Kanye West recently released Jesus Is King, an expletive-free, gospel-inspired rap album exploring the artist's spiritual transformation. Throughout the record, West lyrically expresses a renewed sense of identity. He addresses his past with remorse in “On God” and alludes to the beloved hymn “Amazing Grace” in “Selah,” a song originally written by John Newton, an eighteenth-century slave trader-turned-priest who inspired Britain's abolition movement. These songs reveal West's long, tumultuous journey from debauchery to repentance—a tribute to the power of religion. As Michael Knowles from the Daily Wire puts it, Kanye has a “good ear for the culture.” In saner times, West's cathartic self-expression and renewal of faith—beginning earlier this year, with his “Sunday Service” performances—would improve his public image. Today, he faces “cancellation.”
Any praise from the wrong quarters emboldens critics' denunciation of West. In The Root, for example, Jay Connor declared Kanye “canceled” because his album received positive reviews from the Washington Examiner and Donald Trump, Jr. Connor, like many critics, offers no substantive critique of the album beyond opposing West's admirers. West hasn't been spared criticism from religious figures, either. In an interview with Vice, Xavier Pickett, a visiting professor at New York University who holds a doctorate from Princeton Theological Seminary, suggests that West must be naïve to believe that African-Americans will automatically grant him absolution.
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