Is Eminem a Christian?
A look at a rapper’s religion
In 1999 a rapper became a superstar with his devilish tongue. Eminem ruled in the early 2000s with his caustic humor and anti-gay rants.
I was raised Evangelical, so it all felt like church to me. I reflect now on Eminem having himself been Christian. It’s not part of his reputation, exactly, even though on his first album, Infinite, he sings:
“But in the midst of this insanity, I found my Christianity…”
Eminem reads as a ‘Christian artist’.
I’m reading Marie W. Dallam’s 2007 scholarly paper, “Eminem: The Best Emcee Since Jesus,” which finds the religious cues so frequent that she presents Eminem as a Christian artist.
She says his music reflects, that is, “a typically Christian understanding of the world.” She continues:
“While he is not trying to overtly proselytize nor to preach explicit Christianity, one of Eminem’s musical goals appears to be the spread of positive values which are based on his personal Christian identity.”
In a 2013 book, Eminem: the Real Slim Shady, Marcia Alesan Dawkins adds: “Mathers does express a kind of ‘Christianity without religion,’ a solidarity with Christ and Christian values rather than with the church.”
He was born in 1972 and grew up in Detroit.
He never knew his father. He grew up poor. He liked comic books and T.V. In striking contrast to his loudmouthed presentation, he is in person, as one biography puts it, “remarkably diffident and soft-spoken.”
He failed ninth grade three times, and dropped out of high school.
His first album is a portrait of a young man trying to be a husband and father. It’s different than his later music—a phase, as biographer David Stubbs puts it, before “disillusionment blackened his soul…”
In the title track of Infinite, Eminem offers himself in Christlike terms:
“Imitator intimidator, stimulator
Simulator of data, eliminator
There’s never been a greater since the burial of Jesus”
On his song “It’s Ok,” he credits God with helping him gain emotional composure, i.e. “cope with the stress…instead of mope and depressed.”
The album bombed, and he tried to kill himself.
Eminem doesn’t say narrate a religious crisis happening at the time, but that seems implicit. He’d been convinced he was a divine warrior, and expecting God to lift him up into success. Then he found himself, it seemed, going nowhere.
God had failed him?
He tried playing Jesus, then tried playing Satan?
His ‘Slim Shady’ character came along and resurrected his career. This was an impish, devilish voice. He’d many times say that this was only a character, not “him.”
The Slim Shady voice, on examination, is also a kind of divine prophet. On “My Name Is,” he sings: “God sent me to piss the world off!”
Eminem would speak of being, personally, semi-Christian.
In a 2009 interview with Vibe, he says:
“They tell you in recovery to pray to your higher power. God is my higher power and He always has been. I definitely pray a lot more than I used to. I don’t feel like I’m crazy religious where I’m at church four days a week or anything like that — not to say that’s a bad thing for anyone who wants to do that. But I do believe in God and I do pray.”
His mother once said that “he gets on his knees every night and prays with his daughter.” This seems a typically Christian activity, and yet he seemed to not want to discuss himself publicly as a Christian person.
No Christian talk appears in Eminem’s 2008 autobiography, The Way I Am. And yet it’s there — even in the title. In the Bible, the religious path is called ‘the Way’, as God’s name is “I Am.”
To say “The Way I Am” is to use Christian terms…without saying so.
The Christian cues really start to add up.
Take Eminem’s 2002 mega-hit “Lose Yourself,” from the 8 Mile soundtrack. The song might as well be a long riff on Matthew 10:39, where Jesus says:
“Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”
I think of his 2001 track, “Revelation,” where he sings:
“One day, I’ma leave this world, I’m waiting for the revelation!”
The Christian suggestion extends to the title of his 2020 album Music to be Murdered By. In Christianity that is called a “passion.”
With tracks like “Darkness” and “Leaving Heaven” the album clearly has messianic suggestion. It could be heard as a Jesus concept album.
His imagery often suggest Jesus.
Many photos of Eminem, to me, echo popular Christian portraits of the messiah in an array of poses. On the cover of The Way I Am, Eminem’s hood of a fur coat frames his face like a halo — or a crown of thorns.
Photo by photo, Eminem has a regular habit of finding poses that recall typically “Christian” poses for Jesus.
Christian imagery is often seen in his videos.
In 2002, Eminem’s “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” begins and ends in a church. He is seen as a priest, it seems, praying at an altar. The sanctuary is shown repeatedly as the song seems to be a kind of confession.
He is using the song like a confession before God. He has difficult things to say, where absolute truth is difficult but demanded — as he addresses his mother:
‘You selfish bitch, I hope you fuckin’ burn in hell for this shit.’”
A 2019 rap had more God talk.
Eminem’s contribution to a remix of Kanye West’s “Use This Gospel” (done originally for West’s planned remix album, Jesus is King part II) seemed nearly a declaration of faith. Eminem sings:
“So my savior, I call on
To rescue me from these depths of despair
So these demons better step like a stair
Because He is my shepherd
I’m armed with Jesus, my weapon is prayer”
He goes on.
“Bible at my side like a rifle with a God-given gift
Every single day I thank God for
That’s why I pay so much homage
Praises to Jesus, I’ll always” 🔶
