Losing My Religion

I’m losing my religion
Thank God!
I prayed about my decision
How odd
For the man with the mic
To be the man all his life
Rock Christ, like Stipe’s did with R.E.M
Rev up the RPMs
How do I begin to try to paint this sin
Of rules?
That divide God’s people in two.

In the beginning, religion created a mask
The reformation helped, but soon the patch didn't last.
I don’t tell, you don’t ask
So we created a lie
And for generations, church was where we went to go hide
Or we no longer tried
Because a rules read-out relationship is empty inside,
Leaves you bitter, dry
Swift to cut like a razor
Swift to call you a traitor
'Cause you swift to love Taylor
Now we got bad blood with our neighbor
Who’s wrong, who’s right?
Every Sunday we're divided
Who’s black, who’s white?
Shamone!!

Now the Man in the Mirror never gets race right
He’ll never be Christ-like
Never receive good pay
So your faith never rises above minimum wage
So when it’s time to save the world (heh)
You don’t know what to say
To your brother that you love when he tells you he’s gay.
Do you push him away?
Judge him down till he leaves?
Give him a gospel he hears or a gospel he sees?
Love wrapped in truth is the gospel he needs!
There's the room at the cross for everyone, even me.

Well, my sins are now clean, the lost are redeemed,
Religion is a prison but truth sets us free
Helps us believe that the world we're in now is not the world that will be.
Terror, famine, disease,
Millions in poverty,
Hungry, can’t sleep,
With all this religion why these babies can’t eat?
And if the middle class is gone how can America see?
How can America breathe
when the Oxygen is gone from the American dream?
And these American streets listen close as they speak,
“The next time you think 'America', please include me!”
Help the ones that are weak,
All they want is a piece
Of the pie that you keep,
Is that too much for those that laid the concrete?
Still laying on concrete
Pop, Pop, by police
See, they the foundation of the nation, not the 2%
Not the ones that own the building that the middle-class rent
Because they make cents.

Tell me, how do you feel?
I'm the new Franklin and I have the new deal.
I fight and do right
FDR for real
One nation under God
God, show us the way.
The science of opinion:
God is not a buffet.
You pick what you want so no God on your plate

The preacher isn't God
Religion's first mistake
Serving stewards, shepherds, not kings;
Has to die to his flesh everyday like me
One VIP
All the other seats in church are free
We're just groupies
God's the celebrity

Before 313 AD
Before Constantine
Before the Council of Nicaea
Before Romans and Greeks
Before Calvin, Alexander, Luther
Before "Let there be"
Before history
To the last century
Before the death on the tree
Before the fall of man
Was a picture of me,
Nailed to his heart
Right before the last three words he would speak:
“IT IS FINISHED!”
Can you believe?

I’m losing my religion
Thank God!
Helping you lose yours
is my job.