"…then each one of us will give an account of himself to God." - Romans 14: 12

There is no way that I can ever justify any of Eminem’s lyrics (a.k.a. Slim Shady a.k.a. Marshall Mathers). He raps about violence directed at homosexuals, his parents and siblings, his wife and anyone else that he has it in for. He raps fluently about drugs like something we should aspire to.

Marshall Mathers aka Eminem

His latest album, The Marshall Mathers LP is not the easiest album to listen to when it comes to the lyrical content of it. The musical sounds are flawless and enjoyable. Without the foul lyrics it would be one of the greatest albums to ever come out of the secular music scene. That is about as justifiable as I can get with the album (and that is not even a good reason why I listened to it or it is predecessor). So why would any Christian ever want to write about the guy who said he was sent by God to piss the world off? Well as I listened to the album (I am not saying that you should too!), beneath the swearing, the violence and the sex I found there is a message for the world that has Christian roots: accountability and responsibility.

In the song "Who Knew," Eminem claims that he did not think he would ever be responsible for the way people respond to his music. That appears to be a little naïve of him to say. One would tend to believe that everyone is responsible for his or her actions and in turn what those actions lead people to do. Is Eminem the one responsible when Joe Black does something he heard on the album?

Obviously Eminem knows that as an entertainer, the media will look to him as a role model. But he does not want to be that to anyone. In the song "Role Model" off of The Slim Shady LP he even makes a point of telling kids not to be like him by listing all of the wrong actions he has done. One could say reverse psychology is being used in the song but I think "Role Model" is his idea of being accountable to those who listen to his music. In a few of the songs on The Marshall Mathers LP he tells parents that sometimes it sucks how they raise their children. He says he is not fully responsible. Kids will learn to swear even if they do not listen to him. Do not blame him when some kid jumps off the terrace. He just said it, he did not think the kid would do it. To paraphrase, "Watch your kids and leave me alone. Go be parents to your children, not me" (but more on that later). Slim wants to go out, sell albums and entertain.

In the song, "Stan," a story is told of a dangerously obsessive fan that wants to be best friends with Slim. The character of Stan writes numerous letters to Eminem begging for some kind of response from his idol. With each message Stan becomes more and more desperate until the last message which is on tape in a car, where Stan is driving drunk at ludicrous speed with his pregnant girlfriend (just like Slim’s!) in the trunk. Stan ends up driving off a bridge. The action turns to Eminem who is writing Stan a letter. He says how he does not think that it is good that Stan is following the lead of a character called Slim on The Slim Shady LP. Eminem encourages Stan and then tells him to cool off a bit, that he likes the fact that Stan is a fan and perhaps Stan should seek some counseling. He then tells a story of a man who drove off a bridge with his girlfriend in the trunk and says that he hopes that something like this does not happen to Stan. The guy happens to have left a tape to someone. Then Eminem realizes it was Stan and he says a regretful "Damn."

Slim may not think that he is totally responsible for the trouble he may cause but he will admit he has to answer for things that happen because of him (if it is only his guilty conscious). Within the song Eminem there is an admission that entertainers can be responsible for what their fans do in extreme situations. But he knows that he is not the only one to be held accountable when someone does an extreme act for attention.

The Way I Am from The Marshall Mathers LP

In one verse Eminem has indicted what are two of the three great offenders of the generation when it comes to the issues of responsibility and accountability: the news media and our parents generation. Some would say that the media is worse because they glorify our sins. But really it all evens out in the end.

It is easy to attack the media for their sins. The news in my opinion is no longer such a respectable institution. The news has lost a lot of its credibility over the past few years. Especially in this post Columbine---Lewinsky era. It has been awhile since I have seen a news story that is truly happy. Even the so-called human-interest stories are tainted with sadness or failure. No one can be truly content. There always has to be the bad with the good, and the good with the bad. I guess we need to be reminded how terrible the human race can be to each other. Thanks CNN!

America as a nation (and indeed the world), following the news’ lead, applaud the fact that President Clinton stayed in office and survived an impeachment hearing, when he sinned greatly. He was unfaithful to his wife and lied about it in front of a whole nation. I know we should respect our world leaders but as a young man it is hard to do that, when boiled down to it, one of the leaders is a weasel. If there is any institution, it is the news that should be looking at the truth and be calling people on their faults saying, "smarten up."

One senses that there is a little sarcasm behind the words "Middle America, now it’s a tragedy." Eminem seems to realize that Middle America is not just a tragedy because of the recent onslaught of teenage shootings. It has been like this for years (e.g. drive-by shootings) but no one in the culture wants to address it. But when a high profile shooting happens we have to address it but we will not take responsibility for it ourselves. We have to continually point the finger at others like our entertainers and the influential people of the world who "glorify" it. Then when they do not respond with the---"Oh we are so sorry---this is all our fault"---mentality we try to tuck the issue under the carpet. Then we hope that soon someone like Bill Gates will get into legal trouble so that we can forget that anything ever happened. People do care more about their computers than the person in the other cubicle anyway.

The old saying "Swear you will never be like your parents" carries a lot more baggage then it used to. As easy as it is to blame the news for a lack of accountability, it sometimes seems to be easier to attack our parents for their generation’s sins. From the so-called sexual revolution to the proclamation that a Judeo-Christian God is dead and we are our own gods, the trouble we believe our parents created is deep and far-reaching.

Our parents of course can blame their parents for those problems since they were not talking about the taboo subjects like sex and drugs when they were teenagers. The teenage movement was acknowledged as legitimate in the latter half of the 1950s with a girl in the film The Wild One asking, "What’re you rebelling against, Johnny?" And Johnny (Marlon Brando) replying, "Whaddya got?"

While trying to understand the new wave of people called teenagers and why they did what they did the parents still tried to keep things at home filled with wholesome values, in that decade and into the sixties. Yet, despite parents’ best intentions, the new wave represented the beginning of the end of accountability. They wanted to learn about the forbidden fruit and do whatever they could to get the information they needed. And in doing so there was a shift in the ideals of a world.

Within the past thirty-five years the cultural trend has moved from family values to material possessions and single serving objects (especially in the First World). Of course that is not saying much. You would have to be very ignorant not to notice that. But when it is a crass entertainer (and not just the right wing politician) that is telling us that it is the parent’s fault when a kid goes and kills some other kids, then it really is time for us to start making changes.

Today there are many children that are blessed with two good and loving parents that guide the children through a twisted world. But for every happy family there is at least one that is broken, without a father or a mother or with two parents who just do not have time for their greatest gifts from God. Mrs. Donna Athey, a mother, said over a chat online the following about accountability and responsibility:

It used to be that there was always a parent home during the weekdays. Someone to teach the basic principle of responsibility that leads to accountability. Usually it was the mother but sometimes the father that was home to greet a child coming from school. And the other parent was at home in time for dinner most of the year. Things appeared to be good in that sugar-coated way at least. But now things aren’t always so sweet.

Recently I heard a pastor say at my church that from the age of zero to twelve years, a child is more influenced by his/her mother, but when the child enters his/her teenage years the influential person is now the father. This from experience, I found to be true. I am still a little naïve about parenting being a young man with no children, but I will say on record that my mother was more influential in my younger years. Although she always held some influence, I found that in my teenage years I was and have been looking for my father’s approval when it comes to my choices in books, music, movies and lifestyle (even if I did not always admit it). And it was good to have the assurance that my parents were there to pick me up when I was falling.

Yet there are many children and teenagers that have done extreme things because they did not know the loving parents that were in their dreams. It makes me wonder when parents are saying they know their children. I want to know if their child is really the 14-year-old dressing up as 25? Is she really craving for attention of a boyfriend who probably will dump her later on down the road? A non-Christian friend said to me recently how it is upsetting to see young girls dressing too old. He acknowledges that they are craving for some kind of love and attention but for the wrong kind. What did these kids do to deserve this?

Recent generations have come up with the idea of being clinically depressed and not being empowered. No one sucks it up anymore and says "C’est la vie." Instead everything is everyone else’s fault and children have learned this from their parents and their older siblings and carry on the tradition.

So why are we surprised when a teenager goes and blows schoolmates away? No one listens to anyone else. A lot of the time today both parents are at work to provide a so-called decent upbringing for their children and when they are home, no relationships are built because everyone is just too tired to talk. Instead of quality time we watch television or go into seclusion in our rooms. Meanwhile inside a child there are lots of pains and questions that mom and dad just do not have time for. The child wonders if his/her parents understand what it’s like growing up? Yet all it would have taken was "A how was your day Sally and Billy"-type question for the child to feel a little more loved, heard and even understood. It is the never-ending cry of the fatherless (and the motherless) one of feeling "weird inside" (Art Alexakis) because no one takes the time to try and understand. And so as a last resort to be heard the kid goes out to hurt those who hurt him/her. Why oh why are we surprised? We ignored that person. We focused on ourselves and forgot the greatest commandment: To Love. Some say it is tragic when there are school shootings. No it is sad. The tragedy is the lost soul who we were too late to love.

The buck stops now. I believe that my generation (the Xs, Ys and the Nxts) is just as accountable for the state of the world we live in---the elusive third offender. We have our faults. Many that stem from the fact that we have not attempted to make sense of the mess created and try to fix things up for a better tomorrow. I do not claim to know all the answers on how to fix the problems but I believe I know where to begin.

We have been defined for better of for worse by our tastes instead of our contributions, whether they are in literature, music, film or television. We have listened to everyone from Kurt Cobain to The Spice Girls to Dr. Dre to The Backstreet Boys and bought into each agenda. Our parents must wonder, "What is going on in those heads?" Good question.

Then of course there are our films. It started with Disney in our younger years and now we have graduated to high-class fare like American Beauty and Fight Club. Both two great films in my opinion but they are not the best picture of who we are even if they do deal with the empowering of those both in the older and younger generations, who feel weak from the materialistic mess that we have created.

They do not call us a faceless generation for nothing. So many people are a copy of a copy of a copy…and so it goes. We latch onto whatever is new and hip and search for a new high. We are endlessly connected by phone, fax, TV and the Internet yet we can not even connect on a philosophical and/or spiritual level with each other like the flower children supposedly did.

As I was chatting with Mrs. Athey, I wrote this about my generation:

And in that one message I nailed what I was trying to say about my generation. We can connect. Our ability to reach out to each other through the global communication networks will define us. But we do not have to be worried about necessarily reaching the person who lives across the sea. That should be a secondary concern. We should be primarily concerned with those who are near to us.

The greatest commandment is to love everyone as you love yourself. It says (to paraphrase) that if we do not reach out to those outside our boundaries then how can God's love be in our life? If Christians claim to love all people then we should and need to prove it more.

I know there are mission trips, street ministries and summer programs but that is not enough. And I know I am as guilty as the next person is. We can not be acting like the only people to reach are the street people and the homeless (although they are worthy too). We have to be reaching those people that are next to us in the shopping mall and the loners in home room at school and in the staff rooms at work. It is ironic how it is easier to reach out to someone that we do not know than it is to reach out to the person who we have known half of our life. Why is that sometimes we just are not as concerned with his/her fate in the end? I love my non-Christian friends and I pray for them and invite them out to church yet sometimes I do not want to scare someone away with my views. Especially when I care for him or her. But what do I have to lose? My life? No. Another life? Yes.

So many people are praying for revival and that has been my prayer too. But we live within a world that believes that a pastor prays, "Please Lord this boy needs Jesus, heal this child. Help us destroy these demons. And please send me a brand new car…" (Eminem’s "Criminal") It is a cynical look upon the church but sometimes the worldview of Christians is of very shallow individuals who argue with each other and are religious snobs. The truth is that for revival to come we should not just pray it and preach it. We have to live our revival. Stop arguing over trivial points of our faith with different Christian denominations! Realize that we serve the same God! Revival is going to come when we live for Jesus by modeling God’s versions of love, accountability and responsibility and not the world’s versions. When people see Jesus in us there will be a revolution and not just any revolution: a Jesus Revolution!

What do we have to do? We have to be accountable to God, our family and friends and that in turn will help us through the hard times that we encounter. This means that we Christian also need support groups. You may call it a home group, a cell group, an accountability group or something totally different but it has to be a place where we are comfortable to talk freely about the issues in our lives and in our world. Be courageous. If a person at work or school says something wrong, call him or her on it, no matter how "un-cool" it will make you look. Coolness on earth is a human condition. Coolness in God’s eyes is an immortal condition. We have to admit to our faults too and when the bull wins we need to suck it in and thank God that we are in a better boat than the others in the world are. Then go out and pull others into our boat. It is time to stop asking, "What would Jesus Do?" And it is time to start Doing What Jesus Does. God has a big boat and he wants more shipmates.

But hey remember in the end this is what I think about Eminem’s album and I could be wrong. Like everyone else he will be held accountable at the end of the age for what he has done in his life. Now it is my responsibility to tell you that Eminem’s albums that no matter how pleasing to the ears they are just not good for the soul. And I am 100% sure that God in all of His coolness does not think that it is cool to be listening to Eminem. I am just as guilty here by listening to it, so I will not even bother lecturing you anymore on why not to listen to it. Just be warned. And how did I come upon receiving the albums? Well that is a whole different article. Probably called something like, "Temptation and its Tentacles."

*Special thanks to Mr. Dennis Miller for "The End of Accountability" Mp3. I borrowed some phrases*

© 2000, Dan Revill