Anthony Bradley on rapper Propaganda’s latest:
“Precious Puritans” simply raises a caution about loving the Puritans too much because, although they had sound doctrine on issues like personal piety, that tradition was complicit in perpetrating injustice against Africans and African Americans during the slavery. The song opens with these words:
- Pastor, you know it’s hard for me when you quote puritans.
- Oh the precious Puritans.
- Have you not noticed our facial expressions?
- One of bewilderment and heartbreak.
- Like, not you too pastor.
- You know they were the chaplains on slave ships, right?
- Would you quote Columbus to Cherokees?
- Would you quote Cortez to Aztecs?
- Even If they theology was good?
- It just sings of your blind privilege wouldn’t you agree?
- Your precious Puritans.
- They looked my onyx and bronze skinned forefathers in they face,
- Their polytheistic, god-hating face.
- Shackled, diseased, imprisoned face.
- And taught a gospel that says God had multiple images in mind when he created us in it.
- Their fore-destined salvation contains a contentment in the stage for which they were given which is to be owned by your forefathers’ superior image-bearing face. Says your precious Puritans.
The song continues to highlight ways in which the black experience in the Puritan tradition is mishandled within white conservative evangelicalism. However, instead of leaving it simply at critique and dismissal, like we might find among some black liberation theologians, Propaganda ends the song by confessing that he is no less flawed than the Puritans, as his wife can attest, and offers praise to God because “God really does use crooked sticks to make straight lines.” That is, Propaganda is calling for humility in recognizing that, in the end the noetic effects of sin are present in the Puritans, in himself, and the rest of us. As such, what is to be praised is not any class of men but the providence and sovereignty of God that He fulfills his mission through messed up people. (Check out the video for “Precious Puritans” below.)
What’s been so odd to me is the tribalist attacks from those who fear that Propaganda is in some way throwing the Puritans under the bus to never be read again. A lamentable example of this is a blog post by Professor Owen Strachan, Assistant Professor of Christian Theology and Church History at Boyce College. In his post, Strachan suggests that the song might be dangerous because he wonders “if Propaganda isn’t inclining us to distrust the Puritans. He states his case against them so forcefully, and without any historical nuance, that I wonder if listeners will be inclined to dislike and even hate them.”
Is this a slippery slope? Does testing and critiquing leads to this? Did Martin Luther’s comments about Jews incline people to hate him and reject him? Or John Calvin’s execution of Michael Servetus? Or Abraham Kuyper’s racism? Or Jonathan Edwards slave owning? I could go on.
The answer, of course, is “yes” and “no.”
Read the whole article at Puritans and Propaganda | Urban Faith.
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