I just read these lyrics from Ben Harper’s album Diamonds on the Inside. It’s a powerful CD. Musically it has some great songs and it has been on my playlist for months. It would be so easy to just say “Yes this is how Christian music should be!” Some even propose that this is Christian music because it talks about themes that are found in Christianity. The problem is Ben Harper isn’t singing Christian music because he doesn’t know Jesus. Harper’s faith is like his music. It’s eclectic, honest, and moving. Yet, that doesn’t make it truthful or make him right with God. The problem is not that it does not represent Jesus fully but it doesn’t represent Jesus truly. Ben Harper sings “Burn One Down” and “Sexual Healing” with the same passion he sings Picture of Jesus. It appears that Harper’s faith is more influenced by Rastafarian than biblical Christianity. “Jah work is never done” in the song Jah Work is about the Rastafarian god Jah. Rastafarian is a mixture of Christianity and pagan religions that include the use or narcotics or mind altering drugs. Sacred sex can be mixed in as well. God help us when we don’t know the difference between biblical Christianity and that. Ben doesn’t call himself a Christian for a good reason. He isn’t one! His view of God is both quasi personal yet intrinsically pantheistic which is far from what Scripture tell us about God (John 1:1-14). To quote Harper:
“The God I am speaking about is Creation. It’s a force moving on the Earth. It’s the creator of Heaven and Earth, the King of the angels and the Father of light. It’s the Father in the Gospels, it’s nature, trees and valleys… Everything that comes from the earth. I know that one must have faith in a spirit greater than a single individual. I know that we have to learn to give instead of taking. I know that each person must be worthy of what he asks for. You have to know how to respect others. I dedicate my life with faith and love to the Great All that desires only peace and goodness but I am not religious. At first I wanted to become a priest or pastor, something like that, but then I realized that even if I had this immense love of God in me, it wasn’t enough to start a life of abnegation and semi-frustrations.”
Hopefully one day Harper will discover Jesus and that will be a awesome day for music in the Kingdom of God. Harper knows that his gift comes from above. That is a great start. Yet he needs to learn who God is. Sincerity is never a substitute for truth. The music Ben Harper sings now is not Christian music nor should it be confused as such. The only bases of Christianity and the music that represents should be the following question. Does the musician and music clearly exalt Jesus? In his song “Picture Of Jesus”, he sings with passion but it isn’t of the true Jesus who was God made flesh. Instead it is the picture of Jesus that Harper’s mind has constructed. Ben has done what all of us so can easily do create a god that is palatable to us. When we can picture Jesus on our own terms he ceases being our Lord and becomes just another religious object. He’s reduced to a picture in our wallet that comforts us instead of a Savior who delivers us. Christians need to pray for men like Harper to become Christians so that he can realize that his chief end should be “To glorify God through Jesus and enjoy Him forever.”
Possibly related posts:
I agree with you, no one goes to God except through the Son that is what the bible says, and until one makes these declarations they are not a christian. To be a christian means a follower of Christ, to recognize why he came and the purpose behind it, so that we may have eternal life those that understand this know that the only truth lies in the Bible.
I totally disagree with your interpretation of Jesus. ‘God’, ‘Transcendance’, ‘Allah’, ‘Krishna’, are all one. No one has to be exclusive to any faith, any religion or ‘the scripture’ to have eternal life.
It is a well known fact that up until a couple of hundreds of years ago, scripture was taken for its truth, its alegorical value, not interpreted literally as it was never intended to be. Religion or the fundamental movement in the ‘deep south’ of America is the biggest threat to spirituality in the world as it is today. When the bible is taken literally by ‘fundamentalists’ the lessons of god are dishevelled and only a shallow remnant of what was intended to be transferred from god or the only truth in all of us, the light in us, to ‘the lost sheep’ or ignorant people, is sadly lost. I belive ‘fundamentalists’ must move on from their literal interpretation of the Bible or continue to blindly stumble around the dangers of believing the bible literally.
Religious exclusivity denies many people in the world a full experience of what all the different faiths of the world have to offer.
And over all, i believe you do not have the right to judge Harpers beliefs or think you know his faith and belief well enough to be able to judge it.
I totally disagree with your interpretation of Jesus. ‘God’, ‘Transcendance’, ‘Allah’, ‘Krishna’, are all one. No one has to be exclusive to any faith, any religion or ‘the scripture’ to have eternal life.
It is a well known fact that up until a couple of hundreds of years ago, scripture was taken for its truth, its alegorical value, not interpreted literally as it was never intended to be. Religion or the fundamental movement in the ‘deep south’ of America is the biggest threat to spirituality in the world as it is today. When the bible is taken literally by ‘fundamentalists’ the lessons of god are dishevelled and only a shallow remnant of what was intended to be transferred from god or the only truth in all of us, the light in us, to ‘the lost sheep’ or ignorant people, is sadly lost. I belive ‘fundamentalists’ must move on from their literal interpretation of the Bible or continue to blindly stumble around the dangers of believing the bible literally.
Religious exclusivity denies many people in the world a full experience of what all the different faiths of the world have to offer.
And over all, i believe you do not have the right to judge Harpers beliefs or think you know his faith and belief well enough to be able to judge it. Ben Harper has shown me the incredibly beautiful depths of faith, hope and love,
And by the way, i am not judging you per say, but religious exclusivists and fundamentalists.
Go in Peace, Ben
Ben,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I hope you keep reading and interacting. Since your post was more than about Ben Harper I will come back to him as the main subject but will briefly tackle a few responses to your thoughts.
As for Jesus, he made historical claims rooted in the Jewish context of strict monotheism. Christianity emerges from that mindset. He was familiar with other religions. Zorastianism, Samaritan, Edomic, Greek, and Roman religions were all in the geographical areas of his ministry. He denied them as false religious traditions. Instead he built upon the Jewish understanding of God. The core of the Jewish mindset is that it is a revealed religion exclusively given by the Creator God who is uniquely singular in being. This God claims stridently to the Jews and humanity that he is indeed the only true god and the only God period. We must deal with Jesus in this historical context in which he interacted and left his views for us if we are to be fair to Him as a person.
As for Scripture, if you read through the Church fathers they interpreted Jesus literally. The Gospels and epistles were taken with literalistic interpretations. They interpreted large parts of the Old Testament allegorically in that they saw the Church in the various places of the Old Testament people. A good book on Patristic hermaneutics (the art of understanding something, in this case the Bible) will show that from the first century onward, Scripture is the primary rule by which God has made himself known. This ideas was renewed in the Reformation is the belief in the truthfulness and fullness of Jesus in the Scripture (and what principles draws forth from them) alone in the principles of the Solas of the faith. If you know of some scholarly work that denies this I would be interested in seeing it.
You presuppose that “religious exclusivity denies many people in the world a full experience of what all the different faiths of the world have to offer.” I do not doubt that other religious ideas have many wonderful cultural benefits in their temporal historical context. I respect that in the Hinduistic faiths there are elements of merging the physical with the metaphysical that has led to ethical restraints in this world. In Islam there is a deep devotion to reverence and beauty of that which is divine which has led to some social justice. In native American religions there are often elements of creation care that have led to balancing care of the natural realm with human necessity for habitats for survival. The problem though with other religions is two fold. First, all these religions miss the most beautiful of all which is from God. Namely the revelation of the fullness of the personhood of God in the person of Jesus. Jesus slowly emerged in the cultural context of the first century Judaism as a Jewish person sent primarily to a Jewish people. The mission expanded only after his resurrection. Second, The Jesus of Scripture is historically bound with objective claims that he made. He states all these other systems are insufficient and false. Jesus claims that he is literally the only way to experience God’s grace and avoid God’s wrath. This is why Christians practice evangelism. We desire other to see the beauty of the Jesus of Scriptures. It is there choice to accept it or reject it. We do not force conversions. Admittedly there are false evangelist and true evangelist that represent Jesus falsely or very badly. Neither of these abuses deny the central claims of who Jesus claimed to be.
You assume I am a “Fundamentalist.” Yet you don’t define what that means. Does it simply mean I believe in the fundamentals of an idea in this case the historical Jesus or does it have a wider negative cultural implication that I am some how maliciously intolerant? Are all fundamentalist equally good or bad in your view? As you read through this blog post (hopefully others as well) you drew certain conclusions about me and my ideas. Drawing conclusions and reacting is the very definition of judgment. So you made a judgment on me but what I said. I have done the same thing with Ben Harper. I would love to sit and chat with Ben. I find him a uniquely interesting entertainer. Yes I have judged his ideas. We do that all the time. We say we like this or that based on our judgements. They may not always be right but they are what we have come to believe in light of the evidence that we have.
I enjoy Ben Harper’s work. That is why I have bought his music and have it on my playlist. That is why I blog about him. He does what he does to express his beliefs and views so people can reflect on them. You affirm that when you speak of his faith, hope, and love. You made a judgement after listening to him and that is your judgment upon his work. Whenever we speak we open ourselves up for judgment of our ideas. I have judged though his work is indeed thought provoking it misses the beauty of the historical Jesus.
[...] my daughter and spending time with my wife. I am not going to post anything new tonight except a link to a post on Ben Harper. I am linking to that post because I had nearly 8 months after writing it some thoughts generated [...]
As I’m only relatively new to life, I cannot respond to your first two paragraphs because of a lack of understanding of theology and the history of Jesus etc.
However, there are a few statements you have made which I don’t agree with per say. First of all, I think you are complicating things by looking at other religions (or all for that matter) too intellectually. All religions have inherent flaws which of course are brought about by people, not by the divine presence they are worshipping. I don’t think we should judge too harshly other religions and the ones that we choose to follow based on these flaws which I believe are brought about by the misinterpretation of the divine presence or god by ignorant peoples. Sure all religions have internal flaws (created by man) but when the most intrinsic message is taken from the religions it is blatantly evident that all religions are following the same message and ultimately the same god as of course there all gods whether it be the christian god, krishna, nirvana, allah, whatever, they are all one and the same! I acknowledge there are flaws in all religions, however it is essential to see that they are brought about by man and to look beyond to the truth that all relgions have found and the intrinsic divinity they are trying to be at one with.
You say that ‘Jesus claims that he is literally the only way to experience God’s grace and avoid God’s wrath. This is why Christians practice evangelism. We desire other to see the beauty of the Jesus of Scriptures’. I believe you have totally misinterpreted his message. Jesus is not saying that he, himself, his egoic or personal beliefs is the only way to heaven. For one, Jesus did not have an ego. Jesus was ‘pure light’ or you could say pure presence without a judging or a wanting ego. You are interpreting Jesus as a shallow, egoic person and have missed his true beauty, a man with the blood of all of us flowing through his veins who wants to show us how to shed our ego and get to our intrinsic self which is god. ‘Gods wrath’ in my interpretation is the ego which does bring much suffering hence why it is refered to as a fiery furnace and ‘gods grace’ is mans intrinsic self, beyond the illusory blocking ego. To sum up, jesus did not mean that HE is the ONLY way to find god, he is saying PURE PRESENCE (which is what jesus is) is the only way to god with the loss of the ego (or gods wrath!). I believe that one must look further into the intrinsic heart of things instead of taking that statement ‘he is literally the only way to experience God’s grace’.
I understand I may not be making myself as clear as I would like to be yet as I said, I am young and have yet to further my education and intellect and it is late and I must be off to bed so I didn’t have much time to write! I hope you will ‘get’ what I am trying to convey to you with an open mind (without the ego which clings to things or beliefs in an attempt to uphold identity or a sense of self). Ill stop rambling now and go to bed. I look forward to your reply.
Peace, Ben
Let me respond to your second paragraph with a few questions. The question that we need to start off asking is where do religions come from? Not why do they come. The why is because there is written in the programming of our hearts a desire to know something beyond us. What is the intrinsic message that you are speaking of? Where do you get that they are all one in the same?
Let me respond to your third paragraph. When you read a book do you take what the book says at face value or do you attempt to critique it from your personal perspective? The four gospel writers, first century disciples of Jesus, and the early adherents and detractors all understood Jesus claim to be God incarnate. You seem to be using a modified version of Freudian language of id, ego, and superego. Where do you get your assertion that “Jesus did not have an ego”? Where do you get the concept of not having a “judging or wanting ego”?
Look forward to furthering the dialog.
of the
You say that ‘Jesus claims that he is literally the only way to experience God’s grace and avoid God’s wrath. This is why Christians practice evangelism. We desire other to see the beauty of the Jesus of Scriptures’. I believe you have totally misinterpreted his message. Jesus is not saying that he, himself, his egoic or personal beliefs is the only way to heaven. For one, Jesus did not have an ego. Jesus was ‘pure light’ or you could say pure presence without a judging or a wanting ego. You are interpreting Jesus as a shallow, egoic person and have missed his true beauty, a man with the blood of all of us flowing through his veins who wants to show us how to shed our ego and get to our intrinsic self which is god. ‘Gods wrath’ in my interpretation is the ego which does bring much suffering hence why it is refered to as a fiery furnace and ‘gods grace’ is mans intrinsic self, beyond the illusory blocking ego. To sum up, jesus did not mean that HE is the ONLY way to find god, he is saying PURE PRESENCE (which is what jesus is) is the only way to god with the loss of the ego (or gods wrath!). I believe that one must look further into the intrinsic heart of things instead of taking that statement ‘he is literally the only way to experience God’s grace’.
I understand I may not be making myself as clear as I would like to be yet as I said, I am young and have yet to further my education and intellect and it is late and I must be off to bed so I didn’t have much time to write! I hope you will ‘get’ what I am trying to convey to you with an open mind (without the ego which clings to things or beliefs in an attempt to uphold identity or a sense of self). Ill stop rambling now and go to bed. I look forward to your reply.
Peace, Ben
Wow. First one has to find the definition of TRUTH- the quality of being in agreement with reality or facts. Second of all if God is going to inspire and command people ( writers of the Bible ) to write actual accounts of history I do not think he would do it in riddles. Like a puzzle that one must piece together. If God wants you to know something he is going to be literal, which I believe he did through the writing of the scriptures. The Lord Jesus said that he did not come to condemn the world, but he came that all may have eternal life. That is why he took our punishment of our sins upon himself. Talk about compassion, WOW.. To me that is why I gave him my heart and asked Jesus into my life and I worship him. He is Love. I only know him because I searched for him, through prayer. It is a historical fact that Jesus died on a cross, and many scientists had made fact that their is an authentic shrowd that covered Jesus when he arose from the dead. Given personal encounters and historical facts, That is Truth.
Thanks for commenting. Where are you going with this? Who are you responding too? Need a little clarification to get where you are coming from. No need to be unknown share who you are. Thanks!
Doesn't matter who I am responding too. Just thought I would lay some truth down in case anyone wanted to pick it up. Good discussion between yourself and Ben. But, it does not take so many fancy words to lay the truth down, you know. Peace
Actually it does, it is rude not to answer a question when asked. You wouldn't let someone in to your house without knowing their name would you?
Well done your explaination helped me to understand Ben, i googled Ben harper-chrisitianity and your page came up, you are right. He does not know jesus. Oh how God has blessed him and i look forward to the day he comes to know the kingdom of Christ :) WHata glorious life it is with Jesus by our side!! God Bless
I am a practicing Christian with a strong and healthy relationship with God. I am also a huge fan of Ben Harper and the message his music preaches. "Jah" translates to "God." Its the same being with a different name. No religion is completely correct because we will never fully understand God and the universe. If you are a Christian, you should know that judging people should be left up to God alone. "Burn One Down" is a great song. It is about something real; smoking marijuana to enhance a spiritual experience. People do it. If it helps you to tune out the noise of the secular world and get closer to God, then more power to you.
Dave,
I could write a long rebuttal to what you have written point by point and point you to Scriptures if you would like. I’m on facebook, feel free to add me or comment here and I’ll shoot you a email. Just for the record though let me just say four brief things in rebuttal to some errors in your statement.
1. Jah does not equal God. God is self revealed as Yahweh in Scripture. Within the English speaking dialects they are to be understood as two totally different gods/beings because Jah does not conform to the level of holiness of the God of Scriptures Yahweh.
2. Christianity that focuses on the person and work of Christ is completely correct and allows us pre-judgment humans to fully know as much about God as can be perceived about God before the final judgments. Christianity as revelation about God is completely correct because it is the only revealed religion by God, about God, and for God’s purposes in displaying his holiness and saving his people.
3. Scripture is clear that judgment belongs to God who invest it to God’s people in this life and in the Kingdom to come. Judgment must be done in God’s holiness and not in self righteousness. Jesus and the apostles uniformly taught we must at times play the role of the judge as part of our faith.
4. Using drugs to get closer to God is unbiblical. In fact it is prohibited and condemned in the Bible by God in both testament as a form of sorcery. Furthermore it says that Jesus as God incarnate will judge all forms of illegal drug use.
The critique of Ben Harper’s music stands. It is still technically excellent music but much of it is still theologically abysmal. Like I said if you really want to discuss this then feel free to contact me.
It's not as important to know which "God" to pray to… but to be able to feel "God" is just as important if not more!
Jess,
Jess, God is a person. As a person it is important we respond to him as we would any other person. Honestly it is silly to say it’s not as important to know who we are addressing as much as how we feel about addressing that person. I could say “Jess you are girl I went to high school with.” You would respond, “No I’m not. We have never met.” If I said “It’s not important to know which “Jess” I’m speaking to… but what is important is how I feel about “Jess” is just as important if not more!” You would think I was living in my own little delusional world. If God is real it is very important we know him and come to him as he is. Our feelings are secondary at best.
Feel to respond. I look forward to future dialog.
Will
Who are you to say who knows Jesus and who doesn't? You are exactly what turns people away from Christianity….despicable! Only God can judge who knows Him, so how dare you? It is not our acts, words, looks, etc that get us to Him….It's our hearts and I believe Ben's is in the right place but I have no business saying whether he truly knows God or not, for God only knows that
Your pride is surely showing here…
Honeychild,
Thanks for dropping by and commenting. I judge Ben's words, not Ben's soul. Christ in the gospels commands us to judge people's works (which includes their words) but not to judge their worth as individuals or their value to God. From what I can publicly tell Ben Harper is a nice guy. I was not writing on that. I was writing on if his music is Christian and if his public persona is Christian. The answer from his music and public statements leads to the conclusion that he is not. He is theistic (believes in God) but does not appear to be a Christian (believes Christ is God made flesh and is the Lord) theistic (believes in God). Perhaps that will change and I hope it does.
To define Christianity apart from being centered around the person and work of Christ by definition abrogates it from being Christianity.
I agree with you it is not our acts, words, looks, or anything we do that makes a person a Christian. It is the person and work of what Christ has done on the cross, has done and is doing in someone's personal history, and will do at their final judgment.
Slightly paraphrased you say "it's our hearts" "that get us to Him (God)." On what bases do you make that claim?
Willadair,
You clearly stated that Ben does not know Jesus. That was a conclusion based on his music, actions, statements, etc?
Who are we to conclude such a thing….I suppose that someone who praises God and makes Godly statements all the time knows Jesus in your eyes?
You say that you were only judging his actions but you cleary stated that Ben does not know Jesus. You don't know that and you don't have the right to judge where his heart is.
James 4:12 states: There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you–who are you to judge your neighbor?
Isaiah 33:22 For the LORD is our judge, The LORD is our lawgiver, The LORD is our king; He will save us–
It is our hearts that are judged by God and He is the one who knows our hearts.
You don't know Ben's heart by his music…
We cannot conclude someone's salvation by their actions or music, statements etc..
As a matter of fact, I imagine that a large majority or church goers will not be in God's Kingdom.
When I say it's our hearts, I mean that if our heart is with God, He will know it and by His grace we are saved.
My response would have been to long to post in reply format here without several breaks. So here http://willadair.com/2010/07/21/a-response-to-hon... you can find my response. Thank you for your time and dialog.