UAB Gospel Choir

The UAB Gospel Choir held a fifteenth anniversary reunion concert at the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center in Birmingham, Alabama on Monday evening, 22 November 2010. The UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham)choir is under the direction of Kevin Turner. The choir has released four CD's and has sung with Stevie Wonder,Ruben Studdard, Lee Greenwood, and Taylor Hicks.


Since its creation in 1995, the choir has had over 4500 members. Average membership each semester is 120 to 150. Turner says, "We started with thirty students." Members of the choir study the history of gospel music, biographies of famous gospel performers,and techniques of performance and touring as a group; the academic study of gospel music.


The keyboardist for the group, Rev, Clinton Green, says, "There's not many places you can get a college credit for being in a gospel choir. It's preparing people for ministry." Seventeen other universities have begun gospel choirs on the UAB model.

It's Not Her!

Dutch forensics authorities have just announced that the female human jawbone found on a beach in Aruba does not belong to the missing American teenager, Natalee Holloway.  That leaves open the possibility that she may still be alive.  The question then becomes; whose jawbone is it?  Whose missing daughter has just been found?  Who killed her?  Are there other bones on Aruba's beaches?

Hello, Croatia!

Pozdrav, Hrvatska. Dobro došli u skupinu čitatelja četrdeset-sedam drugih zemalja koji su također posjetite ovaj blog. Nadam se da ćete pronaći neke od postova korisno ili smisla.


"Prevedi ovu stranicu" gadget neposredno iznad "Ukupno Pregledani Stranica" Counter ima sposobnost prevođenja engleski tekst ovog bloga direktno na hrvatski jezik.

The Preacher and the Little Boy

“A preacher was repairing the fence around the old country church.  He noticed that a small boy had been watching him for some time.

“Do you want to speak with me, son?” the pastor asked.

“Oh, no,” the boy replied.  “I’m just waiting.”

“Waiting for what?” the preacher asked.

“Waiting to hear what a preacher says when he hits his finger with a hammer!”

.....................................................................

“From The Big Book of Church Jokes, published by Barbour Publishing, Inc. Used by permission.”

Bible Printer's Errors: The Placemaker's Bible

Proofreading is very important.  Sometimes one word changes the entire meaning of a passage.  The following is an example to prove the point.



The Geneva Bible (1557) is a Protestant Bible produced fifty-one years before the King James Bible.  It was mechanically printed; mass-produced; filled with maps, footnotes, illustrations, tables, and indices; and was intentionally made available to the general public.   It is considered to be the first study Bible.


The errors shown below occur in the second edition (1562).

WHAT IT SHOULD HAVE SAID: 

"Blessed [are] the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." Matthew 5:9

WHAT IT SAID:

"Blessed [are] the placemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." Matthew 5:9

In its chapter heading for Luke 21:

WHAT IT SHOULD HAVE SAID: 

“Christ commendeth the poor widow.”

WHAT IT SAID:

“Christ condemneth the poor widow.”

Film Comment: Island of Despair

Godard, Rohmer, Truffaut, Chabrol, Almodovar, Oshima, Fellini, Rossellini, Bergman, Curtiz, Hitchcock, Frankenheimer, Chaplin, Ozu, Welles, Mizoguchi, Zefirelli, Polanski, Ford, Capra, Scorsese, Penn, Malle, Wilder, Allen, Burton, Cameron, Bertolucci, Spielberg, Naruse, Bunuel, Melies, Zhang, Kurosawa, Woo, Besson, Brooks.  Jesus Franco is not one of them.

Jesus Franco Manera, with over 190 films to his credit, is one of those unstoppable film directors (like the immortal Ed Wood) who don't let a lack of money and no real directorial talent stand in their way.  They love making movies and churn them out year after year, sometimes making as many as twenty in one year.

Most of Franco's films exist in multiple versions, with varying lengths, varying content, released with different scenes included for different countries, and most also exist in badly edited pornographic versions with inserts (yes, that is the technical term) of material totally unrelated to the rest of the film.  The producers heavily cut up the films, doing whatever was necessary to get people into the theater. 

The film I viewed for this post is possibly Franco's most accomplished effort, with big name actors (Mercedes McCambridge, Herbert Lom, Maria Schell, Luciana Paluzzi, and Rosalba Neri) and what seems to have been at least an adequate budget.  The film, just as do most other Franco films, exists in a pornographic version; I'm sure this was to the later horror of the legitimate actors who appeared in the non-pornographic version which I viewed.

Island of Despair (1969), originally titled Der heisse Tod (The Hot Death), is best known as 99 Women.  It is a WIP (Women in Prison) film, one of the first.  A group of 99 female prisoners are held in a castle prison on an island where they are stripped of their identities, known only by their prisoner numbers.  The main prisoner is 99.

The brutal superintendent (McCambridge) is an Iron Maiden who rules with a sadistic hand.  Under her administration, prisoners frequently have lethal "accidents."  She also has an arrangement with the corrupt governor (Lom) of the men's prison on the other side of the island.  He visits the women's prison to make use of it as his own personal harem. 

The government has become aware of the horrible conditions in the women's prison and sends an earnest prison reformer (Maria Schell) to correct the situation.  Of course, everything goes horribly wrong, and, at the end of the film, the reformer sadly leaves the prison which she knows has not changed at all.  The hopeless situation remains hopeless.  The reformer leaves with the female prisoners standing in the prison yard, staring at her back as she goes through the gate.

Christians often come across hopeless situations which seem to be beyond redemption.   People many times do not wish to hear what we have to say.  We may be tempted by their rejection to simply turn and walk away, to exit the gate.  And, realistically, we may not effect any change no matter what we do.  So, what is "success"?

In his book, Share Jesus Without Fear, William Fay points out that "success is sharing your faith and living your life for Jesus Christ.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with bringing anyone to the Lord.  It has everything to do with obedience."  Obedience, not results, is success for a Christian.  Results come from the work of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit indwells every believer.  "... we have the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, living in us ..." 

Martin Luther on The Word

"In the matter of faith one must let everything go and cling to the Word alone.  When we have gripped that, let the world, death, sin, hell and every misfortune storm and rage.  But if you let go of the Word, you will be doomed."  Martin Luther

I found this quotation on the blog of Pastor Heath Pukallus , a Lutheran minister in Western Australia.  I didn't understand the bibliographical listing for the quotation, SL.XI. 1767, 15, so I asked Pastor Pukallus about it.  His kind response told me, "SL refers to the Saint Louis Edition (translation) of Luther's works.  There are four different editions, St. Louis (SL), American (AE or LW), Weimar (WA), and Erlangen."

Since I am a "library rat," I set out to learn more about this.  I found a very informative 2009 article, "Cracking the Code: Making Sense of References to Martin Luther's Works. " The writer of the article, Pastor Paul T. McCain, calls sorting out references to Luther's writings "an alphabet soup kind of situation."  McCain lists twelve additional editions which you might see as bibliographical listings.

Many people find bibliographies and library studies to be as dry as the Mojave Desert, but for those of us who thrive on the stuff, this is a very interesting avenue of study.