“"Test the Spirits"”

Sunday, March 09, 2025

(part 1)

Those of you who carefully file these articles in triplicate and obsessively reread and memorize them may recall that this title is already somewhat spoken for—in the the 3^rd issue of Volume V, published in January 2024, entitled “How to ‘Test the Spirits.’” In that installment we considered a variety of tools to help us assess spiritual messengers and teachings, as the Bible says: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1Jn 4.1). But How? is not the only worthwhile question in this matter. There’s also Why? To answer this, over the next few weeks let’s consider some illustrations from the world of pop culture. Some are old, but easier to discern on account of their age and the demise of the cultural moments that begat them.

Rastafari Claptrap

In 1970 a Jamaican reggae band called The Melodians adapted Psalm 137 and set it to music. When this song was used in a movie two years later, both Rivers of Babylon and reggae music generally gained worldwide appeal. The better known recording came in 1978, from British disco group Boney M. It became a major hit. Soon enough, the song appeared in Alton Howard’s 1994 hymnal Songs of Faith and Praise, in an a cappella arrangement by David Sexton, an elusive figure who was apparently acquainted with Howard and developed for this hymnal many trite adaptations of popular songs utterly inappropriate for the assembly of the church.

“But wait,” you ask, “how can a Psalm possibly be inappropriate fare for worship?” In the first place, the tune itself presents an irreverent tone unsuited to the words of the Psalm, which is a bitter lamentation over the destruction of Jerusalem and Israel’s ensuing captivity in Babylon. But the music, while enough to condemn this poor excuse for a hymn on its own, is just the start.

You see, the words aren’t all from Psalm 137. One section, in both hymnal and reggae/disco versions, comes from a different Psalm:

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

        be acceptable in your sight,

        O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

(Psalm 19.14)

Well, that’s no problem—although even by the hymnal’s 14^th printing in the year 2000, the editors had not yet discovered that this portion of the lyrics came from a different Psalm. They continued to erroneously ascribe these words to “Psalm 137” at the top of the page, showing that they didn’t know either Psalm very well, and didn’t bother to check. The misattribution isn’t a huge deal; but one of the other alterations certainly is! While the Psalm asks, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137.4), the words in the hymnal follow the reggae song, instead: “How can we sing King Alpha’s song in a strange land?” The arranger and editor probably assumed this referred to John’s vision, in which “he who was seated on the throne” in heaven said, “I am the Alpha and the Omega” (Re 21.5-6). In fact, “King Alpha” referred to Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia, who—despite his own protests—is revered as either the incarnation of the living God Jah, or the second coming of Jesus Christ, or both, in the Rastafarian religion from which this Jamaican song was born.

Perhaps you begin to see the problem more clearly, now. In the context of the reggae song, Israel means the African diaspora, “Zion” means Ethiopia (or Africa more broadly), “Babylon” and “the wicked” mean white people, “captivity” refers to the Atlantic slave trade, and the references to Psalm 137 point toward its final, unsung lines,

O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,

        blessed shall he be who repays you

        with what you have done to us!

Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones

        and dashes them against the rock!

(Psalm 137.8-9)

Rastas believe nuclear war between white Westerners is inevitable, and will destroy Western hegemony in a Day of Judgment, ushering in a return to paradise—Africa—for the righteous, identified primarily by the color of their skin. This perversity is just the tip of the iceberg that is Rastafarianism.

But this would not be the first time apostates or charlatans tried to bend God’s word to suit their own purposes! The same thing has gone on since the Garden! Satan used God’s words—with a minor tweak, and a heap of half-true contextualization—to tempt Eve into eating the forbidden fruit. He also quoted Psalm 91, in tempting Jesus in the wilderness (this time without success). Satan’s abuse doesn’t spoil God’s word; the answer is never to cede scripture to the enemy. We should instead take it back, and put it in its proper context! Could this song be redeemed for “honorable use” (2Ti 2.21)? No—the song is intrinsically bad, and not worth the struggle. The Psalm is what we should reclaim.

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

(James 4.4)

Stories like this one demonstrate not only Christians’ too-frequent gullibility, but also our desire to fit in with the world. As soon as the world—represented in this case by a music and entertainment industry steeped in horrific immorality and godlessness—as soon as the world quotes the Bible, Christians fall over themselves to receive its approval and invite the world to a seat at Jesus’ table. We certainly ought to be welcoming toward the people of the world, but they—and we—must leave the world behind and take up with Christ, not bring worldliness to his table.

Jeremy Nettles

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