Preview

No Church in the Wild Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1654 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
No Church in the Wild Analysis
Ryan Jones
Professor Brian Burkhart
College Composition I
13 November 2012
“No Church in the Wild”: From a Theologic Standpoint With the release of their newest CD, Watch the Throne, many of Jay-Z and Kanye West’s most exclusive tracks have come under scrutiny. One particular song containing debatable yet obvious theological symbolism is “No Church in the Wild.” Citing and exclaiming their religious and social beliefs, as well as their activities in today’s society in this new song, Kanye West and Shawn Carter (Jay-Z) show deep symbolism of today’s culture, the influence of Plato and Socrates on them, as well as their controversial lifestyles. Also, containing a featured chorus by Frank Ocean and a bridge by The-Dream, these parts touch on the symbolism and influence of religion and love in many lives today. The Watch the Throne duo revealed their theological beliefs in this song in many ways typical of their style. The song starts off with Frank Ocean’s hook: “Human beings in a mob, What’s a mob to a king? What’s a king to a God? What’s a God to a non-believer who don’t believe in anything?” Each of these couplets have significance to one another and are all tied together. He starts off by saying that there are human beings in a mob. But what is one human being to a mob? It is insignificant by number, but numbers make up the masses. He then goes on to ask “What’s a mob to a king?” creating the question that asks: can a mob of people overcome a king or is a king too powerful? But what is a “king to a God?” Does a mortal king have as much power as an almighty spiritual God? The song begins to unfold when Frank Ocean sings, “What’s a God to a non-believer who don’t believe in anything?” Frank Ocean brings up an interesting question: if a God is almighty and powerful and has influence over it’s followers, what does this God mean to a non-believer? A non-believer does not care about a God’s existence, so to this person, this God does not even exist or matter.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    For this fieldwork assignment I decided to go to a Roman Catholic Church. I was raised Catholic and I went to a Catholic school from second grade to eighth grade so, I had background knowledge on the teaching of the church. I have taken field notes and came across some reoccurring tendencies. All of these reoccurring tendencies support my thesis, which is: one of the many values the Catholic Church holds importance to is having much respect for their God. Throughout this essay I will explain my findings and the correlation between them and my assumption that this particular church holds being respect to a high regard.…

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The famous Sermon on the Mount delivered by Jesus is considered to be one of the main focal points of the entire religions moral belief system. It delivers many applicable methods to approach salvation and the lifestyles choices/fruits that come along with embracing God’s grace and sacrifice. Jesus gave this sermon at an early point during His ministry. In the previous two chapters, Jesus was baptized, gathered His disciples and gained more of a following throughout Syria. Once Jesus noticed his following, He traveled up the mountain and began teaching His disciple’s. I think that specific part at the beginning of verse two in chapter five is extremely important. It shows that Jesus is targeting only His specific group of followers yet it ended with a a large amount of people that came to listen. This sermon shows great symbolism of how actual salvation works. It is made for the specific but is offered to many.…

    • 1222 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Christian Sociological parts, have influenced each other in the past. Christian churches in U.S. society still maintain importance because "approximately 80 percent of Americans...identify themselves as Christian; many of the new immigrants in fact are Christian, e.g., those from Haiti, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Central America" (Caiazza, 2010, p. 190). In terms of their role in the Christian Sociological model, Stuckenberg (1880) holds that the individual "in society is a representative of Christ and of" the "Gospel" (Matt. 5:13-15) where their testimony leads the world to judge Christianity (p. 266). Their "conduct before others should be in harmony with his true worth and dignity" (Stuchenberg, 1880, p. 267). At furthest sacrifice, "the…

    • 346 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Church Risk Paper

    • 2893 Words
    • 12 Pages

    Administration in the church is an essential part of creating order, it allows the pastoral ministries, to take place. Without some organized form of administration, ministry or pastoral work, as we know it, would be very difficult to achieve. For a church to try to make a determination for or against having an active administration should only serve as a formality. For a church to function without an active administrative role in the 21st century would be quite difficult indeed. As Welch points out in Church Administration: Creating Efficiency for Effective Ministry, administration (or management of the church) is not an optional piece we can choose to include or not include, it exists whether we as church staff decide to acknowledge it or not.[1] Welch examines this in detail, from scripture, which includes 1 Corinthians 12:28 where it clearly states that “God has placed these in the church” as a necessary element of the church body.[2]…

    • 2893 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Facts: An American vessel named the Aurora was in waters reportedly “four to five” leagues off the Brazilian Coast. Portuguese officials seized the vessel, because they believed that ship unlawfully entered Portuguese territory and engaged in illicit and unauthorized trade. The ship’s owner sued on insurance claims to redeem the losses from the ships seizure but was denied as the insurance did not cover losses from illicit trade with Brazil.…

    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Is there a god is he watching” (Miguel 2012). The song starts off by questioning god’s existence. Around this time period many countries in the Arab world were having civil wars and many acts of violence. In the United States, there were many social conflicts were going on. “On February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African American boy, was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old Neighborhood Watch coordinator of a gated community in Sanford, Florida… African American youth, joined by older black Americans, and often by people of other races organized protests not only in Florida where Martin had been killed, but in cities from New York to Los Angeles” (New Politics Dan La Botz December 31, 2012)…

    • 1173 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    The emerging/emergent[1] church movement is a new church movement that developed in the 1990s in Protestant churches across the United States. At the heart of the “movement”—or as some of it leaders prefer to call it, the “conversation” lies the conviction that changes in the culture signal that a new “church” is “emerging.”[2]…

    • 3030 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In the New Testament, the church can be referred to as the “local” church or the “universal” church. The local church is a place where assemblies of believers come together at a particular location and time. The universal church refers to the body of Christ. Many churches believe that they are healthy because they have a certain number of people on their membership roll. Healthy churches measure their spirituality according to God’s Word. This paper seeks to convey that healthy churches are measured in spiritual terms versus numerical terms; follow biblical instead of cultural patterns of ministry; are based on theological instead of sociological foundations; focus on ministry not a marketing model; and adopt scriptural not secular models of leadership. This will be done by examining Kenneth Gangel’s discussion on the different marks that can be used to gauge a healthy church in his article “The Marks of a Healthy Church.”…

    • 1100 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Best Essays

    This book looks at the ever present controversial topic of women in ministry. Since the 1990’s and what has been called the “third wave of feminism,”1 men and women have been advocating gender equality in society.2 The theological implications of this have resulted with the question of whether or not limits should be placed on the leadership roles of women in the church. There are two primary views concerning this topic. First, there is the complementarian or traditionalist view which limits the role of women in leadership positions in the church. Second, there is the egalitarian view, characterized by a belief in the equality of all people, which believes that no limits should be placed on the role of women in leadership in the church. The title of this book is a misnomer; the main issue is not women in ministry, but women in leadership positions in the church hierarchy. There does not appear to be a middle ground in this on-going controversial subject, as shown by the four essays and the critical responses to them in this book.…

    • 2130 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Better Essays

    There is a great debate concerning the role of religion in social change. Whereas some sociologists believe that religion acts as a conservative force, thus inhibiting social change whether that is positive or negative, others believe that religion is a radical force and a major contributor to social change. As expected many sociologists have taken the middle ground, arguing that religion can be both encouraging and preventing social change.…

    • 1355 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rock History Essay

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The main theme of the song explains the tragedies of the world in which we live; from hypocritical Christians to soldiers that are ruining people’s homes on a massive scale, then, in the hook Gurewitz proclaims his intentions of what he wants to do in order to make the world a better place. It can also be argued that much of the song is anti-religious mostly based off of the bands name which is actually a common misconception. The band members claim to not be in accordance with any specific religion and more specifically Brett Gurewitz considers himself a provisional diest, which is the belief system of reason and observation of the natural world are a sufficient way of deciding if god is actually fact or fiction.…

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Sermon in the Mount delivered by Jesus defines the important values of Religion. As the founder of Christian religion, Jesus, in his sermon, presented the evidences of ethics behavior of Christians, which are forgiveness, humility, Justice, love and perseverance. Agreeing to Jesus’ sermon, forgiveness must characterize Christians. In fact, Christian must forgive at the level of accepting a recidivist behavior. According to Jesus “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also”. In addition humility is a requirement of Christians. Christians prove their humility by asking forgiveness even if they did not offense someone. As Jesus declared, if “your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front…

    • 289 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The song I will be singing is called God Help the Outcast. It was recorded and released in 1996 with score by Alan Menken and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. Some of you may recognize bits of it from a well known Disney movie called The Hunchback of Notre Dame but it isn’t the exact same. The movies version is sung by the female lead Esmeralda. She uses it as a prayer while asking for the protection of her people the gypsies. A reason this song really resonates with me is the fact that she is that she doesn’t bother praying for herself but others around her.…

    • 106 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Dr. Warren is a passionate pastor who is motivated by the congregations need to have a purpose. He is the founder of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. Today, he has more than 300 community ministries which include prisoners, CEOs, addicts, single parents, and those with HIV/AIDS. He attacks what he calls the five Global Goliaths: spiritual emptiness, egocentric leadership, extreme poverty, pandemic disease, and illiteracy/poor education. His plan is to restore responsibility in people, credibility in churches, and civility in culture. America 's most influential spiritual leader and America’s Pastor are a couple of names he is often referred. He leads the Purpose Driven Network of Churches. Listed in 100 Christian Books that changed the 20th Century is The Purpose Driven Church. It was called the best book on entrepreneurship, management, and leadership in print by Forbes Magazine.…

    • 1679 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    C.S. Lewis wrote the book Mere Christianity, where he based his knowledge and ideas of religion and God. In the video, we begin by not learning about what Christians believe; rather, what Christians do not need to believe. We learn, that Christians do not need to believe that every other religion is wrong. On the contrary, atheists, must believe that all of the worldwide religions and their beliefs are a mistake; in other words, they must believe that everything these religions teach are wrong. However, if you are Christian, you are free to think oppositely to the beliefs of an atheist. Furthermore, as a Christian, you are able to freely think that some, or all, of the other religions contain at least a small hint of the actual truth. On the…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays