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Re:Tuned Mainstream Music

Discussion Guide

Artist: Lil Nas X
Album: Montero (Call Me By Your Name)
Label: Columbia
Song: Montero (Call Me By Your Name)
From: YLO 123 (Spring-Summer 2021 | Middle School)
Writer: Al Forsythe | Diocese of Knoxville | Knoxville, Tennessee
NOTE: This song’s lyrics are EXPLICIT – we don’t condone them, or recommend that kids listen to this song – but we know that many of your students are familiar with it, and want to give you a tool to help them think Bibically about it.
 
Teaching Point
Pastoral and psychological care for adolescents who struggle with sexual attraction issues is of particular importance. Adolescents with homosexual attractions can be at serious risk for personal difficulties, including suicidal tendencies and attempts as well as enticements to promiscuity and exploitation by adults. 
Every effort should be made to ensure that adolescents have access to age-appropriate professional counseling services that respect biblical teaching in matters of human sexuality. It is important to teach about true Biblical love.
 
Opening Question
  • What does it look like to love someone completely?
Lil Nas X says, “Calling someone by your own name is love, it’s like keeping the love between you two.”
In the music video, he does all this while singing with a mix of joy and wryness about gay sex, the frustration of living a closeted life, and the pain of loving someone who’s still in the closet. 
 
He sings, “I’m not fazed, only here to sin.” The song’s subtitle, “Call Me by Your Name” also doubles as a refrain, in which he sings, “Call me by your name / tell me you love me in private.
 
Discussion
1 John 4:7-8 states that love is of God and God is love. In other words, love is a fundamental characteristic of who God is. Everything God does is impelled and influenced by His love.
 
Scripture uses several different words for love in Hebrew and Greek, interchanging them depending on the context. Some of these words mean “affectionate love”, others indicate “friendship”, and still others “erotic, sexual love.” There is also a distinct word for the type of love that God displays. In Greek, this word is agape and it refers to a benevolent and charitable love that seeks the best for the loved one.
 
Looking at the video of Montero, the love portrayed is self-serving and self-gratifying. It is about taking what you want and is meant to shack and question one’s morality.
 
It is important to remember that we are to treat our brothers and sisters (that is all people) with love. In Jesus’ time, “proper people” looked down on those they considered to be sinners and would not associate with them. But, we are all sinners in our own ways. (Roman 3:23, 1 John 1:8
 
Jesus taught by word and example not to look down on, shun, criticize, judge, or condemn other people. (Matthew 7:1-5, Matthew 9:10-13, Luke 18:9-14, John 8:3-11)
 
What happened? If God is love, we were created in His image to exemplify love to each other, and love is everlasting. Just how did we ever get so far off track? For many of us, we’ve simply lost sight of what Scripture reveals to us.
 
We have the ability to love because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)
 
Love is action: “And Jesus said to him, ‘You go and do likewise.’” (Luke 10:37b)
 
Love isn’t optional: “and He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment and the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:35-40)
 
Love stands the test of time: “It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.” (1 Corinthians 13:7-10)
 
Love is a sign of maturity: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:11-12)
 
Challenge students not to take this for granted! Explain that knowing God is an amazing privilege. Help students begin to consider what changes they need to make to reframe their view of being in a relationship with God. 
 
Encourage them to commit to growing closer to God through prayer and interaction with His Word. 
Challenge them to challenge each other! And commit to praying for them and staying in touch to make sure they remember this conversation.
 
Conclusion
  • What is one way you could truly be an instrument of God’s love in this world?
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