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TOP 250 HOLY HIP HOP SONGS
Los Angeles/Atlanta/New York (April 26, 2018) –ChristianHipHop.com announced its Official List of Top 250 Holy Hip Hop Songs, From Ministers of the Gospel over the past 20+ years (1996-2018), that are enlightening the community, changing the paradigm and steadily elevating the Holy Hip Hop Genre of music ministry (a/k/a - christian hip hop, hip hop gospel, gospel hip hop, gospel rap, christian rap, hip hop ministry) to higher ground worldwide in furtherance of the global movement/mission to Take The Gospel To The Streets, as follows:
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I Am That I Am - Cross Movement
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It Don't Stop - Mr. Del
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Hallelujah All Day - Datin
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Preacher Man - Canton Jones
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Resistance Iz Futile - Corey Red & Precise
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Cost of Blood – Sincere Israel
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Favor – Ambassador
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OhKay - K-Drama
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Few Are Chosen - Lil Raskull
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Not Soft - Cash Hollistah
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Call Em Out - Dre Marshall
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Passion - R. Swift
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King - Bravo
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Motivation - This'l
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Give Yo Life – Pettidee
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FireProof - F.T.F.
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Solar-Powered - Brinson
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P31 – Murk
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Changed - Hansoul
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In The Air - 2Edge
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Hip-Hop Music - Phanatik
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Fall - Sevin
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Righteous - Fro
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Die Daily - Sean Slaughter
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Tell The World - Lecrae
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I'm A Christian - Bizzle
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Head Up High - Rawsrvnt
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I'll Be Good - Gospel Gangstaz
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Fired Up - Infamous
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Reach - WayneJTM
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My Lane - Dre Murray
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All The Way - The Watchman
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Out of Here - Garett Lee
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Let Me In - Zion
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Why Can't They Hear Me - KNINE
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4-U - K-Love
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Feel Good Music - Minister Blak
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Virtuous Woman - Tragedy
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Wait - State
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Where My Christians At - Dice Gamble
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Jumpin - Derek Minor
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Dear Slim - KJ-52
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Blowin Up - Hallel P
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Round Em Up - Canon
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Get Live (He Alive) - Fedel
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Way Up - Tedashii
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I Ain't Runnin - Desciple
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That's What You Are - D. Reed
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Rockstar - Cheno Lyfe
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Worthy - Brother Dre
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So Blessed - J. Kwest
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Out Tha Box - Easop
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Dont Be Mad - BB-Jay
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Y U Runnin - XROSS
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Until I Pass Out - Uncle Reece
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Holy Ghost Fire - T-Haddy
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Praise Him - Shei Atkins
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1234 - JD Eyebrows
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HodgePodge - Kambino
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Young, Fly & Saved – M3
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In Da Streetz - 2Five
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National Anthem - Mark J
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Turn This Up - T-Bone
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Work It Out - Erica Mason
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Lets Go - D-M.A.U.B.
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All I Have – NF
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The Gaze - Proverb Newsome
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Come On - Breeve Eazy
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Let It Glow - TP9
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Poison - Double
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Salute - True
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Champion - Warriors of The Cross
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Rock – Ty Scott
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Belongs To You - Damion Orlando
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Grace and Mercy - Swisaboi
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Choose This Day - Todd Tense
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Backslider - Sandor
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Stop Playin - Tre-9
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Rep Christ Yal - Doulos
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Set Us On Fire - Tawanna Ross
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The King – Brother Mario
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Rollin - NAK Daniels
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Tap In – Zelus
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Let's Get It - 1KPhew
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Tuff - J.A.Z.
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Party - Dfizzle Mayne
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Repent Or Perish - Obadiah-1
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I Believe – Holy Hot Boyz
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The Warning – Bari Tunstill
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Finally Here - Chozen
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Unorthodox - Urban D
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Sweet Victory - Trip Lee
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Real Love - Buckbarnabas
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Clarion Call – Army of the Lord Champions
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Dive – Social Club Misfits
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Church Gone Wild - Future Kid
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Elder Road - S.O.
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I Believe – KB
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Get It Str8 - Lil Dre
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Hope - Da Truth
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Rapid Fire - Keep The Word
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Lev. 11:45 – C.Micah
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Do What It Do - Richie Righteous
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Passing Blessings - Keylin Santana
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You Can't Stop Me – Andy Mineo
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Illusions - Choze
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I'm In The Streets - Japhia Life
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Snap Bounce - The Clergy
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Big Tymin - Scooda
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100Ms - Chris Elijah
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Eternity – Brandi Booth
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Forever - Rio24K
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Pray - LANDR
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Ravens - Least of All (L.O.A.)
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SWRVN - CJ King
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So What - Suzy Rock
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In Satan's Name - Bruthaz Grimm
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All Inclusive 2Nite - STIKK
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Boogie Bounce - Shonlock
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Holy Water (H20) - M.A.J.O.R.S.
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How U Doin - Nue Breed
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Swerve - K-Lee
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Going To The Top Now - HEE-Sun Lee
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For My City - J.A.M. Team
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Good or Great - Jai Dowdy
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Highest Praise - RevDeep
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Hood Like Keyshia Cole - Metroclus
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I For Jesus - Wingy Danejah
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The Dead Living - JohnThreeSixteen
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Changez - Tha GIM
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Handle It - Lil Maurice
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On My Behalf - Mario Mitchell
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Who U Seekn - Hevn Li Angel
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Hey! Hey! - Martay
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Who Is God - Mobsters of Light
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Can I Get An Ay - Willie Will
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Club Blazer - The Preachaholicz
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Raw and Uncut - Ziklag
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Ten - Zeno Suave
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March - Jirah
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Christ Crucified - Shai Linne
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God's Gift - Eastwood
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Problems - Yaves
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Reflections - O' Dion
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Blaow! – FireJaws
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All The Time - Swoope
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Divine Touch - Quinton Harris
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HelpMate - Markilo Allen
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Christ - Shadow
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Sick of My Flesh - TonyWhoa!
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Give It To You - Andre Achat
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God Is Love - Big Prophet
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Mobigga – Crunk In Da Church House
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No Greater Love - The Spiritual Lyricist
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Loose - LaToria
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Shake N Bake - 2.0
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Protected – Dale J. Evans
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Wave Dem Towels – DJ Intangibles
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Provision – Fight
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Hello – Blessed
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Soul At War – Fatal J/Young Lions
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Iron Man – JustFlo
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We Need A Savior – RiverFlow
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Stay Focused – Dking
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Sho Baraka - Marantha
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Fear Not - Theory Hazit
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I'm Alive – Authentik
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Witness– Preacherman
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Hold On – 7Tre
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Still Radical – W.A.R. Klick
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5 O' Clock - Sean C. Johnson
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Up Yonda - Rook
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Shine – The Priesthood
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This Is Me – Dynamic Twins
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U Don't Wanna – C.O.R.P. 1
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Temptation – Da Horsemen
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I Will Survive – B.L.I.N.D
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Thinkin Out Loud - Parabols
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All 4 U – iGorilla4MyLord
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Passing Us By – Kingsta
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GodBlessha – Milliyon
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Jesus On My Mind – Da Church
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One GOD – 2103
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Unusual - Sicily
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Criticize Me – Big City
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The Blood – Big Unc
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Grind N Pray – Bishop Bee
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A New Song – Brutha 2 Brutha
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Waves - Pyrexx
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Something About – GL Hodges
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I'll Go – Blazon
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Lift My Handz – Crystal Cameron
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Dedicate – Chris Fields
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Mr. 217 – Move Dat Mountain
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Let It Go – Eckspress/Tribs
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He Did It Again – Flame
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Set Free – IC Jonez
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Holy Rollers – Infinity
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Focus – Izreal
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Throw Em Off – JayMay
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Get Crunk – JCS
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66 Guns – D.O.X.
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Come Go With Me – Jita
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84 Pills – Kaleb Starr
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Fool Wit It - Big Moose
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I'm a Rida – Legions of Souls/TCO
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Studda – Odessi
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Keep Pressin On – Lil La La
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Dat Holy Girl – Lunie 3:80
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Preacher Man - Charmaine
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Brand New Me – MC Jin
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The Realness – N'aeem
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Reign - Newt Newt
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Sexual Immorality – Noah
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Dead Man Walkin – Nuwine
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Glory To God – EmceeN.I.C.E
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Just Can't Stop – Leslie Shannelle
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Changed – Princess
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Life or Death – Prime Minister
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Crazie – Rio
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Keep Goin – Boy Wonda
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Jesus Everyday – S.O.G.
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Trust On Me – Tabsoul
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Eyes of the Lord – Te Luvv
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Kill Yourself – Antonious
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Significance - Elle Roc
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Worship You – True-In-Deed
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Devil's Lies – TwinSaintz
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Rep Yahweh – Xstatic (Kuntry Wyte & Pyro)
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Hittin Dem Streets – Young Prayzr
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You Are My Help – Baby J
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I Testify – We Are The Saints
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Sovereign King – Deborah
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Count Your Blessings – K-Praize
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Choose Side - FFOR
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Cant Get Enough - Fiti Futuristic
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Imma Still – Triumph Warlord
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Get It Right – Eryk Anglin
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He Is Alive - Shamel Shiloh
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Who You Representin - IROCC
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Lay My Voice On You – Man On Fire
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A Call For Response – King David (Tha Vessel)
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Brody Raw - Pressure
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Fightin Demons – D. Hunter
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No Games – Child of Zion
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Faith On Swoll - Echo
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Show Off – Jesus Or Bust
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What It Iz – Octavia Harris
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Make It Rain – BdKold
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Anonymous – The Walking Dead
Holy Hip Hop Top 10 Most Requested Songs
LOS ANGELES, CA (April 10, 2018) – Holy Hip Hop Mobile announced its Top 10 requested songs from its digital subscriber base, as follows:
Rank | Artist | Song |
1 | Keylin Santana |
Passing Blessings |
2 | Murk |
P31 |
3 | Canon |
Round Em Up |
4 | Bravo | King |
5 | TP9 |
Let It Glow |
6 | Erica Mason | Work It Out |
7 | Tedashaii |
Jumped Out The Whip |
8 | Brother Dre | Worthy |
9 | Zeno Suave | Ten |
10 | Future Kid | Church Gone Wild |
To listen to Holy Hip Hop Mobile Top 10 at Noon Monday Through Friday on ChristianRadio.com, click/copy/paste the following link in your web-browser: -- or visit: www.CHHRadio.com .
With a desire to support local Christian radio stations, we want to point our visitors towards Christian Teaching Talk Stations and Christian Music Stations in their state from Salem Radio Network. With the ability to stream live radio online, we hope to provide a constant source of spiritual growth and encouragement. For more information and to listen now, please visit: www.ChristianRadio.com .
TOP 200 HOLY HIP HOP ARTISTS
Los Angeles/Atlanta/New York (April 4, 2018) – ChristianHipHop.com announced its Official List of Top 200 Holy Hip Hop Pioneers and Ministers of the Gospel over the past 20+ years (1996-2018) advancing the Holy Hip Hop Genre of music worldwide, as follows:
1. Cross Movement
2. Canton Jones
3. T-Bone
4. Pettidee
5. Mr. Del
6. Ambassador
7. Bizzle
8. Corey Red & Precise
9. K-Drama
10. R. Swift
11. Lil Raskull
12. Phanatik
13. D-M.A.U.B.
14. Shai Linne
15. 2Edge
16. Sho Baraka
17. Da Truth
18. Rawsrvnt
19. Tre-9
20. Sevin
21. Sean Slaughter
22. Fro
23. Kambino
24. Sincere Israel
25. J. Kwest
26. Hansoul
27. T-Haddy
28. Datin
29. Brinson
30. Lecrae
31. Trip Lee
32. Urban D
33. Fiti Futuristic
34. Minister Blak
35. Ace Infiniti
36. XROSS
37. Dre Murray
38. Buckbarnabas
39. Dice Gamble
40. Ricardo Flo
41. IDOL KINGS
42. Japhia Life
43. Richie Righteous
44. Elle Roc
45. IROCC
46. Fedel
47. Tedashii
48. Cheno Lyfe
49. 2Five
50. Desciple
51. Tha GIM
52. A-1 SWIFT
53. Gospel Gangstaz
54. Eastwood
55. Tragedy
56. This'l
57. GodSunz
58. Mark J
59. Bobby Bishop
60. LG WISE
61. Sup The Chemist
62. Ricky B. & 4Given
63. Shei Atkins
64. Andy Mineo
65. Tunnel Rats
66. JD Eyebrows
67. Brother Dre
68. Dre Marshall
69. Fros'T
70. D. Reed
71. Zion
72. Son of Jesse
73. The Priesthood
74. Colcutz
75. Ziklag
76. LA Symphony
77. STIKK
78. 116 Clique
79. Mars Ill
80. Flame
81. Rapid Fire
82. M.A.J.O.R.S.
83. Mobigga
84. Breeve Eazy
85. KNINE
86. Double
87. True
88. Warriors of The Cross
89. Shamel Shiloh
90. C. Micah
91. Damion Orlando
92. Todd Tense
93. LaToria
94. Infamous
95. IC Jonez
96. Doulos
97. Todd Bangz
98. Shy Da Gifted
99. Kuntrey Wyte & Pyro
100. Tawanna Ross
101. KJ-52
102. NAK Daniels
103. Brody Raw
104. Bruthaz Grimm
105. Light Da Flow Minister
106. K-Bizzy
107. K-Lee
108. Nova 4 Jehovah
109. Dynamic Twins
110. J.A.Z.
111. Dfizzle Mayne
112. Frankie Cutlass
113. Obadiah-1
114. The Clergy
115. Enock
116. Ty Scott
117. Sicily
118. Chozen
119. Blazon
120. Halo & Reign
121. Theory Hazit
122. Metroclus
123. KB
124. Milliyon
125. Cash Hollistah
126. CY
127. Swoope
128. Zeno Suave
129. Canon
130. WayneJTM
131. Rook
132. S.O.
133. Keylin Santana
134. Mr. 217
135. 1KPhew
136. Derek Minor
137. D.O.X.
138. Chris Elijah
139. Scooda
140. Lil Dre
141. Garett Lee
142. Rio24K
143. LANDR
144. Least of All (L.O.A.)
145. Brotha Mario
146. G-Child
147. MC Jin
148. Boy Wonda
149. Suzy Rock
150. Murk
151. Erica Mason
152. Bravo
153. Uncle Reece
154. Nue Breed
155. K-Love
156. HEE-Sun Lee
157. J.A.M. Team
158. Jai Dowdy
159. RevDeep
160. State
161. Shadow
162. Big Prophet
163. Hallel P
164. CJ King
165. Mario Mitchell
166. Hevn Li Angel
167. Prime Minister
168. Erica Cumbo
169. Antonious
170. Martay
171. Mobsters of Light
178. Willie Will
179. The Preachaholicz
180. The Watchman
181. Sean C. Johnson
182. Jirah
183. Carriers of the Cross
184. F.T.F.
185. BB-Jay
186. Yaves
187. Nuwine
188. O' Dion
189. S.O.G.
190. FireJaws
191. FFOR
192. Quinton Harris
193. Markilo Allen
194. Wingy Danejah
195. TonyWhoa!
196. Swisaboi
197. JohnThreeSixteen
198. Proverb Newsome
199. The Spiritual Lyricist
200. Sandor
Using Holy Hip Hop To Reach the Children, Youth and Adults:
A Practical Guide Grounded in Scripture From the Holy Hip Hop Music Alliance
Author: The Seventh Knight Edited By: Da Preachin Puerto Rican
Man created Hip Hop, true. But, just like paper was invented by man to put the Word of God on it and made "Holy" to be used for His Purpose, Hip Hop can also be Holy" and be used for God's Purpose also (1 Cor 10:31). The Ark of The Covenant, though made by man, was just an ark until God made it "Holy". It was so "Holy" that anyone who touched it without permission was struck dead by God; please see 1 Chronicles 13:5-13. Verse 7 within that text throws out "the beat of a drum is evil" theory.
In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus Christ gives His disciples The Great Commission to Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. As disciples of Christ, we are to share the gospel and make disciples of men. God has also given us guidance that we are to share the gospel message regardless of race, culture, or gender, according to Romans 3:29, Rom 1:16. The Apostle Paul gives us the prime example of how he became all things to all men that by all means he might win some, according to 1 Corinthians 9:19-23. In Acts 17:16-34, Paul shows how he used the existing culture of the people to preach to them Christ.
If it's for God's Purpose then God makes it "Holy". Starting in the late 70’s, in the Bronx New York, some of Hip Hop’s pioneers include DJ Cool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, Cold Crush brothers, Sugar Hill Gang, Funky Four Plus One, and many more. Even these pioneers, were influenced by the likes of Gil Scott-Heron, Marvin Gaye, and more. Hip Hop came about as a means of revolting against what was popular music at the time. Even Cab Calloway was doing "hip-hop" back in the 1930's in the form of Jazz and BeBop! It was intended to voice our feelings whether spiritual or otherwise in a way that was, shall we say, was "unconventional" at the time. Certain traditionalists believed that it would never last because it lacked substance and marketability.
Rap music from its inception has always had lyrics that were encoded to reach those who were in the streets of urban America. Even the slave songs, which by the way had God (Holy) and "rap" in them), expressed spiritual and physical themes. No different than those who were in slavery cried out to GOD from their hearts in a musical form that was relative to their culture, so too does the Hip Hop Culture cry out. Psalm 19:14 says, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.” Ephesians 4:29 says, Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.”
Let’s look at a passage of scripture from 1 Corinthians 8:1-13. Now concerning things offered to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him. Therefore concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one. For us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live. However, there is not in everyone that knowledge; for some, with consciousness of the idol, until now eat it as a thing offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. But food does not commend us to God; for neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we do not eat are we the worse. But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols? And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for who Christ died? But when you thus sin against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble. What does this mean? It means that the "food itself" is not considered unholy. It's only unholy, when the idol worshippers who specifically prepare the food to worship their false gods influence you! The same goes for music.
Again, we ask you. Can GOD take something that was unholy and make it holy? This time, let's use a "someone" instead of a "something”: Saul witnessed and approved of the stoning of "Stephen" a man full of the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:54-60). That same "Saul" became "Paul" and wrote two thirds of the New Testament. How could this be possible, if the power of God to transform is not supreme? God can be worshipped in many ways to include using "Hip Hop" to do so (1 Cor 10:31, Col 3:17), just as God used Paul to preach and spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
You know the verse "the love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Tim 6:10) well nothing is wrong with the money itself, is it? Money in itself is not evil but it can be used for evil purposes. Just look at how some people operate with it. Money can also be used for "holy" purposes like building the church, giving to those that need it from the "benevolence fund" amongst other things. The same can be said for "Hip Hop." It can be used for evil or it can be used for righteousness. Jesus said that himself earlier in Matthew 12:34-37: For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good person brings good things out of a treasure of good things; a bad person brings bad things out of a treasure of bad things. "You can be sure that on the Judgment Day you will have to give account of every useless word you have ever spoken. Your words will be used to judge you-to declare you either innocent or guilty."
Then later in Matthew 15:10-20 Then Jesus called the crowd to him and said to them, "Listen and understand! It is not what goes into your mouth that makes you ritually unclean; rather, what comes out of it makes you unclean." Then the disciples came to him and said, "Do you know that the Pharisees had their feelings hurt by what you said?" "Every plant which my Father in heaven did not plant will be pulled up," answered Jesus. "Don't worry about them! They are blind leaders of the blind; and when one blind man leads another, both fall into a ditch." Peter spoke up, "Explain this saying to us." Jesus said to them, "You are still no more intelligent than the others. Don't you understand? Anything that goes into your mouth goes into your stomach and then on out of your body. But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these are the things that make you ritually unclean. For from your heart come the evil ideas which lead you to kill, commit adultery, and do other immoral things; to rob, lie, and slander others. These are the things that make you unclean. But to eat without washing your hands as they say you should-this doesn't make you unclean."
In Genesis 3:14-19 So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."
In Exodus 3:1-10 One day while Moses was taking care of the sheep and goats of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, he led the flock across the desert and came to Sinai, the holy mountain. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him as a flame coming from the middle of a bush. Moses saw that the bush was on fire but that it was not burning up. "This is strange," he thought. "Why isn't the bush burning up? I will go closer and see." When the Lord saw that Moses was coming closer, he called to him from the middle of the bush and said, "Moses! Moses!" He answered, "Yes, here I am." God said, "Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals, because you are standing on "holy ground." I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." So Moses covered his face, because he was afraid to look at God. Then the Lord said, "I have seen how cruelly my people are being treated in Egypt; I have heard them cry out to be rescued from their slave drivers. I know all about their sufferings, and so I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians and to bring them out of Egypt to a spacious land, one which is rich and fertile and in which the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites now live. I have indeed heard the cry of my people, and I see how the Egyptians are oppressing them. Now I am sending you to the king of Egypt so that you can lead my people out of his country."
What can we conclude from this? THE EARTH WAS CURSED BY GOD AS RESULT OF SATAN'S ACTION AND ADAM'S SIN, AND YET GOD MADE A PART OF THE EARTH "HOLY" TO CALL MOSES!! He told Moses to "take the sandals off your feet for the place in which you stand is HOLY GROUND!" (Exodus 3:5) If God can make a "part" of the "Cursed Earth" "Holy," then are we, as Christians, doubting what our "Father" can do?" Would we dare to say that God can speak through a donkey, but not through Hip Hop? Of Course Not! Just like with any information, we have to be careful of how we interpret it (2 Tim 2:15). Remember, Satan can make what seems "right" wrong and what seems "wrong" hidden.
Hip Hop can be Holy to serve Our Master, Jesus Christ. Music is neither good nor bad in itself but it depends on what the purpose of it is for by the individual. How it's used determines it's value; whether it's used for God or whether it's use for Satan. The word "Holy" in the Bible means to "separate or set apart for God's use or for special use." Hip Hop is a music genre. It has no "intrinsic" qualities of good or bad. You and I both know that the words to songs carry the major part of their value. I say major because the music also make a contribution to the message of the song. The basic formula for music is Lyrics + Melody = A Song.
The Bible says in John 6:63, The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. The spirit that is influencing a person when he/she creates the lyrics or music is the key to being holy. Then, the spirit that is influencing the person doing the song determines the power that is released in the selection. So the music genre is not as much the issue as the spirit that influences the creation of the material.
What is most important is that one seek The Father and find out what HIS will is according to scripture (Acts 17:11). Find a quiet place with no distractions and read the word, and meditate on it until you get understanding, and seek spiritual counsel from mature believers who are knowledgeable in GOD’s word (Proverbs 4:7, 11:14). This synopsis is presented with scripture as the guidance and the Holy Spirit as the counsel (Heb 4:12, John 16:13). Just because it's not the “traditional method” doesn't mean that Ministers of the Gospel can't use this method to spread the Word of God (Mat 28:18-20).
It's not the music that's the enemy. It's the presentation of the fruit. If the masses are continually fed "sour lemons" then the demand for lemons will continue because it's what they are "used" to and have become dependent on. If you turn those same sour lemons into "lemonade” (pressed and sweetened by the Word of GOD), then the masses will gain a new taste and this is what the enemy fears.
GOD has made Hip Hop Holy! Now use it to establish His Kingdom in the Earth and win them back one at a time – James 5:20 – Amen.
Rap’s IV Horseman Flips Holy Hip-Hop On It’s Back
Ric Flair , Arn Anderson , Ole Anderson , and Tully Blanchard , better known as the Four Horsemen, were the biggest threat in the mid 1980’s era of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). In every NWA promo they talked trash about the competition, flaunted their title belts, and backed up their trash talk in the ring. Their tight knit group has been described as the reason the NWA survived as long as it did.
Although the wrestling league is no longer around, the legacy of The Four Horsemen is long lasting and has inspired battle rap’s Christian artists whose rap group goes by the same name, but stylized with Roman Numerals.
Th3 Saga (a URL battler who came up from URL’s Proving Ground), A-Ward (who battles mostly on King of The Dot and is in the running for the KOTD championship chain), Street Hymns (a backpacking wordsmith who battles on Bullpen Battle League), and Loso (a free agent who many believe is the next guy to take over battle rap) are The IV Horsemen . And although the name their team bares is a wrestling and not a biblical reference, the quartet does share one thing in common – their religion.
“Violence is like the native language of battle rap,” Th3 Saga tells The Source . “We’ve grown to a place where killing people in battle rap or talking about anything negative are the norm.”
Th3 Saga, born in Brooklyn, New York, got his start in battle rap on the Smack/URL platform. He quickly got recognized as one of the top battlers of his class because he has a different approach to battling. What set him apart from his class was how he was able to entertain battle fans while subtly passing along a God inspired message.
Battle rappers today center their lyrics on insults, personal attacks, jokes, and above all, gun lines. The ten gauge, the nine, the blickie, the AR, the “gun so big I had to drag it home.” All these different schemes rappers use to dramatize their arsenal and the fans not only eat it up but demand and expect it.
So how do Christian rappers fit into this scene?
“I’ve been through plenty of situations where I shouldn’t have survived,” said Saga. “Shootouts and everything. Just because I’m Christian does not mean I’m perfect.”
Although the 26-year-old rapper has experienced things relevant to the battle culture, he found his way out of it and found his calling with God. But still, Saga doesn’t omit his past when preparing for a battle.
“I want to speak to you in your language. I want to leave you with something substantial enough that when you weed past the gun bars, when you weed past the nonsense, you’re going to gain something that you could actually go home with [and think] ‘that’s crazy.’” said Saga.
Th3 Saga’s religious background is traceable back to his grandfather who has his own church in Brooklyn, the same church Saga grew up in. The same cannot be said for Loso, who didn’t find religion until his early 20’s.
“I thought it was corny,” Loso states. I didn’t want anything to do with a life devoted to the Lord. He really came and interrupted my life.”
Raised on rap music, Loso didn’t touch a mic until after he found Christianity – so his lyrics always carried a religious message. In his first ever battle in 2015, Loso sent shockwaves throughout his hometown of Tampa, reaffirming that he was on the right path that eventually led him to Street Hymns.
“I met [Street Hymns] entering a rap competition… it brought out the top ten rappers from around the country to Chicago. We went against each other in the first round.”
Loso went on to win the competition, and although there was no talk at the time of forming a group, Loso and Street Hymns did make a connection following their battle.
The last of the Horsemen is A-Ward, a Knoxville native currently residing in Kansas City, whose older brother introduced him to Nas and the Wu-tang Clan at a young age. Like Loso, when A-Ward took up rap he had already found his faith. In his early teens, A-Ward started going to church and rapping around the same time.
“In high school I became familiar with Smack DVDs through my older brother. In 2002 I became a fan of battle rap – I watched it for over 10 years before I started [battling],” A-Ward reveals.
In 2015, A-Ward got his first battle and has continued to climb up the King of the Dot ranks currently chasing the championship chain currently held by Head I.C.E..
In a lot of ways, although Th3 Saga was the founder of the group, Street Hymns was the connection that brought everyone together. A-Ward had already heard of Street Hymns just off the buzz he was creating in Dallas and linking up through mutual friends. Street Hymns cosigned A-Ward when speaking to Saga who linked with A-Ward via social media. Street Hymns also had the connection to Loso from the rap competition, so it was only a matter of time before the four artists banded together.
Rather than just call themselves The IV Horsemen and make their rounds in the battle scene, they want to try something more ambitious. The group plans to organize a nationwide tour – performing their music, 2 on 2 battles, selling merchandise and ending each show with a panel discussion to talk about faith.
Aside from performances, the four rappers maintain a group chat where they pray for each other, offer advice, provide words of wisdom, and “sharpen each other’s swords,” Loso says, meaning keeping each other on point not with just battling but being better men in all aspects of life.
“It’s like the end of the NBA season,” said A-Ward. You have LeBron working out with Karl Anthony-Towns and Anthony Davis – We’re rappers on the same level working out together.”
“… I want to make sure that anybody I associate with has the same heart for God and that we can follow the same path – that we’re not steering each other off the path,” said Saga. “We feel like we’re really called by God to be that seed in Battle rap.”
Having already planted seeds in the battle leagues, only time will tell how far The IV Horsemen take their careers.
Source: TheSource.com
Silicon Valley’s surveillance capitalism has resulted in Big Tech killing off human privacy
By admin, 2018-02-11
Steve Hilton: Silicon Valley’s surveillance capitalism has resulted in Big Tech killing off human privacy
By Steve Hilton | Fox News
The case against Big Tech seems to be building by the week. And interestingly, some of the most powerful evidence is being provided by those who really know what they’re talking about: tech insiders.
Full disclosure: I am a tech insider myself. I run a tech company in Silicon Valley. My wife is a senior executive at Facebook and many of our closest friends have senior roles in companies like Google.
If you suspect Bitcoin is going to crash, I just want you to know, you're right. Here is the truth about Bitcoin that no one else will tell you.
Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive responsible for growing the social network’s user base, recently argued that Silicon Valley had “created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.”
Palihapitiya lamented Big Tech’s role in our democratic debates: “No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem – this is not about Russian ads. This is a global problem.”
He cited the role of mobile messaging service WhatsApp (owned by Facebook) in the killings of seven innocent men in India after hoax messages about strangers abducting children were shared.
“That’s what we’re dealing with,” Palihapitiya said. “And imagine taking that to the extreme, where bad actors can now manipulate large swathes of people to do anything you want. It’s just a really, really bad state of affairs.” He said he tries to use Facebook as little as possible, and that his children “aren’t allowed to use that s---.”
His comments are in line with another huge figure in tech, early Facebook investor Sean Parker, who blasted the addictive properties of Silicon Valley’s technology: “God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”
Parker argued that Facebook “literally changes your relationship with society” and “probably interferes with productivity in weird ways.”
Parker said that because the whole point of Facebook is to keep people using it. He said “the thought process … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’” That’s why the inventors of tech services like Facebook give their users “a little dopamine hit every once in a while,” for example through ‘likes’ and comments: “It’s a social-validation feedback loop ... exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”
Parker went on to say that the men who designed and built these social media platforms, like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram’s Kevin Systrom, “understood consciously” what they were doing. “And we did it anyway.”
Many commentators have made the comparison between these insider admission and the moment when the tobacco companies finally admitted that their products kill people. No one has suggested that technology actually kills people by design. But in other ways, the case against Big Tech is even more damning than the case against Big Tobacco, simply because Big Tech is so much more powerful and plays so much greater a role in our modern world.
The tech companies love the fact that they have risen to the apex of the business pile. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft top the list of the world’s most valuable corporations.
The companies love to boast in high-minded terms about how their mission is not something as mundane as making money. No, they are all about “changing the world,” as Apple CEO Tim Cook recently claimed. Well, with all that wealth and power comes influence. And increasingly, despite our Silicon Valley overlords’ self-regarding and cloyingly sanctimonious smugness, it’s not for the good.
Let’s look at the charge sheet. It goes well beyond the “addiction admissions” of whistleblowing insiders like Sean Parker and Chamath Palihapitiya.
Because the business model of many of these tech firms relies on selling ads, their relentless focus is on gathering data on their users – that would be you – to enable advertisers to better target their messages.
With a phone in everyone’s pocket, these companies can now literally track your every move. And the creepiness seems to get worse by the day. Only this week we heard that clothing company L.L. Bean said it is planning to install sensors into some of its boots and coats to track how they’re used.
This intense data-gathering of your most intimate decisions – where you go, who you talk to, what you like or don’t like – is only going to get worse. With new “home assistants” like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home, Big Tech is now right at the heart of family life.
Children are growing up talking to Alexa as if “she” is a member of the family. Silicon Valley is actively exploring computer chips that would be inserted into people’s brains, so that artificial intelligence software can be “merged” with human thought.
Who owns all this data and what will happen to it? Quite apart from the sheer creepiness of tech companies wanting to invade your brain, we know from recent experience that literally everything can be hacked – whether by criminals or foreign governments like China that hacked our own government and stole millions of Americans’ most personal data.
Silicon Valley’s surveillance capitalism has killed off human privacy. Did anyone ask them to do that? They say people want the convenience of data-enabled services – but for most people, there’s no alternative. If everyone else is on Facebook you have to be there too, and you can only do that if you tick the box that signs away your privacy forever.
Artificial intelligence, of course, is not just about invading your privacy: it’s assaulting our economy too. Studies predict that huge swaths of jobs will be destroyed by Big Tech as it advances into new areas of economic activity and automates jobs from truck driving to accounting.
Silicon Valley’s only response to the economic devastation it’s about to unleash on American workers is to push forward the idea of a “Universal Basic Income” – a government wage regardless of whether you work.
Translation: “We, your tech overlords will be doing all the interesting work. Sadly, there won’t be any jobs left for you serfs – but don’t worry, we’ll makes sure the government gives you some money so you can sit around all day and make the most of your newfound leisure time. Enjoy, little people!”
Big Tech’s baleful economic impact extends to another disastrous feature of our modern economy: a stifling of competition. This has contributed to the lowest level of start-ups in decades, and the wage stagnation that has hurt American workers so badly.
When sector after sector in our economy ends up being dominated by a handful of giant corporations, workers lose their bargaining power. This trend is made worse by the growing dominance of the tech companies that are not only dominating their own markets – whether that’s in media, through ad sales, or book retailing – but in fundamental aspects of business life. Just try starting a business these days without using Google, Facebook or Amazon products.
The one marketplace that Silicon Valley has not yet managed to dominate, however, is China. But it’s not for want of trying. Companies like Apple and Google are desperately sucking up to the brutal authoritarian communist regime in China in order to gain access to the vast market.
But in the process, our own leading companies are aiding and abetting China’s plan for world domination by handing over technology – like artificial intelligence – that China will use against us.
And finally let’s not forget the role of Silicon Valley in shaping our culture and the way we think. Sometimes you see it in pernicious side effects of automated systems for getting users to consume content.
We saw this this week with the Wall Street Journal’s expose of YouTube’s role in pushing its users towards extreme videos and conspiracy theories. But frankly, we can also see this in the manifestation of the liberal bias that pervades Silicon Valley and the tech industry.
We will reveal shocking new evidence of Big Tech’s anti-conservative and even anti-religious bias on “The Next Revolution” this Sunday as we put Big Tech on Trial. Hope you can join us at 9 p.m. EST on Fox News Channel!
Source: (c) FoxNews.com -- http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/02/10/steve-hilton-silicon-valley-s-surveillance-capitalism-has-resulted-in-big-tech-killing-off-human-privacy.html
In China, a church-state showdown of biblical proportions
Christianity is booming in China, propelling it toward becoming the world's largest Christian nation. But as religion grows, it spurs a government crackdown.
HANGZHOU, CHINA — There’s nothing secret about Chongyi Church, one of the largest in China . Its lighted steeple and giant cross penetrate the night sky of Hangzhou , the capital of coastal Zhejiang Province . Nearly everything at the church is conspicuously open: the front gate, the front door, the sanctuary, the people, the clergy. Chinese or not, you are welcome seven days a week. No layers of security guards or police exist. Walk right in. Join up. People are nice; they give you water, chat. Do you have spiritual needs? Visit their offices, 9 to 5.
For China, it is a stunning feeling. Most of the society exists behind closed doors and is tough, driven, material, hierarchical. The country values wealth, power, and secrecy – not to mention that both government and schools officially, at least, promote atheism.
Yet Chongyi looks and feels like any evangelical megachurch in Seattle or San Jose. There are big screens, speakers blaring upbeat music, coffee bars. The choir is a huge swaying wash of white and red robes. Chongyi seats 5,000 people and holds multiple services on Sunday.
“Some Sundays we are full,” says Zhou Lianmei, the pastor’s wife. “We also have 1,600 volunteers.”
While Christianity is waning in many parts of the world, in China it is growing rapidly – despite state strictures. The rise in evangelical Protestantism in particular, driven both by people’s spiritual yearnings and individual human needs in a collective society, is taking place in nearly every part of the nation.
Western visitors used to seeing empty sanctuaries in the United States or Europe can be dumbfounded by the Sunday gatherings held in convention center-size buildings where people line up for blocks to get in – one service after another. In Wenzhou, not far from Hangzhou, an estimated 1.2 million Protestants now exist in a city of 9 million people alone. (It is called “China’s Jerusalem.”) By one estimate, China will become the world’s largest Christian nation, at its current rate of growth, by 2030.
Indeed, an acute problem facing urban churches in China is a lack of space. Chongyi Church is building a million-dollar underground parking lot to replace one that worshipers under age 30 have taken over as a meeting place.
“I come because I found a love here that isn’t dependent on a person,” says Du Wang, a young businesswoman in Hangzhou. “It is like a river that doesn’t go away.”
Yet there is also trouble brewing for China’s faithful. As evangelical Christianity grows sharply, officials fear it could undermine their authority. Already, Christians may outnumber members of the Communist Party. That has far-reaching implications both for Chinese society and for a party that frowns on unofficial gatherings and other viewpoints. In China, party members cannot be Christian.
More than half of China’s Protestants attend illegal “house churches” that meet privately. The rest go to one of China’s official, registered Protestant churches, such as Chongyi. The official or legal churches, known since 1949 as the “Three-Self Patriotic Church,” operate under an arrangement that says in effect: We are patriotic, good citizens. We love China. We aren’t dissidents. We go to official theology schools. So the party will let us worship freely.
And – until recently – it has.
Yet in the past year authorities have attacked and even destroyed official Protestant churches, as well as unofficial ones. Many Evangelicals feel they are now on the front lines of an invisible battle over faith in the world’s most populous nation, and facing a campaign by the party-state to delegitimize them. Underneath it all is a question: Will China become a new fount of Christianity in the world, or the site of a growing clash between the party and the pulpit?
“There’s an enormous struggle across China brought by the rise of worshipers that seem to really believe,” says Terence Halliday, a director of the Center for Law and Globalization in Chicago who has worked in China. “Christianity now makes up the largest single civil society grouping in China. The party sees that.”
• • •
When China opened and rejoined the world in 1979, US President Jimmy Carter asked China’s Deng Xiaoping for three “favors.” Mr. Carter asked that churches shut during the brutal Cultural Revolution be reopened. He asked that the printing of Bibles resume. And he asked that missionaries be allowed back into China. Mr. Deng accepted the first two requests, for open churches and Bibles. But he rejected the one for missionaries.
Thus began a slow restoration process harking back more than a century. The first Protestant church in China was built in 1848 in Xiamen, known then as the Port of Amoy. By the 20th century, American and British missionaries saw China as a rich field. Every city of importance had a church. Missionaries founded China’s first 16 colleges, and they spurred the first reforms for female emancipation.
But after Mao Zedong’s victory in 1949, authorities chased out the missionaries. During the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1972, officials closed and trashed churches as China turned violently inward. Mao partly justified the violence as necessary to bring China into the 20th century. But much of it was used to kill off his enemies, real or imagined, including the faithful.
The era produced “the most thorough destruction” of religion possibly in “human history,” write scholars David Palmer and Vincent Goossaert. Authorities threw Christians in prison. They burned Bibles and executed believers to make an example.
Philip Wickeri, a leading Anglican in Hong Kong, shows visitors two Bibles that illustrate how far things went in the 1960s, and how much they have changed since. One is a small plain New Testament made of mimeographed sheets embossed with hand-written Chinese characters. It is a Cultural Revolution-era “samizdat” Bible, painstakingly produced. Different church cells memorized parts of the Gospels, copied them, and then combined them to form a single New Testament. The shadowy venture lasted several years, during which 150 Bibles were made.
Mr. Wickeri’s second Bible is gilt-edged and nestled in a rich box of bamboo. It is dated 2012 and was produced by the Amity Printing Company in Nanjing. It was part of a run that included the 100 millionth Bible published in China since the opening in the early 1980s.
• • •
For decades, Christianity here was considered something for older female peasants. But the demographics of religion are changing dramatically. China’s new faithful are younger, more educated, more urban, and more affluent.
One surprising change is that a majority of believers no longer view Christianity as something foreign. They increasingly view faith as transcending its Western missionary-derived system. Many Chinese no longer accept the idea that being Christian means forfeiting a Chinese identity.
Last summer, China’s religious affairs chief said that 500,000 Christians are baptized each year in the country. A joint study between Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and Peking University in Beijing estimated that there are now 70 million Christians over age 16 in China. Communist Party membership is about 83 million.
Even so, no precise numbers exist for the total number of worshipers. Chinese government statistics put the rise in Protestants in the official churches at 800,000 in 1979, 3 million in 1982, 10 million in 1995, and 15 million in 1999. There the accounting stops.
Carsten Vala, an expert on religion in China at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore, says 40 million to 60 million is “the low end of a conservative” estimate of the number of Evangelicals. Fenggang Yang, director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University in Indiana, says he thinks there are more than 80 million Christians and that China will have 245 million by 2030 if growth is steady – making it the world’s most populous Protestant nation.
In some ways this surge seems counterintuitive. Being a Christian in a country that sees worship as odd or superstitious does nothing to boost one’s status. “There is absolutely no social advantage to being a Christian in China,” says Bob Fu, a pastor who escaped a Chinese police crackdown in the 1990s and now runs Texas-based ChinaAid, which monitors Christian rights in the country. “There are no cookies, no status, no outward rewards, no privileges in choosing Christianity.”
Yet as Chinese achieve material wealth and success, many feel lost. The success of economic reforms under Chinese leader Deng, launched in the early 1990s, has not helped rebuild China’s spiritual infrastructure, decimated during war and the Cultural Revolution. China’s rise has come with a cost: a loss of traditional values and the rise of cheating, corruption, and fierce competition. As Orville Schell, the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on US-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York, points out, there are 150 billionaires in China but little certainty.
“Everyone is groping and grasping,” he says. “People are turning to Buddhism, Christianity, self-help, and Taoism. CEOs and billionaires run around with their spiritual masters and visit meditation rooms.”
In dozens of interviews with believers in official and house churches, the word they use most for why they turn to church is “love.” “Chinese have a yearning heart, that is really the reason,” says one woman who goes to the Zion house church in Beijing, which has more than 10,000 attendees and whose pastor is Korean. “We need love, and in some ways it is that simple.”
One Chinese intellectual and former newspaper editor agrees that China has become sated and corrupt. But he doesn’t agree there is a significant turn toward spiritual matters.
“We are too comfortable and willing ... to say ‘yes’ to anything,” says Li Datong. “I wish there was more spiritual hunger.”
Yet Chinese parents complain of a society that teaches math and science in schools but does little to address conduct or character. The case of Little Yueyue is a symbol of the moral void. The 2-year-old girl was hit by a van in Guangdong a few years ago. The driver didn’t stop. The girl was thrown to the side of the road, and 17 people walked past before an itinerant migrant stopped to help. The event was captured on a video that went viral and spurred some national soul-searching.
Experts say the Chinese have a practical nature, and if they adopt the evangelical message, especially after years of required wrestling with Marxist thinking, they usually don’t take it lightly. Many work hard at it.
“Chinese Christians know the Bible better than some Southern Baptists,” says Wickeri in Hong Kong. “That’s not a small thing.”
Typical is the pastor Han Yufang at Chongwenmen Church in Beijing. Ms. Han is one of many women now being ordained in official churches. But for years her father forbade her to look into Christianity. She did anyway, studying it for seven years, the final two praying for most of each night. One evening she was on her knees by the bed and prayed to God, “Father, not my will but thine be done.” She says she felt a clear urge to study at a divinity school.
Another woman, a mother in her 40s, first went to church with friends. She says she felt nothing but kept going to be part of the group. She dabbled. She tried Buddhism, but, “for all the quiet, I never really found peace.” During one service the concept of “forgiveness came from nowhere and washed and melted me in a way I can’t describe,” she says. At the time she was “always fighting” with her husband. After the experience, the tension stopped. He also started attending church services with her, as did their son, who finds Bible stories “compelling.”
For the most part, Protestants try to keep the altruistic activities they do in society quiet and low-key. China officially recognizes five faiths – Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, and Taoism. But only Buddhism and Protestantism are experiencing lively growth. Evangelicals do not want to draw attention to themselves and perform most of their good works without publicity.
Yet in cases such as the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, which killed 70,000 people, churches sent groups to help on the ground. By some estimates, as many as half the volunteers were evangelical.
Some Christians are trying to improve business practices and fight corruption as well. One business group asks members to pledge a “Ten Commandments” of good behavior that includes no bribing, no taking mistresses, no avoiding taxes, and no mistreating employees. Zhao Xiao, a researcher at the University of Science and Technology in Beijing, tells of a Christian in Harbin who lost $8 million his first year applying the principles but is now a leader in his industry.
• • •
One January morning last year in Hangzhou, Chinese officials showed up unexpectedly at the Gulou Church. It is a massive gray-stone edifice across the famed West Lake from the Chongyi Church. The Gulou clergy was informed that the cross on their edifice was scheduled to come down.
Church leaders were stunned. It was the first they’d heard of any plan to remove the cross. Then for much of the spring, they and other Christians in China heard of little else, as both official and unofficial churches were raided, destroyed, or dismantled in a campaign that has lasted more than a year.
Gulou itself was established by Presbyterian missionaries in the 1880s. The cross atop the steeple was enormous, a fixture next to a well-known highway overpass. It is dear to members as a symbol of their faith, says a pastor who declined to be named. For months, Gulou’s leaders delayed the removal of the cross. Meanwhile, authorities attacked churches and, as of this writing, have stripped or desecrated more than 426 of them, including knocking one down while President Obama was visiting Beijing last fall. In many cases, tearful worshipers surrounded the churches and scuffled with police. Zhejiang itself has become ground zero in China’s growing clash between church and state.
On Aug. 7 at 5 p.m., authorities returned to Gulou. They summoned the head pastor and said that at 10 p.m. the cross would be removed by crane. Word got out (the pastor only told one person since he could otherwise be jailed for calling an unofficial gathering). The church was surrounded by worshipers praying and chanting “cross, cross, cross.”
“We felt helpless,” a junior pastor says. “We told them how important this cross is, but they didn’t listen.”
“They can take the cross from our church,” he adds, “but they can’t take it from our hearts.”
Crackdowns on Christians are nothing new in China. What is different is how broad and systematic the suppression has been and how the state, for the first time, is attacking official churches. To be sure, it was clear by summer that Chinese President Xi Jinping was conducting a harsh roll-up of civil society in general – artists, lawyers, scholars, as well as Christians – as part of a new emphasis on orthodox party thinking and rules.
“The party isn’t satisfied with just keeping people behind a great firewall,” says one lawyer. “They actually want to indoctrinate.”
So far, the cross on Chongyi Church remains intact. But Evangelicals here who thought they were adhering to the proper political decorum are not happy. “People are angry and feeling betrayed,” says a local volunteer who did not want to be named for fear of retribution. “If I were the government I would not do this.”
Why authorities would alienate believers who think of themselves as loyal Chinese is unclear. Many local Christians first thought it was a mistake or something engineered by local authorities in Zhejiang Province. Officials said large crosses near highways were a driving hazard.
But as more churches lost their crosses, many far from highways, and other official churches were bulldozed, feelings changed. One church quietly offered to pay a series of fines, thinking the attacks were about money. “We were fooled at first,” says one local pastor. “Then we discovered they didn’t care about fines. They went after our crosses and gave the impression they enjoyed it.” The aim was to humiliate and shame, he says.
In recent years, Evangelicals in east China were “doing well,” the pastor continues. “But that is now changing. We are going backwards now. Everything is changing with the new leadership in Beijing. We know what is happening. We are not visitors here.”
Zan Aizong, a local journalist who became an Evangelical, says the government is trying to clamp down on churches and faith without causing a global outcry. Officials “use the legal system,” he says. “They go after crosses and building codes because it will not cause an uproar abroad. They want to turn Christianity into Chinese Christianity, controlled by the party.”
In August, amid the suppression in Zhejiang, the party issued a statement that it would soon unveil an official Christian theology. Wang Zuoan, head of China’s religious affairs ministry, told the state-run Xinhua news agency that Christianity was spreading so rapidly that a new theology was needed to avoid problems. “The construction of Chinese Christian theology should adapt to China’s national condition and integrate with Chinese culture,” he said.
As the attacks continue, church leaders are debating how to respond – whether to publicly challenge the crackdown or try to ride it out, the argument being that authorities could do much worse things if provoked.
“Many Christians are scared of the government,” says Ling Cangzhou, a Christian blogger in Beijing. “In China you rely on the government for jobs, position, for money. Families and relatives are affected. Dissidents don’t get promotion or advancement.”
• • •
One effect of the new religious persecution in China is that it is bringing the official and unofficial wings of the Protestant Church closer. For years, the two sides have often been clashing siblings: In essence, private house churchgoers saw the Three-Self churches as compromised by the party. Official churches often saw house churches as misbehaving cults.
Yet now, as they share a common threat and as more young people take up Christianity who have little knowledge of the historical divide, the two wings are starting to converge, reinforcing a grass-roots movement that has already been under way for some time.
Worshipers are being introduced to Christianity in official churches and then moving to house churches for a deeper experience of Bible study and preaching. In turn, house churches are becoming less secretive and are reaching out to influence the official churches. “There is a growing but quiet cooperation among Three-Self pastors who aren’t as invested in the institution – who care more about church and the basic evangelical mission,” Mr. Vala says.
To be sure, real differences remain between the two sides. Three-Self pastors are trained at theology schools watched by the party. Mr. Zan, for example, attended one and says that former President Hu Jintao’s concept of a “harmonious society” was taught as something to emphasize in preaching, which Zan calls “propaganda.” “Official churches are not allowed to touch subjects like the Apocalypse or eschatology,” he says. “A lot of the preaching is about how to be good and loving and ethical, which is fine. But they are often antiseptic and less radical.”
Many house meetings last all day, whereas official churches have 60- to 90-minute services. “The [Three-Selfs] are too big,” says a musician from Anhui who started at an official church but moved on. “You can get lost in them. Smaller is more like home, more like the love you feel at home.”
In Beijing, the official Chongwenmen Church is near the train station, found by walking through a rabbit warren of streets and noodle shops. It is old and slightly creaky. Services are packed and believers are devout. Across town, the official Haidian Church is a huge white modernist structure in a high-tech zone. Outside there is a band and chorus and kids with “I [heart] Jesus” caps. People wait in line for services by the hundreds.
One private Calvary church feels much different. Set in a seminar room in an office tower, it seems far less institutional but more intimate. The pastor is from Taiwan and won’t talk with reporters. Yet in all three churches the focus is on Christianity as a life practice and not a philosophy, and of the Bible as a revelation whose meaning brings change and redemption.
During services at these churches in August, as the cross removal campaign intensified, pastors spoke openly of the “meaning of the cross.” Hymns sung included “ ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ ... with the cross of Jesus, going on before.”
Source: CSMonitor
Los Angeles/Atlanta/New York (January 9, 2018) – ChristianHipHop.com announced its Official List of Top 125 Holy Hip Hop Pioneers and Ministers of the Gospel over the past 20 years (1996-2017) advancing the Holy Hip Hop Genre of music worldwide, as follows:
1. Cross Movement
2. Canton Jones
3. T-Bone
4. Pettidee
5. Mr. Del
6. Ambassador
7. Bizzle
8. Corey Red & Precise
9. K-Drama
10. R. Swift
11. Lil Raskull
12. Phanatik
13. D-M.A.U.B.
14. Shai Linne
15. 2Edge
16. Sho Baraka
17. Da Truth
18. Rawsrvnt
19. Tre-9
20. Sevin
21. Sean Slaughter
22. Fro
23. Kambino
24. Sincere Israel
25. J. Kwest
26. Hansoul
27. T-Haddy
28. Datin
29. Brinson
30. Lecrae
31. Trip Lee
32. Urban D
33. Fiti Futuristic
34. Minister Blak
35. Ace Infiniti
36. XROSS
37. Dre Murray
38. Buckbarnabas
39. Dice Gamble
40. Ricardo Flo
41. IDOL KINGS
42. Japhia Life
43. Richie Righteous
44. Elle Roc
45. IROCC
46. Fedel
47. Tedashii
48. Cheno Lyfe
49. 2Five
50. Brody Raw
51. Tha GIM
52. A-1 SWIFT
53. Gospel Gangstaz
54. Eastwood
55. Tragedy
56. This'l
57. GodSunz
58. Mark J
59. Bobby Bishop
60. LG WISE
61. Sup The Chemist
62. Ricky B. & 4Given
63. Shei Atkins
64. Andy Mineo
65. Tunnel Rats
66. JD Eyebrows
67. Brother Dre
68. Dre Marshall
69. Fros'T
70. D. Reed
71. Carriers of the Cross
72. Son of Jesse
73. The Priesthood
74. Colcutz
75. Ziklag
76. LA Symphony
77. STIKK
78. 116 Clique
79. Mars Ill
80. Flame
81. Rapid Fire
82. M.A.J.O.R.S.
83. Mobigga
84. Breeve Eazy
85. KNINE
86. Double
87. True
88. Warriors of The Cross
89. Shamel Shiloh
90. C. Micah
91. Damion Orlando
92. Todd Tense
93. LaToria
94. Infamous
95. Christafari
96. Doulos
97. Todd Bangz
98. Shy Da Gifted
99. Kuntrey Wyte & Pyro
100. Tawanna Ross
101. KJ-52
102. NAK Daniels
103. Desciple
104. Bruthaz Grimm
105. Light Da Flow Minister
106. K-Bizzy
107. K-Lee
108. Nova 4 Jehovah
109. Dynamic Twins
110. J.A.Z.
111. Difizzle Mayne
112. Frankie Cutlass
113. Obadiah-1
114. The Clergy
115. Enock
116. Ty Scott
117. Sicily
118. Chozen
119. Blazon
120. Halo & Reign
121. Theory Hazit
122. Metroclus
123. KB
124. Milliyon
125. Cash Hollistah
Honorable Mentions: Danny D Boy Rodgriguez
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Finance Your Music Production, Ideas, Project, Ministry, etc.
ATLANTA, GA - (November 13, 2017) - FaithFundMe . com , the world's crowdfunding site for people and projects of faith, is now accepting projects for consideration. FaithFundMe is an alternative to sites such as GoFundMe and Kickstarter. FaithFundMe can be used to support projects in the diverse categories and projects, including but not limited to: Business, Art, Mobile, Internet, Sports, (Medical IIllness/Personal Injury), Comics, Crafts, Dance, Design, Memorials or Funerals, Education, Fashion, Animals & Pets, Film & Video, Food, Disaster Relief, Games, Journalism, Music, Photography, Publishing, Technology, Theater, etc. To sign up for your free FaithFundMe Project Creator account and to get your crowdfunding campaign started today, please go to: www . FaithFundMe . com .
About FaithFundMe . com :
FaithFundMe . com is a crowd-funding platform for facilitating projects and ideas that uplift and inspire worldwide.
POWERFUL FUNDRAISING SITE FOR PROJECTS AND PERSONS OF FAITH
24/7 Email Support
Set Your Own Deadlines or Goal Requirements
Funding and Donations Distributed Via Secure PayPal, Once Fundraising Goal is Achieved
Digital-Friendly Campaigns
Mobile-Accessible
Socially-Responsible Platform
To get your crowdfunding campaign started today, please go to: www . FaithFundMe . com .
Worldwide proliferation of Spiritually-enlightening Holy Hip Hop Ministry, Music and Entertainment Glorifying the LORD, since 1997.