“Christian” by Zior Park, Sunday, July 16, 2023

There are some general rules about music that gets consumed by Evangelical audiences in the United States. Except for the very conservative fundamentalist Christians, Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) can take any genre from Doo Wop to Hip Hop, from Folk to Death Metal. As for the content, though, Christian music usually refrains from using profanity and tends to shy away from anything that is grotesque, though metal albums certainly pushed the envelope in the ‘90s and ‘00s. While releases from progressive bands on Tooth & Nail and competing record labels started including less theology in lyrics, for the most part, the theology on a CCM record was in line with the dreaded televangelist on every cable channel on Sunday mornings. 

I’M STILL FUCKING CHRISTIAN. Every blanket statement I wrote in the introductory paragraph has been challenged by one band or another in the ‘90s or ‘00s Christian bookstore, and when the evangelical gatekeepers of the Christian bookstore closed in the ‘10s, a flood of “Christian” music created by different voices entered the market, from Emery’s BadChristian Label to Tooth & Nail Records releasing explicit to Internet campaigns sending openly queer artist Semler to the number 1 spot on Billboard’s Christian albums. What has been considered part of the “Christian” label has been an interesting evolution and debate, especially in the age of self-publication and bedroom pop. But as my personal politics started leaning left of my upbringing, I stopped paying attention to the center of evangelical Christianity. And by losing sight of the center, I didn’t realize that Christianity was also evolving in another way. But this became so clear in 2016 when evangelicals elected President Trump, a “baby Christian” who was the antithesis of every value I was raised with. 

SEX MAKES ME FEEL BETTER. HOW COULD YOU JUDGE ME?  I’ve talked a lot about 2016 and Trump and it’s getting pretty old, but still, I wonder, what’s Christian about withholding rights from others? Christianity has turned into a culture war more set on withholding rights from certain communities rather than about personal piety. And that’s happening internationally. The branding is now “have as much straight sex as you want” “curse like a motherfucking sailor” and “earn money and support the culture war,” but people of the LGBTQ community are so much more immoral than the life of excess they are leading. This oppressive form of Christianity has brought draconian laws to Africa and is empowering the religious minority in South Korea to oppose the free speech of the LGBTQ+ community. But that may or may not have anything to do with today’s song. Honestly, I don’t get “Christian” by Seoul-born, California-based rapper Zior Park, who is part of a new TikTok voice of Korean Hip Hop. I’ve heard the song maybe twice in public—in trendy brunch restaurants. The English lyrics are disgusting. The video is hilarious and grotesque. Park appears androgynous, which in the Korean market is not necessarily LGBTQ+ friendly, but I don’t know what statement the rapper is trying to make when he talks about being “still fucking Christian.” Is it satire about hypocrisy? Is it pride in Christian identity? Is it re-copting the label on his own terms? The song makes me think about the episode of The Other Two in which Chase Dreams (an obvious Justin Bieber parody) joins a mega church that seems to be based on Hillsong. The episode shows many celebrities joining the church without any kind of character transformation, but rather a new sanctification of their previous “sinful lifestyles”—and a new hatred for gay people. I worry that this is what the Korean Hip Hop scene has done with millennials and Gen Z—turned up the “Christian Pride” as a bullying force. That’s the impression I get from the translated lyrics of “Christian rappers” like BewhY and C JAMM. But perhaps I’m judging too much.

 Read the lyrics on Genius.