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What is a particular creative piece -- a work of art, a book, a movie, a song, a performance, anything -- that has a religious theme or overtones, and yet you can't help but like it or even love it?

I'm thinking of this because on Easter Sunday there will be a live broadcast of Jesus Christ Superstar with a pretty cool cast. Being raised Jewish and being an agnostic, one would think I'd get myself far away from this. But this show has one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's best scores and awesome songs, I've liked it for years, and I'm very much looking forward to the broadcast.

bleurowz 8 Mar 18
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63 comments (26 - 50)

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1

Why me Lord by Kris Kristofferson. You will have to watch the You Tube version where he explains how he came to write the song.
I don't care if it rains or freezes from the movie Cool Hand Luke. Don Imus use to have if as his theme song for his radio show in the 70's. Imagine by the Beatles and 'This Train' by the Band.

2

The Recordare from Mozart's Requiem. Although it's a plea for Jesus' mercy on judgement day, it is so earnest and stunningly gorgeous. It also is a work of complete technical and expressive mastery.

2

Jesus Christ Superstar, because I am a sucker for show tunes. Heh.

Me too!

2

Neil Diamond’s “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show”

@Stevil I actually looked that up recently and I can't remember the consensus. I don't think of Billy Graham when I listen to it. 🙂

5

I don't own any but I would think rosary beads would be a really therapeutic thing to have on hand for high anxiety days. 🙂

I have a set of catholic rosary beads and a set of anglican rosary beads. They can be therapeutic.

@Stevil Those are for late night anxiety when "I just can't get to sleep"

They can, indeed. Religions use repeated rhythmic movements to induce at least a mild hypnotic state that "opens" the mind, of at least people, to the power of suggestion. This CAN be used for beneficial therapeutics as well as "mind control."

Rosary beads remind me of Buddhist mala beads. They have the same purpose.

@bleurowz cool, bleu, something new. I have to look into Buddhist mala beads.

1

From the cultural / enrichment point all books / movies / song....even the Piss Christ....I like them all. Each one teaches me something new.

Yay the Piss Christ!

3

I used to like "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", but Charlie Daniels is quickly becoming the next Duck Dynasty Douche...

You can like a song without admiring the singer of the song.

2

tHE Pieta

1

The cross. I have a collection of them. I love the different artwork and the symmetry. Also, it is a connection to my Pagan days (the cross was around before Christianity...🙂

what did it symbolize before christianity?
/

@btroje It was a Pagan symbol and meant different things depending upon the path you were on. On my path it was symbolic of the meeting of the physical and spiritual planes of existence.

9

HAndel's Hallelujah Chorus....especially singing it!
Incidentally the Hallejulah by Cohen is NOT religious in any sense....if anything anti--religious

Thank you for pointing out that "Hallelujah" is not religious. As for the Hallelujah Chorus, I have sung The Messiah many times, and as I have said elsewhere on other threads, it is not about religion for me - it's about the music, and especially about how I feel when I sing. 🙂

AnneWimsey, I'll have to listen more closely to the words of Cohen's Hallelujah

Cohen's Hallelujah is one of my karaoke songs. With utmost respect.

3

Oh, and The Exorcist... Great book and movie -

When I read it, I was dating a woman whose mother would not let me in the house with it - true story...

@Stevil Lol

1

One of my favorite books is "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov which takes place in both early 20th centu ry Moscow and the days leading up to the crucifixion. Great book - Satan is actually portrayed as a protagonist... Pontius Pilate is a hypochondriac and Jesus is sort of awkward.

Another is "Lamb" by Christopher Moore - funny retelling of the life of Christ from the viewpoint of his childhood BFF, Biff.

1

I still listen to some CCM (Contemporary Christian Music.) To me, it's no different from enjoying creative works from other cultures. Same goes for quite a bit of art and earlier forms of Western music that are sacred in intent.

When I was a teenager I was asked by my very religious cousin what music I listened to. I listed a bunch of bands. She informed me that I was listening to "secular" rock. I said, "No, I listen to rock. YOU listen to Christian rock - rock came first. Chrtistians hated it - but now use it as a recruiting tool. " I guess I was atheist back then.

I refuse to listen to modern Christian music.

1

Plenty of people have already mentioned Hallelujah and Let It Be. I also really like the Prince of Egypt.

2

There's a lot of magnificent music - Ave Maria, Jerusalem (and did those feet in ancient times...), Hallelujah (Cohen), the list is endless. So many composers were brought up in religious states, that's where their talents had to be directed in order to gain favor and ear a crust.

1

This is the best!

1

I like this mildly anti-abortion song. Despite some lyrics rubbing me wrong, it makes some valid points and is gorgeous.

2

Paradise Lost, The divine comedy, and of course Don Quixote

13

"Let It Be" by the Beatles

2
Jnei Level 8 Mar 18, 2018
8

"Morning has broken", Cat Stevens.

love the lyrics and the songs of his

1

Opera as long as I don't understand the words.

I adore opera , understand in both French and English ...
It's not necessarily religious . I saw two Puccini operas this week ..... At the theatre .
Going to Madama Butterfly in May .

I meant to say French and Italian . The English s reasonably self evident

Most operas are not religious.

18

"Hallelujah" - composed by Leonard Cohen and performed by many. It speaks also to faith and hearts crushed and broken.

What I like about "Hallelujah" is its idea that spirituality and sex are not mortal enemies....

@Deveno Life is beautiful. Maybe especially when it wants to crush you.

@Deveno The christian bible is absolutely brimming with lust and violence and murder.and greed and all those SEVEN things. And then the people DOING those things are the heroes!

9

Religion gave man a depth of spirit that enabled many of the great works of art. It provided these artists with inspirations that drove their works to the heights we see spectacularly exhibited during the Renaissance. The force of religion pervaded all the arts up until relatively recently and it continues to do so, only now sublimated into scularized terms.
This is not to deny that religion is a kind of sickness which enslaves man, but it is to suggest that man now needs to create his own meanings, his own inspirations and practices.

cava Level 7 Mar 18, 2018

Imagine what those artists would have created without the religious indoctrination... I argue that they were constrained by the powers at be...

They came up with some bad-ass monsters too! Ahh...imagination...

@JimSherlock1008 Richard Dawkins laments, in "The God Delusion" that "We shall never hear Beethoven's Mesozoic Symphony or Mozart's opera The Expanding Universe and what a shame that we are deprived of Hayden's Evolution Oratorio" (111)
But the churches had the money and the artists had to eat . . .lol

I see it as... Humanity's depth of spirit created religion, a story which inspired many works of art. Now that we have begun to question and rewrite that story, we can look forward to the birth of many more new works of art.

4

A Love Supreme - John Coltrane

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