Speaker #1 (Begins at 0:57) 
I would be very against reformed rap. Let me tell you why. Words aren't enough. God cares about how we deliver the message. And there's two aspects of the delivery. The purpose of songs is to instruct. It's also to praise God, it's also to worship. But its to instruct and to admonish. We’re given the words because we’re a word-based religion, the emphasis needs to be on the words. And just having good words is not enough. The question is where is the emphasis. And I would argue with the rap [sic], with the heavy beat, with those things that the physical distraction is so much that the focus is no longer on the words. And music should be about helping us to remember concepts that we need to remember. And help us to carry forward. Music is a wonderful tool as a memory aid. Rap’s not that good for that because of the other problem with rap. The problem with any other form of music is who’s the attention drawn to. And rap is about drawing attention to the rapper, drawing attention to how his skill is different than anybody else’s skill. To how he is a special person… [Story about M. L. Jones about a preacher with an unimpressive delivery who brings great glory to God.] that’s what all preaching needs to be. It needs to move the attention away from you and towards God. Otherwise it’s about you. And my problem with reformed rap is I think in the end it’s always about the rapper, even if the words are correct.

Speaker #2 (Begins at 3:06)
Music is a medium of communication and God cares not just what we say but he cares how we say it. That's the function of music. And if we truly believe in the sufficiency and authority of Scripture, I believe the Scripture should govern not just what we say - in other words not just the content - because I’ll agree, I’ve read a lot of the lyrics of the reformed rap and some of them are much more doctrinally dense than some of our songs. That’s true. However if we truly believe in the sufficiency and authority of Scripture, Scripture will govern not just what we say but it will also govern how we say it. So the question I always want to ask is (because remember Scripture is given to us in literary art forms: narrative, poetry, these sorts of things, parable, and those should govern our art forms as well). And so I want to ask with anything with hip-hop, with any form of music: does it compare? Are we allowing the art forms, the way truth is communicated in Scripture to also govern our art forms. When it comes the art form of hip-hop, very few will disagree with the cultural milieu out of which it grew. What it was intended to express by those who created the art form. The only defense I've heard by reformed rappers of why they want to use this form is they say, “Well we want to redeem the form of rap.” But when I read Scripture, whenever there's redemption there's change. There’s fundamental change. So I’m all about redemption of musical forms, but if we were if we truly redeem certain musical forms to express God's holy truth that will mean that those forms will change to actually be appropriate vehicles for the communication of God’s truth as is expressed in the very Word of God itself.

Speaker #3 (Begins at 5:15)
Yes, amen to that. “Do not be conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” And what concerns me about this this so-called “art form” - it's a picture of weakness and surrender on the part of people who think they're serving God. And they're not. They’re serving their own flesh. They’re caving into the world. They are there disobedient cowards. They're not really willing to engage in the fight that needs to be engaged. Scott, thank you for saying that. If we are reformers we are going to change and fully redeem and replace the world. We're not going to make ourselves friends of the world and enemies of God. And so this is what concerns me about anytime Christians, in a cowardly way, follow the world instead of changing it and confronting it. And confronting the antithesis. And we need be doing this in every every possible art from - including film, including other kinds of music. And so, Scott, just to summarize: Reformed rap is the cowardly following of the world instead of confronting and changing it.

Speaker #4 (Begins at 6:31)
I don't have much I add, I agree with everything that's been said. Just maybe add one thought. If my children, with their upbringing were to start to embrace this - I would use all these arguments, with intensity that they've been spoken. When someone comes to me, who comes from a culture that’s raised that way, had no Christian background, and first hears this kind of rap and listens to the lyrics and gets really interested in Christianity - first thing I don't challenge them on is the form of the music. I to try to take them in, disciple them, and break this in slowly to them. So let's have a little compassion for people who, for whom they related to this culture - which we don't really relate to at all probably - and work with them. And get them to this point where they understand these things. But that doesn't happen a day. That's only thing I would add to it.

Speaker #5 (Begins at 7:27)
I’m gonna get sucked off the stage with the gasping happens with what I say here. I’m probably the only panelist who’s ever had TobyMac on my iPod. Yeah. They want to know who Toby Mac is. We’ll tell you after the panel. So here's what here's what drove it home for me: A few months ago I saw picture of TobyMac. Vintage TobyMac: backwards hat, ready to rap, and but he's 50 now. Wasn't 50, you know, when he became cool. And he’s starting to have wrinkles on his face. OK, so he’s 50-year-old man with wrinkles on his face - got that backwards cap, and he's ready to rap. And what didn't seem unseemly when he was a young man just looks really out of place in the pictures now. So the question is: 50-year-old men in the church - is their job to extend a hand down in the Church and to pull them up into Christian manhood? You don't see the discontinuity so strikingly until they start getting wrinkles. It’s our job to reach down to our young men, offer them a hand and pull them up in maturity and Christian manhood. That is not doing that. 

Speaker #6 (Begins at 9:07)
I don’t think any of us are saying that in the worship of God there's only a certain kind of music that should be sung - like we should only sing country-western music in church. Or we should only sing classical music, etc. But I think what we are all saying is that some forms of music cannot be separated from the culture out of which they come. That’s an important thing to bear in mind. When we have young men or women the church let's say the young men start wearing an earring. I say, “What's the purpose of the earring? The pierced ear?” And they'll say, “Well I just like it.” or “I think it's nice,” or “it’s the fashion,” and I say, “Do you know why it is the fashion? Do you know who you're identifying with when you wear this earring? You're not identifying yourself with the godly men in the church but with an entirely different culture out there. And same thing with certain forms of music. 

I don't want to be controversial or unloving, Brother Biggie, but I believe rap is the death rattle in the throat of the dying culture. And I think also that we must not use music in the worship of God where the words get lost in the music. And all people hear is the music. Now that doesn't just mean rock-and-roll, that means some songs, you know, that you can waltz to. That people remember an old tune or identify that particular beat or rhythm or kind of music with something in their past and so, even though they might be singing the right words the connotation is something entirely different. And I think that the music that we use in the worship of course all the words must be true. We must sing our hymns to God, they must be about God, and anything we say about ourselves in the hymns must be with reference to God. 

And I think the music by which we sing must fit the majesty of the words, and the dignity of the words, and that there be edification and instruction as well as praise in the words. For instance: music where everything is just repetitious, you say the same thing over and over and over and over again and people call it various things, and it may move them emotionally, but that kind of music is so boring - I think it's also disrespectful to God, it doesn't reveal any kind of real knowledge of God. 

So music as all of us know is a very sensitive thing. There’s certain kinds of music I like and certain kinds I don't like. We use a great hymnal in our church, but some of the tunes are funeral dirges and I don't like singing funeral dirges in church. You remember what it says the Old Testament? The purpose of music is to raise sounds of joy. That is to help us in our joyful praise of God. You must always ask yourself, particularly you young people who listen to music a great deal on your iPods and all the rest: What does this music do to me? How is it making me feel? Is it making me feel anxious? Bitter? Upset? Lustful? How is this music making me feel? And the same thing I think we should ask when we’re worshipping God: Is the music enhancing and strengthening the words that were singing, to the glory of God? Or is it basically the tune that we’re after?