The Christian rapper sheds light on his previous announcement that he was "done with Christianity."
Lecrae Devaughn Moore, who is more popularly and mononymously known as Lecrae is a Christian rapper who made a stunning revelation in January when he took to Twitter to recall how at a point in his life, he thought he could part ways with his faith. The 42 year old who hails from Texas made the shocking revelation to his multitude of fans in the faith space.
"Once upon a time, I thought I was done with Christianity," Lecrae wrote on Twitter on January 19. "But the reality was I was just done with the institutional, corporatized, gentrified, politicized, culturally exclusive version of it."
The tweet received more than 13,000 likes and more than 1,800 retweets and spurred much conversation about his feelings about his faith. But months later, the Christian rapper, who recently signed on to be an ambassador to Pray.com to create faith-sustaining content, did some explaining about his statements in January.
Lecrae told Faithwire that he did not become a Christian until he was 19 years old, saying, " wasn't raised as a Christian and I found this faith that really radically shaped me. And early on, a lot of my views were shaped by kind of one particular sliver of the Christian community and so...I began to wrestle with certain issues."
The Christian rapper shared that the people around him had an "exclusive, kind of authoritative view on the faith," to which he aligned at first. But as he grew older, things changed and he noticed that "we weren't lining up and it really radically shaped me, especially as it pertained to issues of justice or issues of...caring for the poor, the marginalized.
Lecrae admitted that he was "taken aback by the differing views" and that caused him to reflect on whether they were "wrong about everything." This led him into a faith "spiral" during which he questioned and pondered about his religion. He described this moment in his life as "very, very dark" and it took him about a year to keep "wrestling" about whether it was all "even real."
Lecrae added that he also experienced increased criticism and "slander" from people within the Christian community, which he said was "not helpful for my processing of things," causing him to be pushed away and "wrestle even more." A breakthrough came when he realized that "these are broken people and I'm experiencing people hurt" but that he saw it as "a God hurt."
In January 2021, Lecrae was heavily criticized by Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who said the Christian rapper "should never be allowed" to perform in Christian churches after he made an appearance in a campaign for Raphael Warnock, a pro-abortion Democrat, the Christian Post reported. But Lecrae now explained that he chose to perform at the rally because he thought the event was "bipartisan." When he arrived however, he found that it was "both candidates from one party."
Now, it is clear to Lecrae that much of Christianity "has become so politicized" because people failed to choose God's Kingdom and instead "chosen an empire." He explained that God's Kingdom must not be "divided by political empires," which is what is happening today. The Christian rapper advised people that it is acceptable to "have differing views or opinions" but unacceptable to refuse to "listen to one another."
