‘Christian Side Hug’ song becomes YouTube sensation

London: A song by a band of rappers, who have been advocating celibacy, has become a hit on YouTube for advocating ‘Christian side-hugs’ because frontal hugs are ‘sinful’. ‘Gimme Dat Christian Side Hug’ is a song by a band of rappers apparently linked to a Californian ministry called The Father’s House.

The song advocates standing side-by-side when hugging to avoid the uncontrollable temptation that hugging face-to-face – and therefore crotch-to-crotch – would lead to. “This ain’t no front hug zone,” a news daily quoted one of the rappers, who goes on to warn listeners that front hugs should only be permitted after marriage, as saying. “Jesus never hugged nobody like that,” he added. The rappers come on stage to the sound of police sirens, and at the end of the four-minute song gunfire rings out and they fall to the ground as though shot. There is some debate over whether the video is satirical: a site called Stuff Christians Like, an avowed satire, does mention the Side Hug (although it carefully points out it is nothing to do with the video), and commenters on various blogs claim it is an elaborate joke. However, The Father’s House and their Encounter Generation Conference do seem to be entirely real. So far almost 300,000 people have watched the rap online. ANI