All right, y’all. Take out your 2026 bingo cards. Does anyone have “Kid Rock teaming up with Eminem for a track on a Christian album” on your card?

Nobody? It’s not exactly the kind of thing any of us imagined we’d ever hear, but it’s happening.

Kid Rock is releasing his new album Halfway 2 Jesus this Saturday, October 17. The lead single is “James 1:17 (Jesus Is King).”

The best thing that I can say is that it sounds exactly like a Kid Rock song. One line from the chorus sticks out to me: “So pray for my salvation.” That suggests to me that he may not have given his life to Jesus yet, but it’s something that’s between him and the Lord.

Side note: I’m admittedly not a Kid Rock fan. He did a set at Music Midtown in Atlanta in 1998 before he hit it big, and every song sounded exactly the same to my brother and me. I’m glad he’s on our side politically, but I don’t really care for his Southern Rock cosplay.

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“I’m really looking forward to people hearing this. It’s a crazy journey I’ve been on,” Kid Rock said in August, according to Country Now. “I’ve grown a lot stronger in my faith.”

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But the collaboration with Eminem is turning heads. The two longtime friends are teaming up for a song on the album called “7 Sins.” Trivia time: The album will come out on Eminem’s 54th birthday.

DeWayne Hamby writes at Patheos:

It is not the first time the two have shared a record. A pre-“Slim Shady LP” Eminem appeared on Kid Rock’s 1998 breakthrough album, “Devil Without a Cause,” on the track “F— Off.” Kid Rock later turned up in the music video for Eminem’s 2013 single “Berzerk.”

It is also not the first time Eminem has shown up on a song that name-checks Jesus. In 2022, on a DJ Khaled remix of Kanye West’s “Use This Gospel,” the rapper born Marshall Mathers rapped lines including “Because He is my shepherd / I’m armed with Jesus, my weapon is prayer” and “Praises to Jesus, I’ll always.” At the time, this column asked whether the appearance meant Eminem was a Christian, noting he had already referenced finding his Christianity on the 1996 track “It’s Ok,” from his debut album, “Infinite.”

Additionally, Beliefnet reports:

During the height of Eminem's popularity, Christian rapper KJ-52 responded to Eminem's song "Stan," detailing a communication between a deranged fan and the singer, with an evangelistic hip-hop song aimed at the rapper called "Dear Slim." Through a mutual friend, KJ-52 knows that Eminem heard the song and believes he responded in a song called "Be Careful What You Wish For," which mentions a fan praying for him and how he felt he already had "God on my side."

Again, Eminem’s salvation is just as much between him and God as Kid Rock’s. But what’s especially notable is that the two men agreed to set aside their massive political differences to record the track.

Here’s the thing: I don't know exactly where Kid Rock stands with Jesus Christ today (same with Eminem), and I'm not going to pretend that an album tells me everything I need to know. But I'm glad he's talking about Him. My prayer is that this isn't merely a new musical direction but evidence of something much more important. After all, the best destination isn't halfway to Jesus. It's belonging to Him. We should pray for both of these men.

At the same time, it’s encouraging that these two celebrities can show an increasingly polarized world that political disagreements don’t have to divide us. That’s the message I hope the world sees almost as much as the message that Jesus is King.