Unless you live in a place with no access to any social media or even mainstream media outlets, you have probably heard that Kanye West released an album this week. However, it was not just an album. It was a straight up Christian album. As you might imagine, this album has sent shockwaves throughout the musical world for the good and the bad. You get some reviews like that of Dean Van Nguyen from The Guardian who writes, “West has spent his career investigating his own singular path, and he has contorted hip-hop with his particular genius. But it’s hard to envision his base listening to Jesus Is King and catching the holy spirit. This sharp turn isn’t going to change the cultural zeitgeist. Rather, it’s an album that feels like an oddity in the canon – a diversion before normal service is resumed.” Stereo Williams from The Daily Beast largely concurs saying, “Kanye adding more Jesus references to his own persecution complex does not a gospel album make, but the rapper seems convinced that his own demands and defensiveness make him a martyr. Jesus Is King isn’t much of a gospel album and it’s only a fairly average rap album.”

I cannot claim to be any type of expert on Kanye West. Prior to this album, guess how many of his albums I had ever listened to? If you said zero, you are right. It really is not my genre overall, but naturally I was intrigued by this cultural phenomenon, so I thought I would give it a shot. Overall, it is not bad. I enjoyed it, and I thought that some of the tracks had some lines that were wonderful. I can’t pretend to be any type of expert on what good rap sounds like, so you will have to leave it to others to comment on the musical quality.

Reactions like the above are of much more interest to me. The most fascinating part of the story to me is, of course, people talking about whether or not this is for real. Kanye has been a polarizing figure to say the least. If I was going give you a list of celebrities who I thought would become Christians, he probably would not have been on my list if I am being entirely honest with you.

However, first I want to start with a huge disclaimer. His salvation is between him and God. That is not my interaction. He knows his own heart, and God is the judge, not me. Do I believe that he has accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior? I have to say that I do. He proclaimed it with his mouth, and I don’t really have any other evidence to go on for calling it fake. Is he perfect? No. Is he ever going to be perfect this side of heaven? No. Is he probably going to do some things that expose that imperfection to everyone in a way that will be amplified by the media? Probably. That’s the danger of being an incredibly open, public Christian celebrity. The minute you come up short, everyone will be right there, ready to judge. I just wanted to start by making this crystal clear. I am not judging his salvation. It appears that he made a legitimate profession of faith to me, but I do not know his heart. So, for all of you who are doubting the sincerity of his conversion, I suggest that you do so very carefully because you probably do not know his heart any more than I do.

The evidence I do have and have heard does indeed point me towards the legitimacy of his conversion. Adam Tyson is the pastor who has been working with Kanye on his Sunday Services, and he also consulted on this album. In a recent interview with Fader, Tyson said something that was particularly eye-opening to me, “If my unbelieving next-door neighbor said, ‘Would you like to teach a Bible study on Tuesday nights for me and a bunch of my friends,’ I would be elated. But my next-door neighbor isn’t necessarily asking that,” Tyson explains. “But Kanye is. The guy’s asking, ‘Can you come teach the Bible?’ I’m a pastor. That’s like saying ‘sic ’em’ to a dog. What am I supposed to do?”

This was not the first time I had heard Tyson. My friend Nick Kennicott is a cohost of the Wrath and Grace Radio Podcast, and I had originally heard their interview with Tyson. I was struck with the same impression. This pastor, who has spent a great deal of time with Kanye, seems to think about this conversion is genuine. That says something to me. After all, the evidence of our salvation is going to be made manifest in our works. Our works do not save us, but the fruit of the Spirit should grow in our lives if we are children of the true King. We see that throughout the New Testament. Lives are changed by an encounter with Jesus Christ, and often times those who are closest to us are the first ones to recognize the change. In this case, Tyson, as far as I understand, did not really know Kanye prior to his conversion, but he has spent a great deal of time with him since and would seem to be in a reasonably good position to see if these evidences are present in his life. Again, even Tyson is not in a position to judge Kanye’s salvation. That is between him and God. However, he has evidence on which to base his belief that Kanye is genuine in his faith based on his personal interactions with him, and that means something to me.

Why do we have such a hard time believing that this is for real? Is it just because Kanye is Kanye, and we don’t think he can change?

I think that really is the stumbling block here. We simply do not believe that radical conversions happen. We know that God’s grace is powerful. God can convict anyone at any time of anything. But, do we really believe it? I don’t know that we do to be entirely honest with you. No one would have ever thought that the apostle Paul would turn from his evil ways to being one of the greatest missionaries the church has ever known. The early church didn’t believe him. It took the testimony of others to kind of get him in the door and get people to trust him. Barnabas had to basically share testimony as to what Paul had said and done in Damascus in order for the people in Jerusalem to not be afraid of him anymore.

Before you get too mad at me, I am not saying that Kanye is the equivalent of the apostle Paul. I am not adding Jesus Is King to the New Testament canon. Instead, what I am suggesting is that radical conversions do happen, Paul being perhaps one of the most dramatic examples. Of course, some people want evidence like the church in Jerusalem, but if we do have evidence of that, then we really need to be ready to accept that this very well might have happened. His ultimate salvation is between Kanye and God, but if all the signs are pointing towards a certain conclusion, even if it is one that seems really bizarre or strange to us, it very well might be true.

Part of me wonders if another dimension of the hesitation of Christians to readily accept the conversion of Kanye is that we have been burned by Christian celebrities before. They say they are Christians, they become identified with the message of Christianity, and then they do something that really goes against the faith. Then people use that as a weapon to discredit the sincerity of other people’s faith. They attack the church based on the bad actions of one bad Christian. Also, given Kanye’s rather changeable positions, interests, and ideas, maybe we just don’t want to get swept in and look foolish for being taken in a scam.

I get it. I don’t want to look like a fool any more than anyone else. The hard time I have with this particular situation is that Kanye has indeed proclaimed with his mouth that Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior. Outside of the heart issue which I have no way of determining, he has fulfilled the criteria for becoming a member of God’s family. If that’s the case, then I don’t think that I should hold back welcoming him with open arms into the family. Yes, like I said above, he very well might stumble. Given the life he has come from, I would not be surprised at all if he does. I hope he doesn’t, but we all do at the end of the day. We have to remember that he is not all of a sudden some master theologian. He is literally a child in God’s kingdom. That’s not an insult, but he is still growing. He just started on this Christian walk. He is going to learn, but it will take time. We cannot expect spiritual maturity. In fact, if you are listening to Jesus is King, you will notice that it doesn’t have all the theological depth that some Christian albums have. But, should we expect it? Not really. We have to remember here that all of us stumble and fall on a daily basis. We try not to, and we endeavor towards spiritual maturity. However, the fact that Kanye is young in his Christian walk and very well might make mistakes is not a great reason in my book for struggling with his conversion. I get it, it would be bad if he spun this entire thing for his own commercial benefit. Then we would look like fools, and this entire article would be worthless and would damage my credibility. However, what I would also really hesitate to do, and what I am trying really hard not to do, is add an extra barrier that I would not apply to anyone else if he or she was not a celebrity.

Think about someone that you know personally who you really do not think will ever become a Christian. What would you do if that person came to you all of a sudden and embraced Christianity in a seemingly surprising and radical fashion? You might have a few questions, but if those answers seemed to be right and it seemed genuine, I would hope that you would rejoice. Shouldn’t we always rejoice when someone accepts Jesus Christ as his or her personal savior? I would hope so. If we really understand salvation and realize what that person is being saved from, we should be overjoyed whenever anyone becomes a child in God’s family. It is a big deal.

Bottom line, I admittedly have struggled with this question. It seems so bizarre to me that Kanye has radically converted to Christianity. The more I think about it though, the more I can’t help but come to the conclusion that I should be rejoicing over this. I like the way that Esau McCaulley put it in the Washington Post, “We shouldn’t expect someone new to this level of devotion to spark a sudden revival. We should not expect him to lead. We should instead give him space to learn, grow and be held accountable in a community of faith that will ground him and prepare him for a lifetime of service.”

That is the approach I intend to take to this entire Kanye issue. Yes, I will rejoice because he has come to salvation, but I do so with full recognition that he is functionally a spiritual infant. He needs room to grow. Yes, that will take from grace from the Christian community as he will surely stumble, sometimes publicly, in front of a world that is waiting for him to fall. There is a world that is ready to discredit him as soon they can. What we all can do at this point is show the love of Christ to Kanye. We can pray for him and hold him accountable to hopefully aid in this process to become more and more conformed to the person of Jesus Christ. But, isn’t that what we do for all of our other brothers and sisters in Christ? If not, then maybe we should.