The title of multi-platinum gospel artist Kirk Franklin's latest album "Losing My Religion" may have been the subject of criticisms and controversy but he now reveals that it was deliberately chosen to spark a conversation about Americans losing their faith.
In an interview with ABC after his performance in Houston, Franklin said that his album takes a deeper look at the shifts in the religious landscape and how in his view establishing a relationship with God has been relegated to the back seat.
"When you look at the decline of church attendance in America, or when you look at the decline of millennials that are not going to church in America, you want to have the conversation that a lot of times people are hit more with religion and rules and the systems than they are with the love of God and having a personal relationship with Christ," he said.
In a separate interview with the Tom Joyner Morning show, Franklin lamented that religion is perceived as something oppressive and a measuring stick for righteousness that leads people to think they are being judged constantly by God.
"Religion, throughout the years, has become a very oppressive thing that doesn't allow people to get to know the God it was created to try to lead them to. So basically, it's just like marriage cannot guarantee intimacy, religion doesn't guarantee relationship. It doesn't guarantee you're going to have a loving, relationship with God. So God becomes this distant person that's always pointing at my sins, always beating me up and you never know Him as a friend and as a father," he said.
Losing My Religion is Franklin's 12<sup>th studio album and his first in four years.
The album has received positive reviews from music critics.
"Just when you thought Franklin had settled into the role of elder statesman within the gospel industry and with a string of wildly successful television, radio, concert tour and executive ventures, he returns to the scene with not only a new album, but his best work yet," the site's Gospel Music Examiner Fred Willis posted in his review.
