In this interview, Derek Webb was asked:

A lot of people consider your songs offensive, or at least some of your songs, and I think we saw that especially with the first album. As I understand it the album wasn’t even sold in some stores. Do you consider your songs offensive even to you?

Derek’s Reply:

Yeah, actually. There are quite a few songs, especially on the first record, and I think there are lots of parallels between the first album and Mockingbird, they are similar records in spirit, though the content’s different. They are very similar records. And I am offended by, for instance the language the Scripture uses when talking about me. When Ezekiel 16 goes to the trouble of not only calling me as part of Christ’s body, as part of the church, as a member of the church, calling me a prostitute or a whore and then goes even further to say not only am I a whore but I am a whore who actually pays men to sleep with me as opposed to just taking their money. That is the language Scripture uses to talk about the heart of God’s people and how adulterous we are and how wrecked spiritually we are. Unbelievably offensive language! And it does offend me. It should offend me. It continually offends me. On some of these new songs…there is a song called “My Enemies Are Men Like Me” that is taking a hard look at the way we in the West, the language we have put on how people relate to our enemies. And it’s difficult to me to sort out how to take seriously the commands to love my neighbor and to follow the story of the Good Samaritan which is basically a story of a man’s enemy risking his life for him. And loving our enemies. Teaching like that is very difficult in the West. If we’ve made it out to be not so difficult then we’re not really hearing what it’s teaching us.

Here are the lyrics to two more of Webb’s songs that some might find offensive.

T-Shirts (What We Should Be Known For)
words and music by derek webb

they’ll know us by the t-shirts that we wear
they’ll know us by the way we point and stare
at anyone whose sin looks worse than ours
who cannot hide the scars of this curse that we all bare

they’ll know us by our picket lines and signs
they’ll know us by the pride we hide behind
like anyone on earth is living right
and isn’t that why Jesus died
not to make us think we’re right

chorus
when love, love, love
is what we should be known for
love, love, love
it’s the how and it’s the why
we live and breathe and we die

they’ll know us by reasons we divide
and how we can’t seem to unify
because we’ve gotta sing songs a certain style
or we’ll walk right down that aisle
and just leave ‘em all behind

they’ll know us by the billboards that we make
just turning God’s words to cheap clich