Okay, so it's not often that I gush about someone else's site (To be accurate, this is the first time I've ever done it). Generally I'm plenty busy trying to get people to come to this site. But something caught my eye this past week.















It started last Sunday at church when we had a discussion going on what "Christian" music is these days (I was commenting on some of the things I've commented on here before...such as Taking Back Sunday's sales numbers in CCM Magazine, Hawthorne Heights on Christian radio, etc.). We were discussing how the line is just becoming so blurred on what "Christian" music is.















Enter my perusing of music message boards from day to day. I saw a post about Christian hip hop...I can't think of the exact title off the top of my head, and I'm too lazy to go search for it at the moment. I clicked it, and it was a link to see this site, christianhiphopper.com I started looking around. The site itself is decent right now. It's not fully up at the moment, and I expect it'll be pretty solid when everything is fully functional.















But the site itself is not what caught my eye. Rather, it was the site's message...the site's vision...the site's purpose. The following are two direct quotes from the site's section, "Which 1 Is It?"

Well if you're looking at me, I am not ashamed to tell you, I'm a Christian Hip-hopper. But immediately when I say that, I recognize that Christian might have the effect of an adjective. Meaning, it describes what kind of Hip-hopper I am. So in that equation, “Christian” is the adjective, the Hip-hopper is the subject. But if it is an adjective, it is open to some degree of subjectivity or relativity. What does it mean to be Christian? Normally the term means follower of Christ, or Christ-like. If this is the case, how much like Christ does something have to be in order to qualify? In todays world, if something or someone is at all Christ-like in the tiniest sense, people will almost certainly argue that it can be called "Christian." This is ironic, since the first Christians had to earn that name, and often it cost them their lives.

It continues on...

If I tell you that when you look at me, you're seeing Jesus Christ in a Hip-hopper, than Christ becomes the subject and I as the Hip-hopper am just the context that you are seeing Him in. Now your expectation is different. Seeing Jesus in a Hip-hopper should be no different then seeing Jesus - period, since Jesus doesn't change for His surroundings but rather, He changes His surroundings. So, you would expect to see no less virtue, no less commitment to truth, no less humility, no less compassion than you would see in Jesus. When you hear that Grandma is a Christian, you sort of expect to find this type of character in her, but what would the streets look like, and since Hip-hop influences the world, what would the world look like if we could see Christ in a Hip-hopper.

It then makes points about this applying to our lives even if we're not members of the hip hop community. But think about that. The difference between being a Christian hip hopper or Christ in a hopper. Heck, extend that thought...the idea of either being a Christian musician or Christ in a musician. People who claim to be Christians should be the latter, not the former. "Christian" truly has become an adjective; something used to describe a musical genre or to describe a person. And there would be nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that different people have different ideas of what "Christian" can describe. Some may argue artists like DMX could be considered "Christian" because he includes a couple songs on each disc that refer directly to his relationship with God. And do not misunderstand me, I enjoy those tracks quite a bit (I just purchased his new release, Year Of The Dog Again, solely because of the last track, Lord Give Me A Sign...the last four tracks ended up being spiritually guided, which was even better). However, if we say that DMX is a "Christian" artist, then we open up the definition of Christian music to include artists who curse through most of their tracks and take violent and overty sexual tones to a lot of their music. On the other extreme, some people would say that artists such as Underoath or Family Force 5 are not "Christian" artists because they don't directly mention God in their songs, and if you don't mention God or Jesus in your songs, you can't be "Christian."

The idea behind christianhiphopper.com (Or christ-in-a-hip-hopper.com, both which take you to the same place) is to get rid of the adjective and just explain exactly what these people are all about. No guessing. These hip hop artists and labels represented on this site are saying, "Look, we are using the gifts God gave us to show you Christ, plain and simple."

So, feel free to check out http://www.christianhiphopper.com (or http://www.christ-in-a-hip-hopper.com which also works) and show these guys some support.  Even if you're not a hip hop fan, I say go check out their logo, at the least...check out how they've put their logo together to say both "Christian hip hopper" and "Christ in a hip hopper."  'Tis good stuff.