Song: “Luv is a
Verb”
Artist: DC Talk
Album: Free at
Last (1992)
Track: 1
I cannot overstate to you how much this song influenced me
musically. Growing up, we typically listened
to soft adult-contemporary Christian music with my mom or early 60s Rock with
my dad. Whatever 80s and early 90s music
I had heard by that point had only been overheard. My parents at last let me get a DC Talk album
because we read about the Christian rap movement in some Christian magazine,
but Nu Thang wasn’t all that
musically advanced. Granted, it was
advanced for me, since I hadn’t really listened to any music that was really
good recorded after 1965, but it wasn’t really groundbreaking. There was a massive musical leap between that
album and this one, and when I heard this for the first time, I was blown away,
and it had no small role to play in my musical development.
But we’re not here to look at the music. We’re here to check out the theology.
The Good
Without doing research outside of the song itself, it
appears that this song draws mostly out of 1 John. The focus here is how we show love. And that love must be shown, not merely
spoken. The whole story about being
surprised to see that the word “love” is a verb is effective, if rather
inaccurate (love can also be a noun).
The third verse is particular good here. I appreciate the part of about love not being
“all that stuff that you see on T.V.”
That is a good reminder for the very young Christian, which is assumedly
the target audience.
Neither Good nor Bad
One thing that this song does that the album as a whole does
is put the focus squarely on DC Talk. It
starts out with a chant “Down with the DC Talk.” It would be a minor point except that we
start seeing theological problems coming through ego later down the road, so it
should be pointed out and exposed here too.
It does not present a theological problem yet, but we should note that
the focus is off a little.
In addition, DC Talk has a habit of loading their lyrics
full of witty phrasings and hip hop lingo, but not with actual substance. It’s frustrating, because the primary
advantage that rap has over other forms of song is the ability to load it up
with far more words than anything else.
But DC Talk squanders those words, and while Toby is a very good rapper,
it doesn’t appear that he has much to say.
The Bad
There is a major theological flaw in this song, and one that
should cause a great deal of concern.
The lyrics go thusly: “Luv is
enough if it's unconditionally given, now you're living out the Great
Commission.”
Uh-oh. That’s a
problem. They could mean one of those
things here, but neither one are right.
The first possible meaning is that God gave his love unconditionally, so
we’re living out the Great Commission.
Well, the Great Commission is, “Go therefore and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew
28:19-20), so there seems to be a missing step somewhere in there.
The more likely meaning behind the lyric (since the song is
about our love, not the Father’s) is
that we live out the Great Commission by loving unconditionally. Which is not the Great Commission at all, and
neither is it something we ever really do.
And it is with this line that they take a song about living
a Christian life in love for one another and step into a massive confusion
about what the Gospel is and how it is spread.
The Gospel is not something we accomplish through our love, but is
accomplished by God on our behalf. And
while it is loving to go into the world and tell about the Gospel, the only
perfect love here is His, and we should repent always for our lack of love.
Which brings up my second problem with the song. There’s no Gospel here. I believe the song is based on 1 John, which
is primarily about how we are to love one another, but 1 John does not abandon
us when we stumble here, but instead tells us that “if anyone does sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (2:1). We are constantly cast back to the source of
our righteousness in the epistle. Not so
here. We are cast back to the dictionary
in this song and told to love perfectly.
Which is something I have failed at on a daily basis. So DC Talk’s message isn’t really seeming
that hopeful to me. Instead, it just makes
me feel inadequate.
Overall
There is only just a little theology in this song, despite
all the lyrics, and what theology is there is more tainted by the bad than
overcome with the good. The opening
track to Free at Last leaves much to
be desires.
