Ke$ha and true Christianity – We R Who We R

So I have a confession.  I love listening to Ke$ha while I’m driving.  For a while, I tried to hide it.  But the fact of the matter is that Ke$ha’s music, translated properly, is a clarion call to true, cutting edge, missional Christian faith.  Heard the right way, its both deeply convicting and deeply inspiring.

Ready to be stretched?  EVERY human action has something good at its core.  Satan never creates.  He only twists.  God alone creates.  Everything, no matter how twisted, has something true, pure, and good at its genesis.  It’s not that the bad things that are on the surface aren’t bad – they are.  It’s that they come from a deeper good that lost its way somewhere.

For us to truly love and value without judgment those around us, we MUST learn to see past the surface sin that offends and see the truth and glory of the image of God.  This is SO important.  It’s nothing less than learning to see as Jesus sees.

Ke$ha’s message (go to clubs, drink lots of beer, have lots of sex) obviously leaves a lot to be desired.  But there’s a ton in her music to be admired, and that can serve as a tremendous challenge and inspiration to us.

So listen to this song.  Depending on who you are, it may have some things in it that are offensive to you.  I challenge you to look through them, and try to see what of heaven you can pick out.  My hope and prayer is that the next time you hear this song, you won’t flip the radio, but will instead hear the voice of God calling you to authentic, powerful, confident, radical faith.

Basic picture?  Think of Ke$ha as a young, vibrant, passionate Christian, and her song is talking about bringing the Kingdom of Heaven.  Give it another listen.

Watch this:

Hot and dangerous
If you’re one of us, then roll with us
‘Cause we make the hipsters fall in love
And we’ve got hot-pants on enough
And yes of course we does
We’re running this town, just like a club
And no, you don’t wanna mess with us
Got Jesus on my necklace-ace-ace

Take out the hot-pants, and you’ve got a group of people who are aggressive and dangerous to the status quo and those in power – why?  Because of their ability to make people fall in love.

They are confidently taking charge of the place they live.  And, you don’t want to mess with them.  Why?  Because they’ve got Jesus.

Sounds to me like what the church is called to be.

As the church, we’re often passive.  We stay indoors.  We don’t get out much.  When we do, we’re timid.  We’re often ashamed of our faith, and when we do share it, we do it as an agenda.  It’s awkward and forced.

Not Ke$ha.  All she’s got is beer and sex appeal, but she goes after it hard, with no shame.  She’s confident to the extreme, and knows for sure that she’s someone to be reckoned with.

How would our lives as Christians change if we pursued the Kingdom this way?

I’ve got that glitter on my eyes
Stockings ripped all up the side
Looking sick and sexy-fied
So let’s go-o-o (let’s go)

I could try to interpret glitter on my eyes (Matthew 6:22)  and talk about how we’re called to keep our eyes focused on the glory of God, but instead I’ll just stick with the call to “GO!”.  Ke$ha isn’t waiting, she’s not sitting back making all sorts of plans, and she’s not cowering.  She’s just going.

Like we are called to.  At least according to the great commission.

Tonight we’re going hard, hard, ha-ha-ha-hard
Just like the world is ours, ours, ou-ou-ou-ours
We’re tearin’ it apart, part, pa-pa-pa-part
You know we’re superstars
We are who we are

Wow.  Talk about a rich verse here.  This is the church!  This is the call!  To go after the gospel HARD, holding nothing back, walking in the full authority that Jesus won for us at calvary, and demolishing the status quo of repressive systems and old mindsets with a gospel of love.  We know our identity in Christ, and we are living naturally and passionately.

DJ turn it up
It’s about damn time to live it up
I’m so sick of being so serious
It’s making my brain delirious

I’m not going to censor the obscenity.  It’s true.  It’s about time that we go after the great commandment (to love God and love each other) and the great commission (to make disciples of all nations) with this kind of passion and fire.  As western Christians, we spend so much time thinking, philosophizing, studying, interpreting, and strategizing.  A seminary degree is our crowning ministry achievement.  Instead of a gospel of vulnerable, passionate love and wild, radical trust in God, we have a mental gospel of knowledge, structures that are outdated and irrelevant, and a primary emphasis on proper theology.

And what’s the outcome?  It does make us delirious.  We lose our purpose and aren’t completely sure what we’re living for.  We become lukewarm and ineffective, and lose our ability to live radical lives.

I’m not against study or knowledge.  It’s important.  But its about time for us to step out of the classroom and out of our legalistic efforts to manage sin in our lives.  It’s about time for us to LET LOOSE the spirit within us and to passionately pursue love, worship, and truth.

You know that you never stop sinning by trying to stop sinning?  That’s just willpower.  It doesn’t change the heart and it never works for very long.  The only way to become holy is to fall passionately in love with God and to be changed from the inside out.

I’m just talkin’ truth
I’m telling you ’bout the shit we do
We’re sellin’ our clothes, sleepin’ in cars
Dressin’ it down, hittin’ on dudes (hard)

Now this one is convicting.  Listen to this verse again, and hear “hittin’ on dudes” as “loving people and sharing the gospel”.  Selling clothes.  Sleeping in her car.  Changing the way she lives.  Loving people.  HARD.  In pursuit of sex, Ke$ha’s going all out and sacrificing all sorts of creature comforts.  How many Christians do you know who go this hard after the Gospel and after the great commission?

Long and short of it?  Ke$ha’s active.  She’s bold.  She’s aggressive.  She’s walking in confident authority, she’s vulnerable about the passion of her heart and is not ashamed to go after things.  HARD.

What is it that Jesus said again?  “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot.  So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.”  (Revelation 3:15-16).  

Or how about “But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.” (Hebrews 10:38)

Say whatever you like about Ke$ha and her message and morality.  But she’s not lukewarm and she doesn’t shrink back.  We have much to learn from her.