'The Promiscuous Gospel': The religious complexity and theological multiplicity of rap music

摘要

Over the past several decades, there has been increased attention to the religious exploration of popular culture, including rap music. However, as is often the case, such attention has resulted in a narrowing of rap music's religious and theological meaning - a forcing of rap music into preconceived cartographies of life. In this article, I suggest that the slippery, messy and complex nature of the sacred dimensions of rap music can only be addressed in a rigorous way through the use of theoretical and methodological tools that are flexible. This article proposes this type of flexible framework can be achieved through combining Anthony B. Pinn's notion of complex subjectivity and his nitty-gritty hermeneutic with Laurel C. Schneider's theory of multiplicity.