“The Tortured Poets Department,” Taylor Swift’s new record that came out last Friday, has caused a lot of trouble among religious leaders and people who criticize music based on faith.
Several of the songs on the record have explicit content. Eleven of the tracks are marked with a “E” for explicit lyrics, and several of the songs use bad language. But the main thing that these critics are worried about is how some of the songs seem to make fun of Christian beliefs and practices.
In “But Daddy I Love Him,” Swift uses images from her childhood as a conservative Christian to tell a story of being judged and limited:
“But daddy, I love him; I just learned that these people only raise you to lock you up; Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best, sighing, ‘What a mess!’ I just learned that these people try to save you because they hate you.”
“Guilty As Sin,” another song, seems to directly question standard religious stories:
“What if I throw the stone away?” “They’re going to crucify me anyway. What if the way you hold me is holy?”
Some people, like Shane Pruitt, who is the National Next Gen Director for the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board, don’t like these songs. Pruitt wrote about his thoughts on Facebook and told Christian parents that they should think again about letting their kids listen to Swift’s music, because it makes fun of their faith.
A Christian entertainment review site, MovieGuide, agreed with these points of view and said that Swift’s album openly “mocks Christianity.” The review showed that Christians are becoming more worried about the secular and maybe even anti-Christian messages in popular music, especially when it comes from artists who used to be neutral about religion.
The debate over Swift’s record shows how religious beliefs and popular culture are often at odds with each other, especially when artists use their fame to question societal norms and beliefs.