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Christianity Today, December, 2008 |

That Controversial 'Messiah'

Christian art continues to stir people in unexpected ways.

A Christianity Today editorial | posted 12/22/2008 11:02AM

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Maestro John Nelson left Shanghai shortly after directing Handel's Messiah in 2006. Most of the audience members had loved it, Nelson said, although neither the ...

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Brian

Posted: December 24, 2008 11:11 AM


Handel left no solid indication that he ever had a love affair of any kind, gay or straight. There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that King George II asked him flat out about his "love of women," to which Handel replied evasively that he had no time for anything but music. (From a recent book by Ellen T. Harris of MIT).

omeomy

Posted: December 24, 2008 4:16 AM


Nate: Please, please give us a brake. If you get my meaning?

Buddy

Posted: December 23, 2008 2:23 PM


Sadly, Jesus left no music behind, and the English language Bible he was translating has been lost to us as well. In the meantime, we must accept our treasures in clay vessels.

Jeff Fairchild

Posted: December 23, 2008 11:28 AM

I would like to say something to Charles Alexander if I could with all due respect. I am afraid you may be looking for gays under every bush. The stories about the authors of Messiah and Nutcracker being gay have never been proven. They are attempts actually of revisionist historians trying to justify homosexuality. And, even though King James may have been a homosexual, the discontinuation of the KJV in many chuches have nothing to do with that. It has to do with using more accurate and readable translations. I think that you really need to be careful what you read an dbelieve and get your facts straight before making such statements. All you are doing is contributing to fallacy that the church only cares about condemning homosexuals. The church is about proclaiming Christ and living as His disciples and not routing out the "sinners."

Ephrem Hagos

Posted: December 22, 2008 11:34 PM


Here is more controversy. Firstly, the "Good News" is not at all ABOUT Jesus but JESUS CHRIST in person. Secondly, isn't the so-called "church", after all, a misnomer of the real one which knows nothing about its own raison d'etre let alone worship of God, i.e., in Spirit and truth?!!

narciso

Posted: December 22, 2008 9:56 PM

Back in 1959 I was part of an inter church choir that performed the Christmas portion of the Messiah. The power of the music stuck with me. When Young Messiah was released my first reaction was "This is a travesty!" But immediately it became a hit among my teen age children. I know they will one day look for more serious renditions of the oratorio. I think art can be enjoyed at different levels. Many of us find our way to so called higher art because we have been exposed to it at a lower level. Luciano Pavarotti would not have reached a wider audience for his art if he did not form Pavarotti and Friends.

TaresGrowingWithWheat

Posted: December 22, 2008 5:10 PM

Charles, I appreciate your comments. The disciples wanted to start "rooting out" all the evil and Jesus rebuked them and told them the story of the wheat and tares. Basically, He said, "Don't start going around trying to root out all the evil you find. Let the tares grow with the wheat. At the end of the age, the angels of God will do the separation." You see if we stopped and started boycotting every organization, business or even church for the things we see that are not right, we would all have to lock ourselves up. I don't endorse homosexuality, I am a born again believer. I just don't want to start acting like the Pharisees of Jesus' time and consider the people Christ came to minister to as unclean and unapproachable. My friend, you cannot escape the evil in this world, but that is why the Lord has called us, not to become part of it, but minister the transforming gospel of Jesus Christ to them. Sin is sin and they need Christ as much as you and I. Amen !

charles alexander

Posted: December 22, 2008 4:47 PM

Christians should keep in mind that the composer of the choral work, THE MESSIAH, was not, by all historical accounts, a heterosexual. The same was also true of Tschiakovsky, the composer of THE NUTCRACKER. He was a well-know "gay" composer. Perhaps we as born-again Christians should re-think what we are inadvertently doing by performing their music. We've stopped using the King James translation in many of our services for that very reason. Living in the Last Days we have to be ever watchful of stealth messages.

ketch22

Posted: December 22, 2008 2:33 PM

The comment by Nate on "The Young Messiah": currently there is a tour or a tour that just finished called HERO which included the top CCM artists of today providing a current updated life of Christ based on our culture. Michael Tait of dcTalk played Jesus. I, too, thought it could have been better. It generalized Jesus' mission on earth to one of love and didn't include the entire message it should have.

Nate	Posted: December 22, 2008 1:01 PM

I am glad there is a Christian organization, especially one in music, that celebrates and encourages 'higher art'. I am reminded of ghetto evangelicalism's horrible attempt at recreating the Messiah called "The Young Messiah" or some title like that. It had all the popular folks in CCM at the time (the late 80s, early 90s i believe). It is an absolute abomination and represents all that is awful about trying to be 'relevant to the culture'. There is something to be said about expressionistic art that authentically breathes its own air and rises on the creativity of its own author. Horrible Christian conceptions that are authored originally as works to be 'relevant' have in them the foundation of failure. In my 30+ years of existence, popular music has shown itself to be vacuous... with the 'new' music that sells simply being retreads of teenage angst made new every 10 years (Beatles, Michael Jackson, New Kids on the Block, Boys 2 Men, 98 degrees, etc, etc).

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