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Take a Look at What Hip Hop Has Done to Bishop Long?

“If we’re going to take young people seriously, we have no choice,” said Alton B. Pollard III, dean of the Howard University School of Divinity.

Howard University recently had their annual convocation featured the rocking beat of Christian hip-hop artists Da’ T.R.U.T.H. and Sean Simmonds, and professors are using spoken word — poetry performed as social commentary — to examine the New Testament.

“In order to be relevant, in order to do youth ministry, you can’t do ministry without engaging hip-hop,” said Maisha Handy, who has taught a course on hip-hop and Christian education for two years at Atlanta’s Interdenominational Theological Center.

Howard’s Pollard concedes that seminaries “have come a little late to the dance,” but says its better to embrace hip-hop rather than be intimidated by it. And though some might cringe at the genre’s misogynistic, violent and drug-related undertones, it’s not all that different from the church’s initial reaction to jazz or the blues.

“Some artists do definitely exhibit egregious behavior and that behavior should never be condoned,” said Joshua Wright, a sociologist at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, speaking at a hip-hop panel at Howard. “But this does not make all hip-hop artists devil worshippers.”

Wright pointed to Christian hip-hop artists — self-described “misfits” who are caught between two worlds — as an example of how hip-hop can be harnessed for good.

Michael Eric Dyson, a Georgetown University scholar who teaches a class on hip-hop superstar Jay-Z, said religious critics of hip-hop need to look at their own leaders.

“As much as you want to dog a rapper and steamroll his or her lyrics, steamroll some sermons, too, of the bishops and the imams and the rabbis,” said Dyson, who was headed to a concert featuring Jay-Z and Kanye West.

Dyson spoke in an open collar, and advocates say dressing down is just one way some churches can indicate an openness to hip-hop culture.

“Maybe we need some fitted caps on Sunday,” said the Rev. Willie J. Thompson, Jr., an assistant pastor of a Presbyterian congregation in Springdale, Md., who helped coordinate Howard’s Christian hip-hop concert. “Maybe we need to dress down. Maybe we need to change some of the things that we’ve become accustomed to.”

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