Even the Rocks Cry Out

If we believe that God is omnipresent - that He exists everywhere and can be found everywhere - then where is He in the midst of the profanity of urban hip-hop culture?

This question has been at the forefront of my mind all week, as I've been taking a one-week intensive course on urban youth ministry.

One of our assignments has been to listen to and dissect the lyrics of various songs by Tupac Shakur. He's best known for his rough language and for "Thug Life". I was obviously skeptical at first... how can songs about "niggaz, bitches, and hoes" have any redemptive message? Well, I have to say, if you can read the lyrics for what they are and look past the language (which is more culturally stigmatized than biblically condemned), then it's very clear that Tupac was a social revolutionary and quite possibly a follower of Jesus. He advocated for the poor and the oppressed, to downtrodden. He sought to reform education (and was actually, as a self-taught high school drop-out, more educated and well-read at the age of 18 then most students entering ivy-league schools).

Luke 19:40-42 says, "Jesus answered, 'I tell you, if these [disciples] were silent, even the stones would shout out.' As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, 'If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.'"

Has the Church's abandonment of the inner-city and failure to engage the urban hip-hop culture caused "even the rocks" - the gangster rappers and "thug lifers" - to cry out for the redemption of the world around them and the ushering in of the kingdom of God? To say that it's "just South Central LA" or "just Chicago" or "just Detroit", and that there's nothing the Church can or should do, goes entirely against the Gospel that we believe in and are obligated to communicate to "all nations" - all cultures, even inner-city cultures. Have the rocks begun to cry out because of our silence?

Some other questions I'm left with: What do we do when the "Jesus" presented to urban cultures in inconsistent with the Jesus of the Gospels? Furthermore, what are we to do when maybe the "Allah" that is presented to urban cultures is more consistent with the Jesus of the Gospels than the "Jesus" they've been presented? If someone in an urban culture joins the Nation of Islam after having been communicated the Jesus of the Gospels with the name "Allah", should we foster and encourage their newfound spirituality, or discount it because it's worshiping Jesus by the wrong name?

I don't know, to be honest. At this point I'm left with more questions than answers...