This weekend will be a phenomenon worth noting in Toronto. BTS is coming! So exciting is this event that Toronto City Council voted on honouring their visit by temporarily co-naming a stretch of Yonge Street in North York as “BTS Boulevard” (August 21 to September 23, 2026).
So, who is BTS? If we haven’t yet figured out who they are or what they stand for, 136 million fans from all over Asia, North and South America, and Europe who call themselves the “BTS Army” would love for us to know. BangTan Sonyeondan (or what literally translates to “Bulletproof Boy Scouts”) is a South Korean K-Pop boy band. It comprises seven young men who have made their mark in the music world. Together, they have won more than 500 prestigious global and domestic awards, including multiple American Music Awards (such as Artist of the Year), Billboard Music Awards, and numerous South Korean grand prizes (Daesangs). The Toronto stop is part of their world tour that they’ve called “Arirang” (the title of a Korean folk song, acknowledged as the unofficial national song of South Korea).
What makes BTS unique is their appeal to the younger generation. Their crisp and energetic dancing, precisely coordinated choreography, Korean and English lyrics, and their unique and appealing musicality carry a message of the mental health and social struggles that young people encounter. Their call to their generation of young listeners? “A greater self-love and a greater growth of self,” they say. Put together, they form what one observer calls “the minor philosophers of our generation” whose voices are heard far more deeply and widely than the stalwart philosophers of the last century. The message of self-love resonates to 136 million souls sensing the anger of their society filled with wars, economic threats, and broken relationships. More recently, BTS refused to submit any of their songs to the Grammys as a quiet statement against the systemic racialization of the Awards. It was another call to love yourself despite a deeply prejudiced world.
The BTS message reminds us as believers in Christ that we have an opportunity to speak into a generation that is increasingly sensitized to hate. The solution is of course neither to condemn others nor to love oneself since self-love inevitably produces hate towards others (James 4:1-3). The Biblical message is to love God who despite our confusion, sin and hatred, loves us. “Greater love has no man than this,” Jesus declared the purpose of the Cross to a generation filled with people who loved themselves so much that they wounded others and themselves without conscience, “that a man lay down His life for His friends” (John 15:13). This is the message that our world needs to hear from our mouths and from our lives. As the BTS Army descends on Toronto over the next week, let’s not turn a blind eye to the excitement of the dance and the music. They’re instruments of the message. And in the midst of that message, let’s make plain the message of Christ’s love. 136 million souls need to hear it.
