization of gay marriage.
Although Macklemore uses this song to call out lawmakers and hip hop fans for
their apparent discrimination against the gay community, he devotes the
majority of the lyrics to criticizing the response of the Christian church to
the issue of homosexuality in general.
Because
of the profanity featured in most of Macklemore’s lyrics and his roots in the
ultra-liberal Pacific Northwest, it’s easy for most Christians to dismiss “Same
Love” as just another rant of a godless celebrity taking pot-shots at the church.
Such a flippant dismissal would be
a sad mistake. Even though Macklemore’s broadside attack on the church is aggressive
and inflammatory, the lyrics of “Same Love” reveal many of the assumptions Millennials
have appropriated concerning the church and sexuality. If the church wishes to
engage this generation in theological discourse, they need to know where they
are coming from. You can’t give them an answer if you don’t what questions they
are asking.
That’s where Macklemore’s “Same
Love” comes in. In this song, Macklemore poses the questions that the church
needs to answer. A discussion must take place, and “Same Love” reveals what
issues ought to comprise the loci of that discussion.
The first question concerns the
origins of homosexual desires. As Macklemore puts it,
“The right wing conservatives think it's a
decision
And you can be cured with some treatment and religion
Man-made rewiring of a predisposition
Playing God, aw nah here we go
America the brave still fears what we don't know
And God loves all his children, is somehow forgotten”[2]
And you can be cured with some treatment and religion
Man-made rewiring of a predisposition
Playing God, aw nah here we go
America the brave still fears what we don't know
And God loves all his children, is somehow forgotten”[2]
In other words, does God create people as homosexuals, or is it a choice
that individuals make? Far too often, the church dismisses this question as
blatantly obvious: “Of course God didn’t create people to be gay! It was Adam
and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” The non-Christian world deserves a better
response than this, and it’s up to those in the church to thoughtfully provide
that answer.
The next question Macklemore raises concerns the authority of Scripture. He
notes, “We paraphrase a book written thirty-five-hundred years ago,” as if the
quotation of old dead guys is enough to settle the issue. Clearly, the larger
question is, “What is the Bible?” Is the Bible an accurate, trustworthy revelation
of God’s will, or is it an outdated collection of documents with little
relevancy to life in the 21st Century? This question of Scripture’s
authority must be answered before Christians start lobbing Bible verses at
their pro-gay opponents.
Macklemore also raises the question of whether homosexuality is an
unalterable predisposition. In the chorus, a lesbian woman repeats the refrain,
“And I can’t change, even if I wanted to. My love, my love, my love, she keeps
me warm.” Most evangelical Christians assume the possibility of change and
recovery for homosexuals, but non-Christians are not likely to share this
belief. You must convince someone of the reality of potential change before you
start preaching repentance.
The attitude of the church is also criticized by Macklemore:
“When I was at church they taught me
something else
If you preach hate at the service those words aren't anointed
That holy water that you soak in has been poisoned”
If you preach hate at the service those words aren't anointed
That holy water that you soak in has been poisoned”
If Christian opposition to homosexuality is coming across as “hate”, then there
is a flaw in either the manner in which the message is conveyed or the attitude
of the one giving the message. Macklemore’s critique here may be legitimate for
some tactless Christians, but it may also reflect a confusion of loving
opposition to behavior and a rejection of the person. The church must heed
Macklemore’s words and take care to ensure that their opposition to sin is not
misinterpreted as hatred of the sinner.
The final question raised by
Macklemore follows necessarily from the issue raised above: “What is love?”
Macklemore ends this anthem by repeating some words from 1 Corinthians 13: “Love
is patient/Love is kind.” Clearly, Macklemore is calling the church to love
homosexuals by endorsing their behavior. But is that really what love is?
Unless the church provides a good answer to the contrary in both words and
action, Macklemore and those like him will assume Christians are motivated by
something other than love when they call homosexuality “sin.”
Clearly, the gay debate is
heating up nationally. Supporters of gay rights are getting ever more vocal,
and laws around the country are being changed to accommodate gay marriages. And
somehow, the church’s voice seems to be growing less and less relevant.
To a large degree, this is
because the church is ignoring the questions that need to be answered. Only when
we address the mistaken assumptions of the pro-gay community will Christians be
able to provide a convincing defense of God’s standards for human sexuality.
Listen to
Macklemore, and get in the discussion.
-Nate Corley
