Kendrick, Carrey & Christ in Culture

Tracking the footprints of 'Christianity Beyond Itself'

Watching the unoffical video for Kendrick Lamar’s new track “Watch the Party Die” I was curious to see where he would go. His last album ‘Mr Morale and the Big Steppers’ had carried me for months during 2022 and inspired the nascent sense in me of a christ conscious culture emerging. It was powerful and synchronistic with my own journey to hear Kendrick being the eminent rap poet of our time so deeply presencing collective healing, connecting with the spirit of nature and with christ (not to mention performing in a crucifix.) At the same time, nothing about his subsequent public spat with Drake felt particularly enlightened. He had to fend off this upstart challenger through a straight up nasty rap battle.

The new track alternates between a sort of sickly drinking past the hour’ and ‘watching the party die’ to a prayerful narration of the crucifixion and flashing pages of verses from wisdom figures and scripture. He repeats several times “Sometimes I wonder what Lecrae would do”. Lecrae one of the most prominent christian rappers out of the United States. This track is a massive nod of respect from Kendrick and also one which perhaps Lecrae is well positioned to receive with humility. I had no awareness of the Christian rap subculture or of Lecrae until a few months ago when I christian guy turned me on to it. Christian culture for sometime now has been eddied, moving in parallel separation to mainstream culture.

It’s a membrane that can make sense at times, probably the American Christian church was right to be skeptical and distant from Hollywood. One the other hand a membrane can be a deprivation. For example, my parents not wanting my older siblings to watch the simpsons (they liberalised by the time I came along) or my Godfather saying he wouldn’t watch Harry Potter because it had witchcraft in it. There is a need for a meditation between christianity and culture, a middle space where things can flow out and in. Moreover, there is a need for an evolution in Christianity beyond itself, but let’s not get ahead.

Remember that video of Jim Carrey that circulated some years ago “I needed color” in which he spoke about a huge life shift, how painting was lifting him out of depression. It’s beautiful short film on the path of the artist, which leads in to him speaking on the deep experience painting a portrait of christ.

“The energy that surrounds Jesus is electric. I don’t know if he’s real, i don’t know if he lived, i don’t know what he means, but the paintings of Jesus are really my desire to convey christ consciousness. I wanted you to have the feeling when you looked in his eyes that he was accepting of who you are. I wanted him to be able to stare at you and heal you from the painting. You can find every race in the face of Jesus and I think that’s how every race imagines Jesus, they imagine him as their own.

That was 7 years ago, not so long ago but a different time—one in which this was a fringe event. In the last 5 years things have picked up significantly. In the last 2 even more so. The conversion of Russel Brand to Christianity marked another milestone. (There are many more significant figures and friends who I could name as having shifted these past years).

Christ Consciousness is moving and growing in culture and personally, I don’t feel we have a choice in the matter. In both my own own experience and in observing I see this movement as something greater than us happening of it’s own accord. When I got plugged in to the rap scene in Oceanside, California I thought the mystic themes I rap on would be fringe and was amazed to find a high level of conscious rap thriving there with rapping on Christ, ancestral power and chakras being fairly commonplace.

There’s an interesting contrast present that i’d like to draw out here in this christ conscious movement, this emergence. It’s between a kind of “return to christianity” and a “christianity beyond itself”. If you didn’t know it yet, some people feel the call to Christianity hit them like a ten tonne gong. They are brought to their knees again and again and find their only peace and redemption is through Christ. It’s potent and profound and as that love for Christ develops they want to throw of all that blocks them from christ, to express growing devotion—very often this is followed by a deepening adherence to tradition. The surprising growth of Orthodox christianity in the west and among young meaning seekers is a curious example of this. Such people are able to immerse themselves in a christian community with relative ease.

The Christianity beyond itself path for me, is one of deep call to christ. However, it’s also one of enormous tension with the vessel of christianity. My Christianity Beyond Itself is holding space for something that isn’t here yet, something I’m seeing fragments and glimpses of here and there.

When i’m deeply in tune with the boundless creative potential of it, it’s alike to the impending blossoming of a ten thousand cultural movements, each animated by a christ consciousness. When we listen to artists like Kendrick Lamar (as in his last album), Illuminati Congo, or my friend

jordan bates 🦦

, we are tapping into a ‘Christianity beyond itself vibe’. It’s already beyond itself because it’s not preaching to a christian choir, you don’t need to be a christian to vibe with it and if you weren’t listening closely you might not have even realised it had christian energy. It’s a sense of an artistic expression which is deeply unique, deeply individuated and deeply in communion with life. The Christ consciousness is present but interwoven into an absolutely unique artform alongside many themes and wisdoms that live beyond the culture of ‘Christianity’. Teilihard de Chardin, my spiritual grandfather, said that the emergence of a planetary evolution in christ consciousness in our time would be characterised by a deep personalisation; we would only come together fully in community by coming fully into ourselves.

Circling back then, to the ‘return to christianity’ we sense a contrast. There is something about Church and Christianity today that feels distinctly apart from Culture. There is something about christian communities that doesn’t foster deep individuation. Christian music, and even some of the christian rap i’ve explored, can feel too christian. It’s as if the need for that Christian identity and the elevation of its ‘Good’ is being thrust upon you. That experience of being thrust upon is not so different from the way in which Christians will impose their belief systems onto complete strangers in an apparent spirit of profound benevolence. It doesn’t feel erotic, beautiful, or quite in touch with the whole of reality. In the music of Illuminati Congo, we see some of the dopest Christ-conscious rap music, but also a great deal of Rastafari, esoteric, and psychedelic wisdom woven in. He has tracks speaking on Christ, but also on his wealth philosophy, buddhist philosophies and sexuality. In Kendrick’s work, we see a demonstration of the sublimation of violence—taking the violence that is in us (and culture) and bringing its intensity forward in a Christ-conscious way. The kind of alchemy that journeys deep into the darkness of our experience and transforms it is to me deeply christian. It cannot all be light and we’re saved.

In the case of contemporary Christian rock, I can’t help but feel I’m encountering something like musical autism. ‘Worship’ feels like revving up from a 0 to a 10 with no gradation in between. It feels like playing the same genre of music every single Sunday. There’s no sense of a build; there isn’t a diversity of themes and material beyond the repeated immediacy of praising Christ for saving you.It doesn’t resonate with me. The quality of worship spaces, and the conception of worship is probably my biggest sticking point in relation to Christianity right now. I can far more easily sit through a traditional mass or a prayer circle than experience the absolute tension of contemporary Christian worship. A space in which as a natural dancer and lover of music I feel drawn into a confused disembodiment, attempting to vibe with something that just isn’t vibey with a lot disembodied people.

Christianity Beyond Itself could look like a sound healing ceremony in which Christ is not mentioned at all. It could resonate a cosmic Christ frequency through loving presence, energy, and music of all genres. It would be sensitive to embodiment and help people discover their own. It would make space for bass-heavy music, intense music, gentle spiritual music, sexy/romantic music, rock and roll, and all things in between. It would draw together all the spectrums and colors of divine creation and alchemize them in a space, and that space would be a church.

I’m glad to explore these questions in culture because they are questions i too am walking. Since my first single, Bitter Cup two years ago, I’ve been consciously and unconsciously drawing the rich imagery and mythology of christianity into the tapestry of my own journey. It’s something that has continued to occur while exploring more broadly and bringing in burgeoning themes of my own journey, such as sexuality or indeed, sublimating violence. The track I released this September is a remix of ‘Who Shot Ya?’ by Notorious B.I.G. The original is a hip-hop classic that hits hard but is also woven with some of the violence and degeneracy of '90s hip-hop that ultimately brought death. In ‘Who Shot Ya? Ayahuasca,’ I sought to bring the right intensity to the beat while weaving through themes of purging, breaking karma, and Tolkien mythology.

Christianity Beyond Itself is also a space. I’ve spent my adult life deeply enriched by the practice of dialogos—by the transformative dialogue that takes place when we show up in deep presence, listening, and not knowing. I have felt called to hold a space in which those exiting and deconstructing from religion and those re-exploring can meet and be in unbounded presence. As befits the synchronicity of spiritual life, I have found myself holding a monthly a space for ‘Integrating Christianity’ with members of the Realisation Festival this year.

The last word on Christianity Beyond Itself is that it’s foundationally dialogical, the conversation never ends. To know God is to be deeply intimate with the world as living mystery. To be receptive means to hear his words and see his signs in all places. Many times, Christians have a practiced ability to listen and provide ‘pastoral’ style support, but that listening itself is conditional. They are not truly open to being transformed by the encounter, especially in relation to their core conscious and unconscious Christian beliefs. It’s a practiced listening rather than a transformative one. The directional goal of bringing you in to the fold has not been surrendered and so there is not a genuine encounter. To me, dwelling in Christ is not just dissolving the walls of the heart but dissolving the walls of the mind.

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Note: an earlier version of this piece stated “the official video for ‘let the party die’”. It has been corrected to reflect that it is an ‘unofficial’ video. However, I don’t think this takes away from the interpretation of the themes in the track and his broader work.

Bonus: The Beyond Christian Rap Playlist. Please enjoy, I have recently invited in rapper Jordan Bates as a co-curator.