I’ve lived in the Bible belt for most of my life. There are a lot of truly good people who go to church and pray and really try to live a humble life devoted to their families and to their church. But there’s also a fair amount of people who wield their faith as a cudgel, people who monetize faith, people who twist religion into money-making schemes, misogyny and bigotry. I guess my point is that a lot of Christians are truly nice peeps and some Christians absolutely suck. My point is also that I couldn’t care less about anyone’s faith – I don’t think faith or lack of faith automatically makes someone a good or bad person. So, with all that being said, let’s get into this Kanye West sh-t.
For months now, Kanye has been doing this Sunday Service stuff. I think the goal is to take the Pentacostal approach (music, singing, preaching in a carnival-like atmosphere) and streamline it and simplify it with Kanye in the middle of the circus. CB and I talked about this on the Gossip with Celebitchy podcast #30 – CB thinks it’s more like a marketing/money-making scheme by Kanye, that he’s preaching the Gospel of Yeezy while trying to sell his music and his shoes. I think that the Sunday Service stuff is more like a symptom of his mental illness. Kanye has been so profoundly unwell for several years now, and I feel like mental health professionals could probably draw a straight line through Kanye’s mental illness to his political propaganda to his religious delusions of grandeur. It doesn’t help matters that Kanye is still just… an ignorant person. He’s too uneducated to really preach or have any meaningful thoughts on Christianity. But people still come to see him “preach.” Ugh. Kanye went to Howard University this weekend for a Sunday Service (on Saturday). He preached outside:
Sunday Service. pic.twitter.com/P7cGCe9WPG
— ecstasy. (@JordanNoJump) October 12, 2019
And in case you thought this was about anything other than his ego:
Kanye really said “I was canceled, but as I stand on the lawn of Howard University, do I look canceled to you?”
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) October 12, 2019
Yeah. He’s still f–king canceled to me. To be fair, it looked like hundreds of Howard students enjoyed the Sunday Service. Also to be fair, there are still a lot of people canceling Kanye. It’s always tricky though – I’ve watched some of the videos from Howard and I’m not 100% sure that Kanye is actually THERE, you know? Physically, he’s present. But where is his mind?
Kanye West surprised students at Howard University with a Sunday Service on a Saturday for their homecoming (🎥: @drethemayor ) pic.twitter.com/sTA9DdCADU
— BallerAlert (@balleralert) October 12, 2019
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
Ugh… it blows my mind how his illness has made him so delusional as I listen to his older stuff. All Falls Down is a one of my favorite songs and is so relatable.
I’m unsure how he is in a spectrum of wellness and therefore think it’s really inappropriate to comment.
I also think it is unfair to blame or saddle his wife with him mental health diagnosis as many do here.
I do not agree with him but I’d guess there are many rich black Americans voting as he does.
Because his wife will divorce his azz if he ever was canceled. Her existence /ego depends on it. So best to do what you got to do to get back in the graces of basic black people by performing Gospel music at an HBCU. I say basic because he STILL went on a rant almost blaming black people for slavery AGAIN, and folks still dancing and not listening. No different than Trump appealing to the most basic white people by being a bigot. This Kanye can kiss my azz, and take his culture vulture wife and her family with him. BYE
I removed all of his music off my playlists months ago. I cannot and will not give money to someone who supports Trump, especially a black man who supports someone who has shown time and time again that he is a bigot who has done nothing but further marginalized the black community.
I’ve been mad at him for a minute but I would go see him and will buy everything he puts out no questions asked. Cancel culture is pointless when it targets opinions. Kanye is a Trump lover? Seems so, but he doesn’t even vote. Kanye has confusing thoughts about slavery? He’s allowed to. Point is, that man is harmless. Entertainers’ opinions do not matter to me. As long as they don’t kill, rape or harm people I don’t care what they think.
If we learned anything in the past few years it’s that words hurt. Stupidity hurts. Ignorance does as well. What Mr West has been spewing lately is way beyond harmless.
Harmless – just because he doesn’t physically assault someone. Talk to those relatives of the victims of Jim Jones who were brainwashed and literally drank the kool-aid and died. Talk to those in relationships (both men and women) who are mentally abused but never physically abused. And while you may not take him seriously there are those do.
Kanye does none of these things. None of it. He does not have a cult, he does not abuse people, he does not hold any kind of power over anyone. He’s free to have opinions and people are free to share them or not. Kanye west is a polarizing person but he is not the problem.
You should by at least one “MY Pillow” too then.
If giving money to trump supporters doesn’t matter, go ahead.
Kanye is not a politician, he is a musician. Not the same thing at all.
The owner of the My Pillow company isn’t a politician. What are you talking about?
@babsjohnson – you have no idea if he holds any kind of power over anyone. Just because you are not effected by his words doesn’t mean someone else isn’t. And here is a definition of cult (and there are other definitions) which could define the situation with Kanye: “a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.”
Influence is not power. I’m not saying that Kanye isn’t influencial, he is (or was) in some fields, but he does not hold power over anyone. If someone listens blindly to Kanye it’s not on Kanye, plus this is totally anecdotic because no one does that. A lot of people hate and/or despise him. Everyone knows he is mentally ill and acts crazy most of the time. He does not hold any type of political power.
Are you serious? Influence is absolutely power. The more influence you have, the more power you can control. Need an example? Try Ivanka and her daddy, an abused woman afraid to leave, a molested child and their predator. Ever hear the expression, the power behind the throne? How about Queen Liz protecting the #pedointhepalace? Putin influencing Trump. Those that can influence have the power.
“Influence is not power.”
That’s some serious delusion right there. Influence is power in action.
I will never understand this kind of willful hero worship ignorance.
He is NOT harmless – he has a huge stage and he’s using it for, amongst other things, normalizing fascism because he’s found an empty head that is much of a narcissist as he is and therefore, someone who is worthy of his support. Because of all that dragon energy, don’t you know.
He doesn’t have “confusing” thoughts on slavery either – more than once he’s basically said that slavery was a choice because he you know, likes to push it and take it to the extreme. But wait, I forgot – he’s just looking at things in a new way, right? We’re all just too stupid to get it.
Babsjohnson…you can get on off that high horse and ride a REALLY SMALL PONY! Kanye’s fame gives him media power…and you KNOW DAMN WELL HOW DETRIMENTAL OR POSITIVE THAT POWER CAN BE!
But go on and support someone who is using their CONSIDERABLE POWER to hype and cape for fascism and racism….
Do you Boo…folks like him ALWAYS need a public base to highlight just HOW AWFUL they are…
No offense, but this kind of enabling is part of the reason why racist and sexist people exhibit so much entitlement. It’s part of the reason why religious people* overstep the way they do, and why men take up so much space in hate movements. All their lives, boys and men are implicitly (and at times explicitly) told that others should be grateful if they aren’t beating, raping, or killing. Racist and misogynistic people of both sexes are taught that whatever they’re expressing and promoting is harmless and that nobody should tell them ‘no’, just because they personally aren’t doing anyone bodily harm.
You mean you’d even buy his shoes? His really ugly shoes? His really expensive and really ugly shoes? 👟 👟
You would buy everything he puts out, no questions asked? Whoa.
You’d buy everything he puts out, no questions asked. Ok lol . A lot of his ish is butt-fkng-ugly.
I like some celebs too, but I don’t get brainwashed into blindly purchasing everything they put out. Especially if they are already at millionaire status. They don’t need the extra coins for putting out mediocre of dreadful crap. If the product is worth it, ok then. But this zombie following of celebs is scary to me.
Ugh, wake up.
It is not ok to have a “confusing opinion” on slavery. There are facts. There are real life, and long lasting issues stemming from slavery. You don’t get to have a “confusing opinion” on slavery. Perhaps read, take a history class, look at Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America (website and physical book) and tell me how you, Kanye, or anyone else can be confused.
I’m sorry he is struggling with illness, and that he married into a family of grifters that exploits it at every avenue for their own gain.
But at the end of the day, all this is is a vehicle driven by his raging egomania and he’s found a new means (the cloak of religion) to get attention from something that he believes will make him bulletproof from criticism. And the famewhore mafia will be there whispering in his ear the whole way because it serves them too. It won’t be long before 45 is proclaiming him as his own personal religious leader and advisor and don’t think PMK and her brood haven’t figured that angle in 10 ways from Sunday to suit their needs. I don’t care how much Kim likes to pretend to wave her progressive feminist flag – she is DYING to do more cozying up the Big Orange Splot. We don’t have royalty in this country, so the White House is the next big prize and that family has found their way in.
It’s all going to funny right up until Kanye engineers his own Jim Jones movement (or worse) because no one tried to reign in the insanity.
Grabbyhands, well said.
My take is that Kanye has been sent out on the road by his mob handlers to pay off debt. His job? To do whatever he can to pull African-American voters away from the Democratic party. I just don’t believe that his mental problems are driving his agenda.
Agree. It’s much more nefarious, but Kayne always skates because people blame everything on his mental illness. And Taylor Swift. If she didn’t exist, Kim would have invented her.
I have seen religious fanaticism from someone bipolar first hand. The deeper into his illness the more manic he became and suddenly a man who never showed any religious interest was talking about gathering broken people and rallying against the wicked ( I was identified as evil to the point where I slept in my car as i was scared what those voices in his head would tell him to do with me). And i have been with this person for 15 some years….and it wasn’t until the end that I could even really say he was spiraling. Bipolars get very good at masking their mania – to those not around them all the time it can seem they are simply passionate about their subject.
So yes Kayne could be bipolar. I have doubts him and Kim even live together full time. I think his creative “genius”/ mania, is a reason she keeps the kids apart from him and they sell it to the public as he’s such a genius he needs time away to create
I had a friend who was bi-polar and became a “born again” Christian. I get that some people are so mentally tortured that they need some kind of intense religion to help them. I was accepting of her new found faith at first because I saw how much she was suffering and figured anything that helps her get through life is good even if it is something I don’t personally believe in. Then one day she told me that my brother who died of an accidental heroin overdose at age 29 was now in hell because he wasn’t saved and he killed himself. That was the end of our friendship.
That is horrifying.
I also tend to think she keeps the kids away from him on purpose. I also think she’s already planning an exit strategy, it just might be a couple years before we see it play out.
For the record, I don’t blame her at all. I’m not a fan, but getting away from him would be something I’d give my 100% support to.
IDK, we on this site have been speculating about her exit strategy since before she married him, right? And now they are many years and four kids and several houses in.
We can talk about his mental health, but don’t forget he had a rather severe head injury after his car accident too. I’m sure a TBI isn’t helping.
It was a FREE show. Of course people showed up. Let him start charging for those tickets though and he’ll see how canceled he really is.
I think Kanye has a lot going on in his life. I think he needs help. I think he says a lot of things that make me shake my head. With that said, what he said in that first clip isn’t one of them. It’s true.
As “Christians” we make it entirely too hard for others to be saved and know Jesus. We put so many stupid rules and expectations on people, that there’s no way they can ever live up to them. Then we shake our head and judge them we they are crushed by them. It’s unfortunately taken me a long time to realize the only thing saving me is the blood of Jesus Christ. It’s not the rules, shame or tithes. It’s grace. The same grace that saves me, saves you, too and every other person the church wants to look down on.
I will have to listen to the rest of his sermon but for now I say let Kanye do his thing. If it’s anything like what’s in that clip, I hope that it sticks and spreads across that campus. We desperately right now need young people who are not ashamed of the gospel (the true gospel of love) and are willing to spread that message to others. Jesus Christ is love. With everything going on right now, people need to be reminded just how loved they really are. For God so loved the world (not a select few in the world) that he gave his only son so that we might be saved.
Brooke, you seem sincere. That’s terrifying.
It’s terrifying that a message of pure love is terrifying. You are still loved though. I hope you have a great day!
What do I need to be “saved” from, exactly?
I don’t know you so I don’t know what you need to be saved from. I think that is one of the biggest problems the church has always struggled with. We love to point out the sin in others and not ourselves. We shame people for things God doesn’t even see. I know two of the things I needed to be saved from were my anger and anxiety. Which I do not see as sins in the traditional sense. I think we have turned the word sin into something that God never intended it to be. Again, to shame people for being whoever or whatever they were meant to be.
I think we need to be saved from anything though that keeps us from living a full and productive life. Whether or not you believe in God or that Jesus died for you, you know there is something you struggle with. We all do. I just happen to think that Jesus died so I can have that freedom.
the problem is that Kanye is cloaking his love for Jesus with his love for 45, who is the FARTHEST thing from a Christian as you can get. a man who mocks disabled people, puts kids in cages, and encourages violence by his supporters.
so forgive me if I don’t believe that Kanye’s words of the Lord are based in true belief and love of Jesus’ teachings.
Brooke, I never doubted I’m loved, so no need for the reminder from a stranger. You seem convinced Christian love is going to make everything better. As far as I can see, USA brand Christianity has caused nothing but woe and strife, particularly in politics.
No, I completely agree with you! I think the church right now is a huge mess and they are spreading a version of Christianity that is not only dangerous but disgusting. Most days, I am ashamed of what we have turned the church into. That’s why I always encourage people to read the Bible and discover who Jesus actually is. The Jesus I know in my heart wouldn’t be pushing for a wall to be built or immigrants to be treated like they are. Not when he knows there is more than enough to go around here. He wouldn’t be trying to strip children and families of insurance or the resources they need to survive. He loved us all unconditionally for the fact that we are all different and not despite it.
I’m sorry for the rant but right now I struggle with where I belong in the church. I know what’s right in my heart but that’s not what I see on Sunday or hell, any other day of the week either. There are people though that are fighting for the real truth though.
From time immemorial slaughter has occurred in the name of religion. People are literally being slaughtered in the name of religion as I type this. The two will go hand in hand forever.
Brooke, I feel for you. I’ve been there: grew up Catholic, but it stopped making sense at around 9 or 10, when the priest said that everyone not Catholic would burn in hell, but my elements school friends were worshipping in a Baptist church on weeknights and all day on Sunday while I only went for an hour on Sunday. I completely gave it up by the time my daughter was born. We are atheists. Well, I work at practicing Nicheren Daishonin Buddhism.
Not my “elements”, but my Baptist friends went to church all the time. Sorry that I can’t type well, peeps.
Brooke, when is Jesus coming to save us? How bad does shit have to get here on earth for him to finally show up? I mean, it’s pretty damn bad down here and looking to get worse very soon so can you tell JC to get a move on?
Christians believe that blood sacrifice ‘saves’.
Horrific really given the God of the Old Testament was against blood sacrifice.
Anywho-> watch the movie zeitgeist on youtube and you will see Christianity is a recycled religion…..and the Bible is an astrology book.
But you are right-> you are loved. Just not the way you think.
Believing in blood sacrifice and waiting for a saviour is what is actually turning the world to evil.
I think Kanye doesn’t walk the walk…he doesn’t practice what he preaches. I bet he’s never even read the Bible lol. He is as fake as the family he married in to. Also, it was a FREE event, of course people were going to show up…mostly students who were already on campus for classes anyways !
This. @ME – I too believe he has more than likely never read the Bible. Actually knowing specific teachings of Christ… is integral to being a Christian. But what do I really know, I’m a lapsed Catholic 🤷♀️
Kind of related (regarding a televangelist megachurch)… Is anyone watching the Righteous Gemstones? It’s so good. Last night was the season finale and I’m going to miss it!
That show is crazy! They’re all crazy! Plus, occasionally, Dermot Mulroney. Has HBO announced a second season?
I LOVE the Righteous Gemstones! There are so many great actors in it, and it is such a crazy show. I’m going to miss it, too!
As much as we would like him to be, he is definitely not “canceled”. He still has plenty of fans. Hell, even this site still posts about him while claiming to cancel him.
I wish people would stop taking this guy seriously. That being said, cancel culture is toxic cause a lot of people (mostly on stan twitter) usually use that word when the celeb they like refuses to do something they want them to do. I can understand cancelling garbage humans like Lena Dunham or Chris Brown but the way this word is being overused I feel like it has lost its original meaning.
I do think #cancelled is misused when people willfully misinterpret their right to decide, “Fuck this public figure. I’m not supporting them because XYZ” as people having some right to not be criticized when they conveniently let their anti-Semitism, homophobia, misogyny, racism, xenophobia, or other bigotry hang out whenever problematic people from those groups come up. But that’s not what’s happening with Kanye.
Sorry if I didn’t make myself clear I was only talking about exaggerated cancel culture that exists on Twitter and not objecting Kanye being cancelled. He definitely deserves that.
I see he left his red maga hat home. Wonder why he didn’t wear it to a HBCU? 🤔
If you have to ask if you are canceled, you are most definitely canceled.
Kanye preaching about religion is just as fake as Kim preaching about “saving the environment”. Neither really cares and it’s all for pr. Their lifestyle shows how they really don’t care about anything other than the mighty dollar.
I don’t know or care if Kanye is ‘cancelled ‘. I do think he is irrelevant and that he did it to himself. It’s probably a combination of his mental illness and that dreadful family he’s married into. I notice that the Kardashians are searching for other celebrity men to sink their fangs into, so THEY seem to have canceled him.
This breaks my heart because I think that Kanye is a genius. His mother’s death left him vulnerable and that when the vultures moved in. It’s sad to think that he has no one in his life that’s watching his back and telling him that he’s so very very wrong. His association with 45 is a betrayal of the sacrifices his ancestors made and I find it hard to believe he REALLY means it. He’s a mouthpiece for his wife’s family, who have never had respect for Black people.
I hope he’ll get help both medical and emotional. There are children involved and if he doesn’t care about himself, he should care about his children.
I can’t believe Howard booked him. The HU grads I know are appalled.
I’ll co-sign. My husband was on campus that day. Kanye wasn’t as nearly warmly received as he’d like to portray.
Was he booked or simply showed up? It was reported a pop-up service and my take on that is that he just shows up and has his service. I would hope that there had to be permission.
I wouldn’t second the “uneducated” remark. It’s my understanding his mother was a university professor an English Department chair. That doesn’t mean Kayne is well educated, but possibly indicates he had great opportunities, education wise.
I do think he’s seriously dealing with mental illness. I saw his interview with David Letterman where he indicated he was off meds.
That, combined with the Kardashian marketing machine equals an interesting combination.
He is where he wants to be. While one respects the fact that he has a right to an informed or uninformed opinion, when stated the rest of us can choose to pass judgement. No matter what he will remain cancelled to parts of the population.
He should read. Think before he speak.