Beyoncé Mass: Church wants to use Beyoncé's music to get people into church

A San Francisco church will host a Beyoncé Mass featuring songs from the pop star that congregation members will be invited to sing along to, and one of its pastors is insisting that the event goes hand in hand with the teachings of Jesus Christ.

"I know there are people who will say using Beyoncé is just a cheap way of trying to get people in the church," the Rev. Jude Harmon, director of innovative ministries for Grace Cathedral, an Episcopal Church says.

"But Jesus used very provocative images in the stories he would tell to incite people to ask hard questions about their own religious assumptions. He regularly provoked. We're following in the way of Jesus."

He insisted that Beyoncé Knowles-Carter's music "opens a window into the lives of the marginalized and forgotten — particularly black females."

He pointed out that 2018 has seen "so much conversation about the role of women and communities of color, we felt a need to lift up the voices that the church has traditionally suppressed."

"The beauty of Beyoncé's music is that she explores those themes in an idiom that is accessible to everyone," the pastor continued. "We can use it as a conversation starter. That's what it's designed to be."

Grace Cathedral, the site of one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous sermons in 1965, plans to hold the "Beyoncé Mass" on April 25.

The service will feature a course there titled "Beyoncé and the Bible."

Their website has featured articles exploring how Knowles-Carter's career is relevant to the Gospel.

Although Knowles-Carter has talked about her prayers to God and has worked with pastors on projects, such as helping those affected by Hurricane Harvey in and around her hometown of Houston in August 2017, she has also been criticized by some Christians for her provocative performances.

During the February 2017 Grammy Awards, she dressed and performed as Roman, Hindu, and African goddesses, which did not sit will with some theologians.

*Seriously, what is wrong with some churches? The same Beyoncé who said, "I plugged my menses with the pages of the holy book", fills her songs with subliminal messages; her videos with satanic symbolism and provocative performances and dressing; glorifies goddesses, worshiped as a goddess and clearly has no respect for God. This is the woman they want to use her song in church, for what exactly?

What makes us different from the world then if we are bringing a worldly song that doesn't glorify God into the church to 'preach the gospel'? Ayam not understanding. But hey, it's one of the signs of the times we are in.