From Matt Labash’s article What would Jesus rap? On the road with Junkyard Prophet, apostles to the public schools, May 15, 2006 in the Weekly Standard:

When the history of Christian rap-metal music is finally written, I pray to the Lord of Hosts that I don’t have to read it. But if that fate should befall me, I’d feel gypped if it didn’t include an extended encomium to the boys from Junkyard Prophet. ...

Unless you’re one of the students, teachers, or custodians sweeping out the gym at the public high school assemblies where they play and speak as part of their “You Can Run But You Cannot Hide” ministry, you’ve likely never heard of the Minneapolis-based quartet. In order to maintain control of their content and to ensure that they can keep playing schools instead of clubs or more marketable venues, they’ve turned down label offers, electing to put out their own CDs. ...

Their sound is grease-bucket funky, with miter-saw guitar work over a tight, bass-heavy rap/rock hybrid, in the vein of Rage Against the Machine and Limp Bizkit on the secular side, P.O.D. and Pillar on the Christian one. ...

Their songs do without the secular genre’s f-bombs and pimp talk. But the group makes up for it by sounding like saggy-pants Elijahs standing on Mount Carmel, summoning down Jehovah-thrown firebolts. You can call Junkyard Prophet many things, but “light touches” isn’t one of them. They take it to the unsaved (Gonna burn in hell if it’s not God you pleasin’ / What you gonna do when your lungs stop breathin’ / Reign with the King or burn with the heathen) to Christian hypocrites (Playin’ the game / Blasphemin’ His name / For the gain and fame / Your claim is vain / Your walk is lame) to the current presidential administration (Homeland plus security / Equals nothing but democratic slavery / Exposin’ your conspiracy / Pack your bags, get your butt back to Germany). ...

[Drummer Bradlee Dean] and friends have elected to turn their music and ministry over to bringing kids hard truths. To not just look at those smirky adolescents wearing their DARE shirts ironically, and tell them it’s okay to say no to drugs as they’ve been told thousands of times before…

Bradley would rather stress that it’s morally wrong to do drugs, and that their lives are heading for destruction if they persist. “We’re not coming in with boxing gloves saying we’re going to knock your teeth out,” he says. “No, no. God loves you. But I’m going to tell you the truth and show you how much He loves you. You have to make a choice. Love warns, bro. It doesn’t want people to go over the cliff and crash.”

Junkyard Prophet is one of many attempts at translating the Jesus of AD 33 into the heart language of post-modern, seen- and heard-it-all secular westernism. Jesus doesn’t need marketing, but he does need explanation.

It isn’t recorded that Jesus ever wrote anything down. What is recorded is that he had conversations with people, he told stories and parables, he explained God in the language of the day using a metaphorical, cultural vocabulary that his audience could relate to.

Jesus was a translator, an interpreter. He explained God, life, faith and truth using the vernacular. He lived in such a way that his very life would serve as an exemplar to his contemporaries, and to us today.

Music is a language that every generation speaks and claims as its own. Art has always been an effective means for touching the heart with the truths of the gospel.

Christian rap is controversial in some circles, but Junkyard Prophet is merely trying to be obedient to the “great commission.”

How do we who make up the modern-day body of Christ effectively translate Jesus into the vernacular of our modern world?