Propaganda Talks Racial Reconciliation in the Church & Black History Month

Christian hip-hop and spoken word artist Propaganda shared some insight into Black History Month and how the church can lead in racial reconciliation.

In an interview with Relevant Magazine, Propaganda spoke passionately about the Black Lives Matter Movement, Beyonce’s “controversial” Super Bowl performance, and the idea of white people leading black conversations.

The interviewer asked Prop about whether he thought the church should celebrate Black History Month. “Absolutely, assuming churches don’t just ignore black history for the rest of the year.”

He offered an interesting perspective, comparing the celebration to a child’s birthday.

“’You know what, son? I’m not going to buy you a gift today, because every day in our family is important. We don’t celebrate just your one day’,” said Propaganda. “‘That’s ridiculous. No, ‘Son, I’m going to celebrate you today and tomorrow, but today especially’.”

Another point he made referenced Bible study. If a church spent one month studying Romans, that doesn’t mean they will never open the book again.

Propaganda thinks white leaders talking about race is just as important as handing off those issues to a black leader. However, the white leaders would need to have a “true relationship” with multicultural people. Otherwise, their effort may be seen as “white guilt” or may fall down the way of “white privilege.”

As far as Beyonce’s Super Bowl performance and the message behind the song “Formation” causing such an outcry, the emcee thinks it has more to do with Americans confusing Christianity with “patriotism.” He said, “a Christianity that is more about desiring to protect a way of life and a comfortability rather than a willingness to follow Jesus wherever that road goes.”

He goes on to say that the fact we need a #blacklivesmatter implies that this country is not in the state where it should be. As a follower of Christ, that should be something that is evident.

Propaganda believes that for the church to lead in racial healing they have to first acknowledge that a past full of “gross national sin” helped build the institutions of this country.

Building bridges in the church as a bicultural house should come easy. He believes it should be part of our culture and not forced upon.

“Let’s not just go find black things to put into a white structure, let’s look at the structure,” said Propaganda. “I think when you do that as a church and say, “How much of our ecclesiology is really just Victorian or Greek rather than truly biblical?” that that opens the door for the church to really start stepping toward reconciliation.”

Read the entire interview on Relevant here.

What do you think of Propaganda’s comments on racial reconciliation? Agree or disagree?

Justin Sarachik
Justin Sarachik
Justin is the Editor-in-Chief of Rapzilla.com. He has been a journalist for over a decade and has written or edited for Relevant, Christian Post, BREATHEcast, CCM, Broken Records Magazine, & more. He's written over 10,000 articles, done over 1,000 interviews, and is in post-production for documentaries on Danny "D-Boy" Rodriguez & Mario "Machete" Perez. He's the project manager of the upcoming video game Run the Court and of the media brand Crimefaces. Justin likes to work with indie artists to develop their brands & marketing strategies. Catch him interviewing artists on Survival of the Artist Podcast & creating videos on his social media channels.
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