Justin Bieber, Tim Keller, and Apocalyptic Romance.

Several months ago Justin Bieber released a song entitled “As long as you Love Me.”  The song got as high as  # 15 on the Billboard’s Hot 100 list, and the official music video posted on YouTube has over 88 million views.  That’s right, 88 million.  Needless to say, the song was popular, and my guess would be that a high percentage of teens, especially teen girls, could sing you the lyrics and have seen the music video.   I do not normally watch music videos (or listen to Bieber’s music for that matter), but after hearing the song on the radio I was intrigued, and because I personally know several die hard “Bieberites,” I decided to check it out.   

The video itself was provocative, but to be fair, it is probably no more provocative than the video’s that other pop stars are making these days.  At the beginning of the video, Bieber is confronted by his girlfriend’s father and told to get out of her life.  As the video progresses, it flashes between previous memories and make-out scenes between the two as they make plans to run away together.  At the end of the video, which was a bit surprising, the father catches them, beats Bieber up, and leaves with his daughter.  Although much could be said about the video itself, what caught my attention were the lyrics.  The chorus goes like this:

As long as you love me
We could be starving, we could be homeless, we could be broke
As long as you love me
I'll be your platinum, I'll be your silver, I'll be your gold
As long as you love, love, love, love me (love me)
As long as you love, love, love, love me (love me)

At one point in the song, rapper big Sean chimes in, presumably representing Bieber’s attitude towards his girlfriend, “I don’t know if this makes sense, but you’re my hallelujah.”  These lyrics caught my attention because they offer such a clear example of the message that our culture is aggressively communicating, especially to our teens, about what relationships ought to be like.  Tim Keller, in Counterfeit Gods, refers to this view of relationships as “Apocalyptic Romance.”[1]  According to Keller, apocalyptic romance occurs when two people look to “sex and romance to give us the transcendence and sense of meaning we used to get from faith in God.”  Or, to use Bieber’s song, apocalyptic romance says to the significant other:  “You’re my Hallelujah.”   Keller continues, “We maintain the fantasy that if we find our one true soul mate, everything wrong with us will be healed.”  Of course, that is a lie.  “No lover, no human being, is qualified for that role.  No one can live up to that.  The inevitable result is bitter disillusionment.”  

         The point of all this is not to suggest that we should avoid listening to Justin Bieber, or other such pop artists.  As Christians, we are not called to remove ourselves from the world.  Rather, we are called to not be conformed to the world.  “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Rom 12:2).  (Plus, if I did suggest such a thing, we might have a High School riot on our hands at NCPC! I won’t name anyone to protect the guilty).  As Christians we are called to engage pop music, as with all culture, with biblical discernment.  We can listen to secular music, but we must be careful not to passively receive the worldview that it communicates.  And when we hear a song like “As long as you love me,” we must remind ourselves, and our children, how the Gospel brings real hope where “Apocalyptic Romance” inevitably fails.   No single person, not even the best in the world, can be our “platinum, silver, and gold.”  Only Christ can satisfy us in that way.

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[1] Keller himself borrows this term from Ernest Becker’s book, The Denial of Death