BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
While
Jay-Z & Beyonce’s recent trip to Cuba to celebrate the couple’s
fifth anniversary stirred up significant controversy, a new song by a
Christian rapper, relatively unknown to the general public, is ruffling
feathers in the conservative Christian evangelical community, especially
amongst a gaggle of religious gurus known as “Prosperity Preachers.”
Christian
rapper Shai Linne, according to Charisma News, “recently released a
song [which peaked at #7 on iTunes’ Hip Hop/Rap charts] calling out
prosperity gospel teachers by name.”
The
12 pastors named are -- Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, T.D. Jakes, Benny
Hinn, Creflo Dollar, Paula White, Fred Price, Kenneth Copland, Robert
Tilton, Eddie Long, Juanita Bynum and Paul Crouch – and each name is
followed by the song’s refrain, “is a false teacher!”
Jay-Z
and Beyonce have come under unremitting criticism from a number of
long-time anti-Cuban Republican scolds, with Sen. Marco Rubio and GOP
Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart leading the
pack.
Despite
the fact that the vast majority of U.S. visitors to Cuba last year were
Cuban Americans (476,000 out of 580,000) , and regardless of the fact
that Cuban Americans are a major source of funds for the Cuban
government (sending nearly $2.3 billion to Cuba in 2011), “Diaz-Balart
and Ros-Lehtinen said the music superstars were guilty of funding ‘the
machinery of oppression that brutally represses the Cuban people’
because they went to Cuba with the permission of the Department of
Treasury, which regulates the travel of Americans to Cuba,” DeWayne
Wickham wrote in a recent USA Today column.
Linne calls out “prosperity preachers”
Shai
Linne’s album has also caused some controversy because it is the first
time a Christian rapper has used his music to criticize “Prosperity
Preachers,” and name specific individuals.
“I
ain't really trying to start beef, but some who claim to be part of His
sheep got some sharp teeth. (They're wolves),” Shai Linne raps in the
song “Fal$e Teacher$” – from his newly released album titled Lyrical Theology Part 1: Theology -- before referencing Matthew 7:16.
In
the song, the performer warns that these pastors are falsely teaching
that “camels squeeze through the eye of a needle.” Here’s a sample: “How
dare they be specific and drop some clarity on the popularity of the
gospel of Prosperity,” Turn off TBN that channel is overrated. The
Pastor’s speak bogus statements, financially motivated. It’s kind of
like a pyramid scheme. Visualize Heretics christianizing the American
dream.”
Shai
Linn also dubs these preachers’ antics as “foul and deceitful and
claims that they are “treating Jesus like a lottery ticket.”
Charisma
News reported that in a video posted by his record company, Lamp Mode
Recordings, Linne said “he wrote the song to address an issue in the
American church that is now spreading overseas—not to cause
controversy.”
“You
have these rallies where literally over 100,000 people will come to
hear these guys talk about prosperity,” Linne told Wade-O Radio. “The
people who are coming are impoverished like crazy and they're buying
into it thinking that this false theology is going to be their way out
of poverty. They figure, 'Hey, it must work because it's working for
these guys in America.'”
An
atheist for most of his childhood, Linne is Reformed in his theology.
He has been collaborating with other Christian Rap artists and releasing
studio albums since 2002.
According to Anthony
Bradley, associate professor of theology and ethics at The King’s
College and author of Liberating Black Theology, “Reformed hip-hop is a
theologically driven masculinity movement.
It says no to the prom songs
to Jesus in ccm, no to whiny emo Christian music for hipsters, and no to
empty, shallow, individualistic Christian music lacking theological
content produced out of Nashville.
”
“Linne
is echoing other Reformed or Calvinist leaders, including John Piper
and John MacArthur, who have been openly critical of the prosperity
doctrine that has swept the globe,” Rachel Tabachnick, an independent
researcher who specializes in End Times narratives, told me in an email.
“Tactics of prosperity preachers around the world include convincing
followers that their donations to a ministry will be returned by God in
multiples of what they have given.
“Prosperity
doctrine preachers are among some of the wealthiest citizens in some
African countries,” Tabachnick pointed out. “It is common for some of
these preachers to require payment for claimed ‘supernatural healing’ of
HIV/AIDS and other diseases or for ‘deliverance’ or expulsion of demons
supposedly causing misfortunes.”
Paula
White Ministries was the first of the named prosperity preachers to
directly respond to Linne’s song. Interestingly, White’s enterprises
have been as controversial as they have been financially successful.
Paula White’s son responds
But
Bradley Knight, White’s son and representative of PaulaWhite.org is
having none of it. In a letter to Linne, Knight takes umbrage with
Linne’s characterization of White as a “false teacher”: “…So when I hear
a fellow Christian leader, whom has never had a conversation with me or
my mother, call her a “Fal$e Teacher” I wonder what ‘Fal$e Teaching$’ I
myself have been inculcated with since I, more than anyone else on the
face of the earth, have been most exposed to her teachings.”
Knight
claims to be making a modest living and “forego[ing] money for the
opportunity to work for a ministry that I believe in, a ministry that I
witness daily changing lives across the globe. Including and especially
the continent of Africa you gave a shout out too.”
White’s
son characterizes the song “Fal$e Teacher$” as “pure cannibalization
without Biblical precedence.” He invites Linne to walk a mile in the
White family’s shoes. At no time does Knight mention the accrued wealth
of Paul White Ministries, the many controversies White has been involved
in, nor the congressional investigation into her finances.
In
2007, when Paula White and her husband Randy filed for divorce, they
owned private jets, high-end luxury vehicles, a Trump Park Avenue
condominium and a $3.8 million place in Trump Tower on 5th
Ave in New York City, as well as a $2 million dollar home on Tampa Bay.
When White was asked to respond to a May 2012 profile in Orlando
Magazine, her public relations outfit, Burson-Marsteller Public Affairs
in Dallas, turned down the magazine’s request.
Shai
Linne responded to Knight’s letter, writing: “I don’t think your letter
actually addresses the real issue. My song was not about you, your
financial status, the genuineness of your faith, your mother’s prayers
for you or the good things that Paula White Ministries does. The song
was about the false doctrine that Paula White and others have publicly
taught for many years and continue to teach.” In
a wadeoradio.com video, Linne mentions the popularity of prosperity
doctrine in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Malawi. After
acknowledging watching many hours listening to some of the most popular
prosperity teachers on TBN and noticed a pattern of them working the
crowd into an emotional frenzy before asking for money. Linne calls this
a scam and claims these preachers are false prophets.
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