Forgive your father’s murderer? Unlikely, right? Probably impossible? Unless, like Rwandan peace activist and renowned musician Jean Paul Samputu, you want to save your own life from self-destruction, misery, and pain.

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This is no ordinary choir.

Formed two years ago as part of Theatre Terrific’s mandate to provide inclusive arts education to adults with physical and mental disabilities, as well as anyone else interested in learning to sing, the choir includes a diverse membership. Four members sit in wheelchairs with various conditions such as muscular dystrophy or adrenoleukodystrophy, also known as locked-in body syndrome. Others have developmental challenges such as autism or Down syndrome, while others still have no diagnosed labels at all.

“It’s a place where anyone from any background and any sort of various challenges that they have, they can come and sing,” explains [James] Coomber, the choir’s musical director and executive director of Theatre Terrific.

Read it all (and I sure loved the video).

Today, at age 65, [Bob] Gersztyn’s religious fervor has mellowed; he rarely attends church and calls himself “an allegorical Christian.” But he has put together his love of pop music and photography to publish an illustrated, two-volume work titled “Jesus Rocks the World ”” The Definitive History of Contemporary Christian Music.”

The book, totaling some 600 pages, traces the history of Jesus music from Negro spirituals, gospel, and blues to its modern-day roots in Southern California with the Calvary Chapel and Vineyard church movements in the 1970s.

It also tells the story of rock and folk stars who had “born-again” conversions, such as Bob Dylan; Noel Paul Stookey (of Peter, Paul, and Mary); and John Michael Talbot (of Mason Proffit).

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O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
”˜Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: ”˜In God is our trust.’
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

–Francis Scott Key (1779-1843)

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U2 frontman Bono exchanged Bible references and bantered about music, theology and evangelicals’ role in AIDS activism in a recent radio interview with Focus on the Family president Jim Daly….

“First of all, David’s a musician so I’m gonna like him,” Bono said. “What’s so powerful about the Psalms are, as well as they’re being gospel and songs of praise, they are also the Blues. It’s very important for Christians to be honest with God, which often, you know, God is much more interested in who you are than who you want to be.”

As Bono praised David’s “honest language with God,” Daly noted that “sometimes it gets you into hot water with the more orthodox folks, because they see you as edgy, maybe too edgy at times.”

It’s a criticism that Bono’s used to hearing.

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Who brought down the Berlin Wall? It was Polish trade unionists, Mikhail Gorbachev and his perestroika, Ronald Reagan and his Star Wars program, ordinary East Germans demonstrating in the streets and piling into the West German embassy in Prague, and of course Günter Schabowski, the Politburo member who read out that legendary note lifting travel restrictions — “effective immediately” — on the night of Nov. 9, 1989.

A new book published this week ventures to add another name to that list — rock star Bruce Springsteen, who held the biggest concert in the history of East Germany on July 19, 1988, and whose rousing, passionate performance that night lit a spark in the hundreds of thousands of young people who saw him.

Springsteen attracted an estimated 300,000 people from all over the German Democratic Republic — the largest crowd he had ever played to. They were hungry for change and freedom, and seeing one of the West’s top stars made them even hungrier, argues veteran journalist Erik Kirschbaum in his book “Rocking the Wall,”

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There are few things as annoying as being stuck on a tarmac ”” in a cramped, packed plane ”” for long periods of time. But when you have some of the members of the Philadelphia Orchestra on your flight, it could turn magical.

No, seriously.

It happened to passengers on a flight from Beijing to Macau, this week. They had been sitting on the tarmac for three hours when a quartet of musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra pulled out their instruments and provided…[a wonderful diversion].

Read it all and please do not miss the video of what happened.

Christians disagree about music style as much as any other issue in the body of Christ. More than likely, you’ve experienced this firsthand. As I’ve already written, conflicts over music have been common through out church history. Christians have listened to and enjoyed all of kinds of music. But should they?.

In seeking to determine what is the right music for a church, it’s important that we use biblical principles in our evaluation. That’s not always easy””the Bible doesn’t contain music notes. God never gives us His musical preferences.

While it may be difficult, I do believe it’s possible to evaluate musical preferences using God’s word. The following seven tests each relate to biblical principles that we can apply to our music to determine its suitability…

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A theology professor of mine liked to remind our class that everyone’s a theologian. I don’t think he meant that everyone’s a particularly good theologian or has something significant or meaningful to say. The point was that we should always be on the lookout for how people theologize, how they conceive of God in real life.

You may not find a more popular theologian right now than Macklemore. I doubt he’d be too keen on that label. But when the hip-hop chart topper isn’t busy thrift shopping with his producer Ryan Lewis, he seems fairly interested in the feasibility of God in human experience.

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[KIM] LAWTON: McFerrin says his Christian faith permeates everything he does. But it’s particularly evident in his new album, “spirityouall,” which includes his interpretation of classic African-American spirituals and several devotional songs that he wrote. The project honors the legacy of his father, Robert McFerrin, Sr., the first African American to sing a title role at the Metropolitan Opera. The senior McFerrin also released an album of spirituals, Deep River, in 1957.

[BOBBY] MCFERRIN: I never heard my father pray. I know that he got on his knees many times before he went to bed at night and prayed, but I always heard him pray whenever he sang these spirituals.

LAWTON: McFerrin says songs like “Every Time I Feel the Spirit” still resonate today.

MCFERRIN: I certainly try to pray them as I’m singing them. That’s important. And the hope is that when people hear these pieces that they’ll carry them home with them and then they’ll inspire them to begin a spiritual journey or to continue on it.

Watch or read it all.

Watch and listen to it all.

Google is set to introduce a subscription music feature to compete against fast-growing new streaming services like Spotify, according to several people briefed on its plans.

Google is planning to introduce the new service on Wednesday at Google I/O, the company’s annual conference for software developers. The subscription feature will be connected to Play, Google’s online media hub, complementing its download store and “locker” feature, which lets people store their digital entertainment collections in the cloud, according to these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity before Google’s official announcement.

News of the announcement first appeared on The Verge. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.

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Most songwriters in Nashville want to get their songs on the radio.

Keith and Kristyn Getty hope their songs end up in dusty old hymn books.

The Gettys, originally from Belfast, Ireland, hope to revive the art of hymn writing at a time when the most popular new church songs are written for rock bands rather than choirs.

They’ve had surprising success.

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The community of Roxbury had high hopes for its newest public school back in 2003. There were art studios, a dance room, even a theater equipped with cushy seating.

A pilot school for grades K-8, Orchard Gardens was built on grand expectations.

But the dream of a school founded in the arts, a school that would give back to the community as it bettered its children, never materialized.

Read it all (Video highly recommended).

[Neil] Diamond flew his private jet to Boston. He showed up unannounced to Fenway about 30 minutes before start time, called the control room and asked if he could sing.

When the eighth inning came, Neil walked out in a Red Sox cap and the 35,000-strong crowd cheered. ”What an honour it is for me to be here today!” Diamond told them. ”I bring love from the whole country.”

Then they sang along, out of sync to the backing track but that hardly mattered. Neither did the fact the Red Sox beat the Royals something to something else.

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“The city that started the American Revolution is proving its strength by simply moving forward; NBC’s Katie Tur reports.”

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Listen to it all–wonderful and heart lifting.

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[KIM] LAWTON: At Maundy Thursday services, music helps set the mood as Christians begin their annual time of mourning the arrest, prosecution and crucifixion of Jesus.

Thomas Tyler is in charge of worship and music at Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. He says it’s spiritually important to sing the songs of grief before celebrating Christ’s resurrection.

Mr. TYLER: We want to skip over the sorrow. We want to skip over the abandonment and go get our praise on. But, if you don’t remember what he went through, then I feel your appreciation for the significance of that resurrection is marginalized.

Read it all or watch and listen to the video report.

Watch it all–good things do indeed sometimes come from small towns; KSH.

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Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan were doing just fine as solo performers. Then one night, Ryan walked into a bar where Pattengale was playing.

“I heard Kenneth perform a song that he had written from the perspective of a dead dog, only very recently having been hit by a truck,” Ryan says, wryly. “And it was that sort of uplifting material that drew us together.”

Now, they’re a duo: The Milk Carton Kids. They have been compared to Simon & Garfunkel for their close-harmony vocals and songs that are precise, softly uttered poems. And when they banter, they sound a bit like a long-married couple.

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The singers are Quire Cleveland under the direction of Peter Bennett. The words come from Psalm 47. For those of you who wish to see the Coverdale translation which Gibbons is using for the lyrics you may find it there.

For the past two decades, in a small town in southern Italy, a pianist and music teacher has been hunting for and resurrecting the music of the dead.

Francesco Lotoro has found thousands of songs, symphonies and operas written in concentration, labor and POW camps in Germany and elsewhere before and during World War II.

By rescuing compositions written in imprisonment, Lotoro wants to fill the hole left in Europe’s musical history and show how even the horrors of the Holocaust could not suppress artistic inspiration.

You can read it but it is a must-listen-to it all entry. Stunningly powerful.

Watch and listen to it all–what a hoot.

At 87, the Rev. C.T. Vivian can still recall the moment, decades after the height of the civil rights movement.

As he stood to conclude a meeting in his Atlanta home, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. joined his activist colleagues in song, his eyes closed, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“There is a balm in Gilead,” they sang, “to make the wounded whole.”

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