I have to admit I am a fan of Eminem but not for the reasons you might expect. I am looking forward to hearing his latest album Relapse but once again not for the reasons you might expect. Most of the folks who go out to buy the album when it comes out tomorrow will blindly appreciate everything about it and possibly even decide to participate in the very activities it is attempting to disdain. This is a sad lack of discernment but then many in our culture lack discernment.

 

Discernment BTW is not the ability to avoid evil but rather the ability to comprehend the whole and differentiate between the good and the evil and even distinguish when the two are hopelessly intertwined (as I suspect Relapse will be).

 

I struggle with the ugly. I ask myself if I should even bother listening to Relapse. I’ve read the reviews and I know that it is really not a pop album at all but an artist’s kathartic biographical work. Eminem continues to try to exercise the demons that control him by being open and honest about what he’s struggling with and what he has been through. Sadly it is clear that he is filled with a brutal hate and part of the point of this album is being honest with that too.

 

Philippians 4:8 says "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

 

While the verse does not preclude dwelling upon the ugly it makes it clear that there is a place where we should park our brains and it is that which is praiseworthy.

 

So the question then is – can there be value in the ugly? Is there value in dwelling upon pain? The danger of staying in a place like that is that you would slowly come to enjoy the dark and the ugly for their own sake. The value come from learning to engage the ugly. Learning to participate vicariously in the toher’s pain and suffering so that one can empathize and identify with a deep need that only God can fulfill.

 

I will listen to Eminem primarily to engage with his pain and try to understand something of the nature of the ugly. I will also recognize that despite his themes and language Eminem is an incredibly talented poet and lyricist and while I cannot agree with everything he says I cannot deny the ability.

 

Will I let my seven year old daughter listen to it. Of course not. Why? She lacks the talent to discern. She does not know how to interpret art created to exploit and and art created as an outlet for pain. She does not know how to empathize with that pain and pray for the artist’s relief. One day she will but not yet. If she models herself on Christ then she will develop His ability to look into the worst of pain and empathize and engage it directly. She will recognize that one of God’s most powerful acts was to actively look directly at the ugliness of broken creation and determine to enter into it, be impacted by it and transform it. She will be able to look into the heart of darkness and see the potential for life and not be drawn into its blackness because she is anchored in a good and gracious God. I hope all of my children will be able to do this.

 

I will listen to Eminem’s new album but there are some that shouldn’t. This is neither arrogance nor is it elitism – it is simply the truth. The trick then is asking yourself if you are discerning enough to engage the material or if you should, for now, avoid it.