From The Junkyard To The Schoolyard

For those of you who think that Christian rap-metal music is an oxymoron, and possibly even that the terms Christian, rap, metal, and music are all mutually exclusive, here's an interesting look at a band that's spent the better part of a decade combining those same elements to create a very effective ministry. Matt Labash, writing for The Weekly Standard, goes touring with Junkyard Prophet.

The most compelling thing about Labash's jaunt with this group of "independent missionaries" is where they go touring--public schools. He says that their ministry was "laboring in the vineyards of near total obscurity. Or at least they did until last winter." No one was raising a fuss over a Christian band performing at public schools, yet.

That's when the left-wing blogosphere discovered them, and grew apoplectic at the notion of their existence. How dare Junkyard Prophet preach to our children, sometimes getting paid out of Department of Education funds provided to cash-strapped schools--funds that could more usefully be spent on federal initiatives like anti-bullying programs, workshops on why kids shouldn't construct crystal-meth labs, and free condoms for students who need to work out pent-up sexual frustrations after being bullied by their meth dealers.

Sounds like the left is none too happy about Junkyard Prophet headlining at Kennedy High School. (Any Kennedy, you choose.) Lest you think, however, that the right side of the political spectrum would be less compelled to throw a fit, there's more.

It will come as a great disappointment to Junkyard's leftist critics, who've assumed they're propagandistic Bush puppets, that the strongly pro-military band is also more antiwar and anti-Bush than most of the Chomsky-spewing cyberdorks who pilloried them. The band's drummer and leader, Bradlee Dean, calls Bush a "punk, lyin' stinkin' kid," and says Dick Cheney is a "straight-up liar" who he expects "will be in Hell pretty soon." He regards our two-party system as "professional wrestling," and says if he had to commit, it would be to Howard Phillips's Constitution party.

So, with the potential to tick off pretty much everybody in one way or another, what's their message? Most of it comes out of their own mistakes, and the consequences that led them to Christ. Bradlee Dean is the group's drummer, and the guy who takes the mic, after the music's gotten the kid's attention. Labash says he's about straight talk.

...he speaks about how prevention is better than cure, about how we reap what we sow, about how we are not "sick" when we fall into alcohol and drug abuse, but rather "making bad choices," about corny notions like right and wrong and the Ten Commandments, and about how our culture is afraid to state the obvious. He talks straight to the kids, without pretense or euphemism. And they seem to respond, from the buckets of testimonials the band shows me, and from the "You rock" and "Thanks for being honest" attaboys that I witness firsthand. I also hear it in my own conversations with teachers and principals, many of whom prefer the cloak of anonymity as they quietly root for these Christian rockers. One teacher tells me that it's not the public school's place to parent the kids, but since the parents aren't doing it, somebody should.

There's a lot more to this look at a "Christian rap-metal band," and Labash's writing is hilarious. You get to know the band members a bit, through his eyes. I could tell there were things I would agree with them about, and things I REALLY wouldn't, but either way I admire their dedication to a ministry that doesn't give them many perks, and does give them a good deal of trials. Read the article and you'll see what I mean.