<![CDATA[Today, October 1st, I updated my Facebook status thusly: Sometime around 1988, an enterprising urban pastor asked his youngest son to put together a rap for an outreach event. He dutifully complied, and although it was kind of awkward and he didn’t have any beats so he had to use his favorite EPMD instrumental, the…

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<![CDATA[ I recently started writing for a publication called Off the Page, from the creators of the popular Our Daily Bread devotional series. It’s a new forum for me to start talking about my favorite examples from pop culture and to show how the Bible can be relevant to everyday life. Anyway, I thought it…

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<![CDATA[ (Editor’s Note: Yes, the title is a bit clickbaitey, but hang with me. I’ll back it up.)   Yesterday, Andraé Crouch slipped into eternity, present in full with the Lord, in perfect peace. I’ve been half suspecting, half dreading that this day would come for a while now, and yet now that it has, I…

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<![CDATA[Okay, so this piece may sound like I'm trying to criticize Lecrae, so before I go any further, let me offer a few disclaimers.   I like Lecrae.   I really, really like Lecrae.   As an artist, as a person — as far as I can tell — he seems to be the real deal.   I…

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<![CDATA[ (Editor’s Note: with all the talk about the polarizing SCOTUS ruling on Hobby Lobby and birth control, I thought it might be good to talk about something that brings people together.)   So I’ve thought a lot about it, and I’ve decided that this song by bluegrass hip-hop band Gangstagrass, is more than just a fun, infectious…

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<![CDATA[So it seems that a series of circumstances have all led me to reminisce, Pete-Rock-&-CL-Smooth-style, about my upbringing here in Portland Oregon, the undisputed whitest major city in America. Reconnecting with old friends from high school, being a little less homebound and a little more out-and-about in the city (which is a typical, if subconscious…

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<![CDATA[So in the last five to ten years, as hip-hop culture has continued the march from being simply popular from becoming a downright universal lingua franca — and if you think I'm overstating that at all, consider that right now, at this second, The Roots are now the house band on The Tonight Show —…

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<![CDATA[If you've ever wondered why it is that Christian music sucks, I have a hypothesis. But first, I just have to say —  "The Sentient Song Fallacy" — doesn't that sound like an episode of The Big Bang Theory? Get at me, Chuck Lorre! I’m a budding screenwriter, I do some stand-up, and I can…

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