Rapper and Producer Lecrae has released a new song, “Deconstruction” off his album Church Clothes 4, where he disses Voddie Baucham and mentions several pastors he once looked up to while extoling the deconstruction and he’s been through, which he thinks has made him a better Christian and saved his faith.
We’ve spoken at length about how by every measurable standard, the deconstruction Lecrae is so grateful to have undergone is not healthy, but rather is the picture of unhealth leading to death. Let’s look at his life over the last two years.
- He regularly watches pornographic TV shows that are filled with graphic sex and nudity.
- He has stopped going to church.
- He rebuked a street preacher for preaching the gospel at a rap concert.
- He has claimed hanging out on a bus ‘chopping it up’ is ‘church’ and that a recent album release party where people hang out, eat food, and get free tattoos is ‘church.’
- He sputtered, “You know…well…um…er….ah….I don’t know,” when asked about the sin of homosexuality in an interview.
- He says he “doesn’t endorse” abortion but HATES classism, took more time out of his day to dismiss the need for a local church body, and said after Joe Biden won the election and was inaugurated that it “feels good to be on the right side of history” with the party that is “pro-life from womb to tomb”.
Lecrae believes this is all healthy, and in the song he takes a shot at pastor Voddie Baucham, while namedropping John Piper, Tony Evans, and even wishy-washy Churchome pastor Judah Smith as people who contributed to his deconstruction. In particular, he points to Baucham for telling him he needs to reorient his thinking after he bought the lie that an unarmed Michael Brown was murdered by police for no reason, rather than lawfully killed after attempting to grab a police officer’s gun after he committed a theft.
I would speak at churches, hang with leaders and such
You know, Judah, Piper, and Keller, Tony Evans was clutch
I was so involved, never thought that I could fall, y’all
Right before the fall of 2015, I was all off
It involved killing Michael Brown, had me feeling down
Tweeted ’bout it, Christians call me clown, I was losing ground
And Voddie was a hero of mine, met with him plenty times
This time, when he spoke, it cut me deeper than I realized
Doubled-down, spoke about my pain, I was met with blame
“Shame on you, ‘Crae, stop crying, get back to Jesus’ name”
Cut me deep, I was losing sleep, “God, ain’t these Your sheep?”
Why they hate me like they do? Maybe grace is really cheap
Maybe this is all a lie, they don’t really love me
They just love it when I say the things they wanna hear in public
They’re like following they God mean turnin’ on Black people
Is Black evil? Why do they hate and attack people?
I’m vulnerable and cautious, I’m reading (James) Baldwin
Ta-Nehisi got me thinking, now I’m going all in
I ain’t know if God was real no mo’
Every day we gettin’ killed, and I can’t deal no more
After reiterating the other lie that black folk are being shot by police officers for no reason, He goes on to explain that he fell into a period of depression and sin, where he doubted his faith, but then he had a Damascus-like encounter where he realized that “I let the church trauma turn into a God wound” and after reading Critical Race Theorists like James Baldwin and Ta-Henisi Coates, he’s made for himself a new faith which works for him.
I learned the western world is twisting up the scriptures
So when I re-enlisted, I learned the eastern context the way that Jesus meant it
My peace has been cemented, my soul has been re-lifted
My deconstruction ended, reconstruction is beginning
With the fruit of his deconstruction that we’ve seen so far, we hate to see what the future of his construction will hold.
