(Read Part 1)

Today, June 16, marks the birthday of Tupac Shakur, one or rap’s most famed and beloved rappers. Beyond that, Tupac presented many with a discourse of the urban life from an urbanites perspective. Tupac created a space for the “thug” to be heard and better understood. Tupac presents a myriad of paradox’s however; the language he chose to use can be offensive to some; his views on sexulity were distasteful to others; his media image portrayed him as an outlaw and someone who didn’t’ care about anything or anyone; his views on Christ made him a blasphemer, and heretic. What do we do with all this? For me, that is exactly where God begins to show up and theology happens.

Tupac presents a modern day, post soul, evangelistic perspective. Here is why…

(These are excerpts & adaptations from my book Heaven Has A Ghetto: The Missiological Gospel & Theology of Tupac Amaru Shakur VDM Academic 2010; Ch. 12)

Tupac was not a trained theologian, pastor, or evangelist. However, having a formal degree and training never qualified anyone from doing “God’s work.” Still, Tupac never really came to any solid conclusions about on a theology of the ‘hood. He began the discussion, but because of his early death, never finished the mantra of a ghetto Gospel. What follows here is a conversation about using Tupac as a pre-evangelist to begin the conversation about who Jesus is to an individual’s life. Tupac did that for many, but he was not the “finish” line for people’s walk with Jesus; he was the concrete foundation of the step that begins a journey with The Christ.

Within a post soul context emerges a new kind of prophet— a prophet that is able to engage culture, deal with conflict, create connective narrative, generate community, dispel the traditional powers, and call people to a higher level. Tupac fulfills that prophetic role.[1] He provides a new theological mainframe that follows Herbert Edwards (1975)[2] tenants of establishing a new theological foundation.[3]

Tupac argues the inadequacy of the previous and existing theologies for the present Crisis—e.g. poverty, recidivism rates for young urban males, racism, and classism. Tupac never once questioned, called out, blasphemed, or cursed the name of the Lord. Not once did he refer to Jesus in a negative or blasphemous way. However, Tupac did call out the church, traditional forms of religion, irrelevant orthodoxical methods, and current methods of evangelism. Tupac challenges youth workers, pastors, and church officials in their morals, ethics, values, and theological understanding. Moreover, Tupac argued that the current Christian theological mantra was not working and needed major changes in order to reach a new generation—and this was over a decade ago, imagine what he would say now!

Tupac establishes and proves its adequacy for the present crisis: Pac set up the mantra of Thug Life, this mantra was not about robbing, violence, or street life, but more about connection to the people who the church has deemed “sinners.” Tupac called out the old theologies of the modern[4] church, and replaced the former with the Thug Life, Black Jesuz, and his own Gospel message. Tupac critically challenged the traditional fibers of theology while giving solid solutions for ‘hood matters. Tupac also raised such questions as:[5]

·         Why is the pastor the only one who can know and talk to God?

·         Where is the older generation when we need their help?

·         Why does the pastor have to preach these heaven and hell sermons to scare young people into following God?

·         Where is He or She at when we need a Jesuz we can pray to?

Tupac’s theological view establishes its continuity with normative expressions of faith. Tupac was not preaching a “new God” or saying that Jesus was not the Christ. In fact, quite the opposite was happening with Tupac’s theological view. Tupac was merely establishing a new theology for the ‘hood, Hip Hop youth, and for those people that are considered to be marginal and “outside” the church’s view of salvation. Tupac wanted these types of people to have salvation too. But, the traditional means of obtaining that “salvation” were blocked by Christians who could not see a different way to the Cross—this continues today. Tupac, if he had lived, wanted to establish not only a Hip Hop political party, but a “church” community for the ‘hood; a church that was contextualized for the inner city and with leaders who came from the community, but more importantly, also understood that the “old-way” was not working and that there needed to be a change.

On this birthday, I reflect on the prophetic voice of not only my generation, but for any generation that has been marginalized, oppressed, and or told they were a “nobody” in this society. Tupac presents a gospel that one can move out of the situation and space they are in to a better place—even if that “place” in a mindset and worldview. Tupac created a sacred space for those in a profane world to come to know who God is in a better light.

Cut short at the tender age of 25, we lost a prophet and a figure that went beyond celebrity into visionary. Tupac would have been 39. Godspeed Pac, see you at the crossroads brutha!