Review/Apologetics: Reckless Love is Borderline Blasphemy.

Even if you’re not a millennial who posts aesthetic pictures of their Bible study and coffee on Instagram, you’ve probably heard this dumpster fire of a song before. Reckless Love, written by Cory Asbury, produced by Bethel Music, and released in 2017 is one of the most popular “Christian” songs in existence with almost a million streams on Spotify alone. That doesn’t even include how often it’s played on Christian radio, played in churches, or played via other music streaming services. Needless to say, even if you don’t go to church, thanks to how popular this song is, you’ve probably heard it before.

However, as popular as this song is, its very premise is a theological mess that could’ve only come from some who doesn’t know their Bible or severely misunderstood it. The entire song is about how God’s love for us is reckless because He showed his love for us by sending His son to die in our place even though we were/are still in rebellion against God. Essentially, the entire song is saying that God is a simp.

You see the issue here?

If you look at the Bible, God’s love is not reckless by any stretch of the imagination. It is intentional and thought out. Everything that happens in the Bible, from the Fall to Noah’s Ark, the establishment of Israel through Abraham, the establishment of the Davidic line, and even the takeover of Israel by various foreign powers was all leading to one pivotal moment in history where Jesus would be crucified.

That type of foresight is not something that you see with recklessness, as reckless actions are impulsive. There is no thought put into them beyond what’s immediately there. You simply do the thing you want to do and hope for the best. But that’s not what God does.

On that note, “Reckless Love” also spits in the face of a major attribute of God’s: omniscience. As an omniscient being, God – by definition – cannot be reckless because, once again, recklessness has no foresight. To say that God is reckless then, is to call into question his omniscience because it would imply that He doesn’t know what will happen.

So why then is this song played in churches if it’s so borderline blasphemous? For one thing, it’s a popular worship song, so many churches will use it just for that reason. Others, however, use it because of a lack of discernment to see how ridiculous this song is.

Until next time,

M.J.