Time to Get Critical: Mandisa’s “Stronger” and “Overcomer”

Abstract

Mandisa is a popular CCM artist but her two most recent songs are poor influences. They encourage listeners to focus on their own abilities and to seek power to overcome difficulties inside themselves, rather than trusting in God for help. The songs make inappropriate guarantees of end to difficulty, and relegate God's role in our suffering to the sidelines, as someone cheering us on rather than leading us through it. For these reasons, I discourage everyone from listening to or promoting those two particular songs. Their melodies are no substitute for their lacking content.

Analysis

                I don’t know this particular artist, I can only judge the subject matter of the songs that are aired constantly on my local Christian radio stations. Their frequency implies that they are very popular, and so I think it’s important for there to be an analysis of them on the Internet somewhere. I’ll do my best to give them a fair treatment here.

                The songs are not blatantly anti-Christian, and in fact have a few references to Biblical doctrines (the latter more so than the former), but these would be easily missed by the Biblically illiterate main stream christian crowd, and especially any nonbelievers who might be listening in. The songs unfortunately fall into the category of CCM (Christian Contemporary Music) that can be summed up as “self-help encouragement.” The problem is not that it attempts to make people feel good, but that the emphasis is far too often on some alleged inherent capacity in the individual to “be great,” rather than on relying on God for blessings.

                Now I’ll look at a sampling of the lyrics. Here is the chorus from “Stronger”:

When the waves are taking you under

Hold on just a little bit longer

He knows that this is gonna make you stronger, stronger

The pain ain’t gonna last forever

In time, it (can/will) only get better

Believe me, this is gonna make you stronger, stronger

As is common when I write the longer blog posts, I’m not online as I write this, and so I can’t remember the entire song’s lyrics (repetitive as they are), but here is an excerpt from the second verse:

Try and do the best you can

Hold on (for as long as you can/and let Him hold your hand)

Go on, fall into the arms of Jesus [**the only reference to Him by name in the entire song]

whoa oh oh

****** (I can’t remember this line)

Even if you cannot feel Him

I promise you that He still cares

(chorus)

                All right. So what’s wrong with that? Let me count the ways: 1) emphasis on what you do, not what God has done for you or will do through you, 2) unBiblical promise that pain will go away (the song does not imply it will end in heaven), 3) unBiblical view of sanctification, 4) distant view of Christ as someone on the sidelines cheering you on.

                And the part that bothers me the most is the most subtle: “He knows that this is gonna make you stronger.” The He knows part galls me. Why? Because it says that whatever you’re going through is going to make you a better person somehow, and the only role Jesus has in the whole situation is to know that that’s the case. He apparently DOES nothing, just watches you suffer. At most, the song implies that Jesus tells you that it’s going to get better. But He doesn’t actually help you. The lyrics frame Christ as either unconcerned, sadistic, or impotent. Combine this with the end of the last line of the second verse: when I first heard the song, it sounded as if it would naturally end in, ‘Even if you cannot feel Him, I promise you that He’s still there.’ But according to this song, Jesus isn’t even present with you in your afflictions. He “cares,” but “Stronger’s” Jesus doesn’t ever show it. He’s like the estranged grandparent who lives in the next town over and sends $20 and a generic Hallmark card on birthdays but never visits or calls. I don’t want a God who “cares.” Personally, what has always made most sense to me is to have a God who “knows.” Because since He is omniscient, that means He knows all about my problems, and He knows the best way to answer my prayers. I can trust such a God. But a God whose main emphasis is on emotion divorced from rationality is a scary thought. What good does it do if God, or anyone, “cares” but doesn’t help you? The problem I have with this is that emotions, in the present culture, are viewed as chemical sensations and not as goal-motivators. When I say that God cares, it means that He’s actively being intimately involved in your personal struggles and is guiding you through them for His glory and your good, as the Bible says. When the Culture says “God (or anyone) cares,” it means that He feels bad for you – but that’s the extent of it. In the contemporary view of emotion, God caring about you doesn’t mean anything! It does nothing for you! So how, then, can this possibly be encouraging to someone? I affirm that it can’t. And so the song, though it seems aimed at being encouraging on its face, really plants seeds of discouragement in the listener. Because what happens after a person has been struggling for 30 years, wondering every day when their affliction will end, and all the time people are telling them “hey, God cares.” They’ll despise the gesture. It’s as meaningless as saying “Jesus loves you” because people don’t know what love IS. We need to explain these things, we can’t just throw them out. And sadly, the context of how the words show up in this song confirms that the “encouragement” is empty.

                Do I have a Bible verse to justify this with, so I’m not just throwing out my opinion? You bet. And this is what I challenge the people who say “God cares” frivolously with:

“Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?”

James 2:15-16

Struggling With Sin

Sometimes the thought occurs to me, 'what if I'm a fake?'

John 6:37 spells out a clear teaching of Christianity: those who belong to God will never fall away.
1 John 2:19 buttresses this point: those who fall away from the faith were never truly saved to begin with.
Matthew 7:21-23 says plainly that many who go to hell will actually be convinced that they are Christians, because they call Jesus "Lord."

For those who like powerful video/audio presentations, the one below might capture your interest. Be warned, it might be scary to some. If the above verses are enough to give you the idea that there are fake Christians, you can skip the video if you're pressed for time.

Here's the deal: if you're saved, you cannot become unsaved (Romans 8:38-39). And if you're saved, you'll pursue a godly life and subsequently sin less and less in your daily life. You never become perfect, so you will sin -- but you fall into it, you don't dive.

The question that goes through my mind is, how can you measure the distinction, practically? After sinning, I naturally feel bad. But feeling bad isn't necessarily repentance. Repentance would involve a complete about-face, not merely the admission of guilt, followed by continued indulgence.

When a long time has gone since the last time you sinned in a particular way, you feel good about it. Living righteously, I suppose, improves your confidence. David in Psalm 51:12 seems to indicate that what we lose when we sin is not our salvation, but our confidence in knowing that we have it. We lose our assurance. Not the seal itself, but our personal assurance that we have been sealed. 

The simple solution seems to be to make a habit of repenting as soon as possible after you sin, praying for strength to resist it in the future, and getting back in the mindset of trying to avoid it. You'll never succeed (1 John 1:8-10), but the mark of a Christian is a continual mortification of the flesh--it's not something you do once and never again. It's a persistent attitude of the heart that leads to increasing grief over sin and an increasing gratitude toward God for His forgiveness in spite of our continual sin.

I'm encouraged when I recently stood back and noticed that what makes me the most upset about when I commit a sin -- what grieves me the most -- is not its severity, nor even its perpetuity, but the fact that the very act of it, no matter how great or small the sin, is a proclamation of ingratitude toward God for His forgiveness. It is like when you are in a close relationship with someone -- a close family member or romantic partner -- and you do something to hurt them. You're not upset primarily because you realize that what you did was ontologically wrong -- you're upset because what you did hurt the one you love. Now, God cannot be hurt in the sense that He is weakened. But that doesn't mean He can't be disrespected. And the One least deserving in all of existence to be disrespected must surely be God.

Consequently, the thing I most look forward to upon death is the final freedom from sin. To no longer have it be part of my nature to reject God and the blessing that is God. Heaven will be great, I'm sure. And exploring the New Earth will be an enjoyment. But what will make it fantastic is that my relationship with my heavenly Father will no longer have the potential to be harmed by my selfishness.

Until that day, there is work to done here on earth. 

~ Rak Chazak