By Nicole VanDykeCP Reporter Friday, April 26, 2024

Taylor Swift's new album, The Department of Tortured Poets, has drawn criticism from faith leaders, who have taken to social media this week to express their disgust at the lyrical content, which they believe mocks God and Christians.

Released last Friday, critics have expressed concern over lyrics that seem to suggest Christians are both hateful and judgmental.

In the song “But Daddy I Love Him”, Swift sings:

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“But papa, I love him / I just learned that these people only raise you / To cage you / Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best / Picking up their pearls, moaning, 'What a mess' / I just learned that this those people are trying to save you because they hate you.”

In the same song, Swift sings:

“God save the most judgmental rascals / Who say they want what's best for me / Saintly performing monologues I'll never see / Thinking it can change the beat / Of my heart when he touches me / And resist the chemistry / And undo destiny / You don't have to pray for me / Me and my wild boy and all this wild joy / If all you want is gray for me / Then it's just white noise, and it's just my choice .”

In the song “Guilty As Sin,” Swift sings: “What if I roll the stone away? / They'll crucify me anyway / What if the way you hold me is actually what's holy.”

Eleven of the 31 songs contain “E” under the descriptive list of the album, which means “explicit”. And several songs have the F-word included within the lyrics.

Shane Pruittthe National Next Gen director for the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and co-author of Calling of the Calledwrote in a Facebook post that there is a difference between being secular and being “Anti-Christian”. He urged Christian parents to seriously consider whether they should allow their children to listen to Swift's music.

“I am certainly not the minister or parent who has the 'no secular music' attitude,” Pruitt wrote. “Also, I fully realize that unbelievers will act like unbelievers. HOWEVER, there is a difference between being secular and being ANTI-CHRISTIAN.”

Pruitt added that he used to listen to Swift but said he thinks “now it's time to reconsider.”

“As Christians who are filled with the Spirit, should we be entertained, sing along and expose our children to lyrics that are not only different from what you believe, but actually mock what you believe?” Pruitt asked.

The Christian entertainment review company MovieGuide believes the album “mocks Christianity.”

“While it's no secret that Taylor Swift is not a Christian, she made her hatred of religion known with her recently released album 'The Tortured Poets Department,'” MovieGuide emphasized in its a review.

“The album is full of minor jokes that elevate Swift above God while also having two songs dedicated to destroying Christian sexual ethics.”

MovieGuide claims that the lyrics of the song “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)” contain rhetoric alluding to the idea that God does not want to “lift a finger.”

The lyrics read: “They shake their heads saying, 'God help her,' / When I tell 'em he's my man / but your good God won't lift a finger / I can fix him, no, really, I can… and only I can.”

“The fact that one of the most popular and famous celebrities of her generation cannot find happiness reveals that living in the world leads to death while living for Christ and under his teachings leads to life,” the review stated.

“Unfortunately, Swift chose the path of death and is reaping the fruits of his labor.”

MovieGuide also takes issue with the lyrics to the song “Florida!!!,” which the organization says is about “going off the deep end and all in worldly fun and entertainment.”

“While Swift later clarified that this song was about a fantasy rather than an actual experience she had, it still glorifies going deep and engaging in complete debauchery,” the organization states.

Sean Feucht, a conservative Christian singer and former worship leader at Bethel Church who founded the Let Us Worship movement, took to Xformerly known as Twitter, to share how he believes the new album mocks Christians.

“Nearly half of the songs on Taylor Swift's new album contain explicit lyrics (E), mock Christians and outright blaspheme God. Is this the music you want your kids listening to?” Feucht wrote.

“You think I'm just religious and overreacting? Read the lyrics and decide for yourself.”

Alex Clark, host of the Turning Point USA podcast “The Spillover,” who also launched the pop culture show “POPlitics!” didn't like Feucht's comments about Swift.

“Sean Feucht, whatever his name is … let's not even get into his own controversies and who he aligns with and all the sketches that this guy, who he surrounds himself with in the Christian community. Because that could be a whole other episode . So, it's like okay, we're going to get advice from these people who have their own situations, are you never going to watch Netflix movies, if you're never going to listen to any artist the criteria we're going with, … basically, you have to say, 'I'll never listen to music,'” Clark. said in her show.

While many faith and worship leaders criticized Swift's album, Forbes reports that The Tortured Poets Department took only a few hours to become the best-selling album of 2024 in the US The album sold around 1.4 million copies in just its first full day of availability.