Justin Bieber is showing his devotion to Christianity, discussing God and Jesus Christ in a new music video by Christian rapper Brandon Burke.
"God loved the world so much he gave up his own son, right?" the popstar asks. "Imagine, like, someone killing your son."
"Like a bunch of people killing your [son]," he adds passionately. "These are your people, right? It's like, 'How are you killing my son? That's my son!' It's gonna be hard for you to forgive."
He then says, "God forgave everyone and they killed his son. That shows how much grace God has."
Burke's dramatic music video features a rousing, sermon-like rap called "The Pledge," which includes the phrase, "thank God for the cross" and bible verse from 2 Chronicels 7:14, "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin, and will hear their land."
At the close of the video, Bieber is shown sitting with Burke, discussing his faith, Jesus, and forgiveness.
The Christian rapper says his mission in creating the music video is to raise one million pledges for God, something, he said, Bieber's celebrity will certainly help accomplish.
When the popstar rose to stardom at the age of 13, his mother Patty often spoke openly about the family's faith and weekly church attendance. However, Beiber has lately made headlines for trouble with the law, including a DUI and other violations.
Bieber's recent reputation as a troublemaker is what makes his public confession of faith stand out.
Over the past couple months, Bieber has seemingly become more serious about his faith. Although baptized as a child, the popstar attempted to be "born again," reportedly searching Manhattan, NY for appropriate location to be baptized by the pastor of Hillsong Church.
Bieber is a vocal fan of Hillsong, as he referenced Pastor Carl Lentz in September, tweeting "'Amazing sermon at church this morning. Love you man. I broke down today." Later, he shared a photo of him hanging out with Lentz on Instagram.
While many people have taken to Facebook and Twitter, calling the popstar's repentance "fake" and "attention-seeking," those close to Bieber urge social media users to refrain from judgement.
Lentz wrote concerning the popstar, "Sometimes it seems like although all us 'Christians' live in glass houses, people (especially social media "Christians") still develop an uncanny propensity to be Olympian level expert rock throwers and criticism/foolish judgment is far to prevalent."
"Truth is that Jesus outweighs them all.. there is so much good, so many grace filled/kind/humble people in this world that our job is to simply 'tune out the noise' from the world and 'turn up the volume' on the voice from heaven..life is good when you can hear from God, " the pastor continued.
A source close to Bieber reportedly told Page Six that 'Justin is serious about his Christian faith, and after recent events, he needed to take a pause.'
