Gospel.com Blog

The Christian church may not be the musical trendsetter that it has been in past centuries, but the church’s “cloud of witnesses” includes several of the greatest musicians who have ever lived. Today it’s appropriate to remember one of them in particular: Felix Mendelssohn, who was born 200 years ago.

Mendelssohn was a prolific composer; chances are you’d recognize several of his works today, even if you didn’t know Mendelssohn was the composer. He was an interesting character whose reputation was heavily attacked by anti-Semite critics. Here are a few places to read up on Mendelssohn and his contributions to the field of music:

• An overview of his life at Songs and Hymns, along with an MP3 of the famous hymn “Now Thank We All Our God.”
• The NPR website has a number of excellent features on Mendelssohn and his music.
• The Mendelssohn Project aims to restore Mendelssohn’s reputation and bring many of his lost works back into the public spotlight.
• The Christian History Institute relates Mendelssohn’s efforts to revive the music of Bach, another famous Christian composer.
• And lastly, an essay about the Mendelssohn family’s Jewish heritage, and the anti-Semitic efforts to erase Mendelssohn’s music from the public square during the Nazi era in Germany.

Today, a couple of quick updates from the COMIX35 ministry! COMIX35 is a Christian comics ministry that publishes and distributes evangelistic comics around the world. They also do a lot to identify and recruit promising comic artists from within the Christian community.

They’ve got updates on two comics contests that they’re running:

• They’ve launched the Christian Comics Competition for U.S. Prison Inmates as a way of identifying talented Christian artists in the US prison system. The first phase of the competition asks prison chaplains to recommend inmates who “exhibit exceptional talent in the areas of drawing and storytelling.” The three candidates who make it to the end of the contest will help produce a short comic for inmates and at-risk youth.
• The deadline for the Manga Messiah video competition has been extended to March 4 to give all “amateur and professional video producers, YouTubers, and GodTubers around the world” a chance to get their entries in. The competition webpage has full details on the contest, as well as free music tracks you can use with your video.

Take a look at these contests, and while you’re there, get to know COMIX35’s unique comics evangelism ministry!

Next month is the 2009 Academy Awards ceremony, when the best films and performances of 2008 will be chosen and honored. While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does the actual voting, that hasn’t stopped every film geek and blogger in the world from weighing in with their opinions. Here are a few Christian film critics with some interesting thoughts on the nominated films. How do their opinions match with your own?

• First, what films have been nominated? Hollywood Jesus helpfully lists all of the nominations. Elsewhere on the HJ site, critics Tim Berroth and Darrel Manson share their picks for the best films of 2008.
• Jeff Walls and Greg Wright from the Past the Popcorn crew weigh in with their own lists as well.
• Film critic Peter Chattaway’s thoughts on the Academy’s list of nominees.
• Jeffrey Overstreet of Looking Closer doesn’t think much of this year’s nominations, and proposes something different for Oscar night.

Enjoy the Oscars tonight (or not), and browse around these critics’ websites to see what else they’ve got to say about faith and film.

Image by flickr user Anne Siegel.

Note: this post originally mis-stated the date of the Oscars ceremony. The correct date is February 22.

Over the years, Comix35 has run a variety of contests showcasing the best in evangelistic comics. Their newest competition, however, branches into new territory: online video! The 2008 Manga Messiah video competition challenges both amateur and professional video creators to make their own video interpretations of the Manga Messiah graphic novel.

Entering the contest is easy; head over to the competition website to fill out the entry form and read the contest rules. Once you’ve registered, you can download official imagery from the manga to use in your video—and be sure to check out other free resources you can use with your creation, such as these Japanese praise and worship songs.

The contest deadline is December 31, 2008. The grand prize is a limited-edition hardcover version of the manga and an original sketch by the artist. So go find out more, and see what you can come up with!

For two thousand years, the cross has been a universally recognized symbol of the Christian faith. But despite the structural simplicity of the cross itself, artists throughout history have portrayed the cross in countless different ways, each rendition emphasizing slightly different things and glimpsing the Resurrection symbolism from a different angle.

The Billy Graham Center Museum in Wheaton, Illinois has a new temporary exhibit running through August 10 that showcases many different takes on the Cross of Jesus Christ. There’s a short article and a few accompanying images on their website showcasing the exhibit; to see the full exhibit, you’ll need to visit the Museum itself. The brief sampling on the website is certainly intriguing.

The status quo is never ‘”good enough.” And so, once a year, the staff of Hollywood Jesus gathers at Renton, Washington’s Harambee Church, for the Hollywood Jesus Annual Gathering—there to revisit HJ’s foundational goals, build bonds of fellowship, and hone skills in order to bring the best possible cultural insights to the web.

Better yet, the event is also open to readers, pastors, and writers from other publications! On tap for this year’s workshops—December 29 through 31—are writer and critic Jeffrey Overstreet, recently honored at the City of Angels Film Festival; Peter T. Chattaway, film critic for CT Movies and Books and Culture; Mike Gunn, Harambee pastor and co-founder of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church; James Harleman, Mars Hill pastor; author, animation scholar and educator Ken Priebe; Hollywood Jesus founder David Bruce; HJ Managing Editors Greg and Jenn Wright; and HJ Channel Editors Melinda Ledman and Maurice Broaddus.

That’s an impressive lineup of Christians on the cutting edge of faith and culture. If that sounds like something you’d like to participate in, you can read more about the Gathering and get registration info over at Hollywood Jesus.

Hollywood Jesus is a site devoted to pop culture from a spiritual point of view. Every week, they offer reviews and analysis of the latest movies, books, comics, and other pop culture artifacts.

You can keep up with their regular updates at HJ Live!. But in case you missed it, here’s a rundown of some of the new items at HJ this week:

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Call it a savvy marketing, call it media evangelism—evangelical Christians have a history of using every available medium to get the Gospel message across, whether it’s printed tracts, radio broadcasts, or big-screen films. The Billy Graham Center has a fascinating online exhibit of one of the quirkier niches in evangelical history: classic Christian posters!

There’s a great gallery of vintage posters, from “come to the meeting” posters advertising revival meetings to somewhat quirkier posters. It’s interesting to compare posters from different parts of the world, from a stark London poster to lavishly illustrated Chinese posters.

Be sure to check them all out, and don’t miss this page of classic posters that aren’t a part of the exhibit.

A side note: Several of the posters, you’ll note, advertise Billy Graham crusades around the world. The Christian History Institute has an interesting account of Graham’s monumental 1954 evangelism crusade, if this particular corner of evangelical history interests you.

Break out your drawing tools and your imagination! The Second International Christian Comics Competition, hosted by the Comix35 ministry, is underway? Entrants (who can be from anywhere around the world) have until June 13, 2007 to submit a short, original comic that is either evangelistic in nature or which displays an aspect of Christian discipleship. Winners receive a cash award and will be published in a compilation. See the full contest rules for details.

The Billy Graham Center museum has a new temporary exhibit up and running through January ‘07–a display called Expressing Faith. It explores the many different ways that Christian artists try “to express a spiritual reality, maybe an intangible one, in a visual form that another person can comprehend and respond to.” Although the physical exhibit is located in Chicago, you can read a bit more about it at the BGC website.