{"id":370,"date":"2011-02-18T15:15:47","date_gmt":"2011-02-18T15:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/fun-friday-bieber-gaga-drake-matisyahu-inspire-faithful-fans-pun-intended.html"},"modified":"2011-02-18T15:15:47","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T15:15:47","slug":"fun-friday-bieber-gaga-drake-matisyahu-inspire-faithful-fans-pun-intended","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/fun-friday-bieber-gaga-drake-matisyahu-inspire-faithful-fans-pun-intended.html","title":{"rendered":"Fun Friday: Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Drake &amp; Matisyahu Inspire Faithful Fans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s awards season, so there&#8217;s lots of celebrity news &#8212; and the religion beat is no exception. <\/p>\n<p>Recent headlines include music superstars like <a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2011\/02\/18\/backlash-over-biebers-view-on-abortion\/\">Justin Bieber <\/a>and <a href=\"http:\/\/content.usatoday.com\/communities\/Religion\/post\/2011\/02\/lady-gaga-born-this-way-god-sin\/1?csp=34&amp;utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed:+Religion-TopStories+(News+-+Religion+-+Top+Stories)\">Lady Gaga <\/a>using their fame to weigh in on contentious values issues like abortion (Bieber is extremely pro-life) and homosexuality (Gaga, who&nbsp;campaigned for the Don&#8217;t Ask Don&#8217;t Tell repeal,&nbsp;is firmly on&nbsp; the&nbsp;&#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/02\/11\/lady-gaga-born-this-way_n_821766.html\">born this way<\/a>&#8221; bandwagon).<\/p>\n<p>And, as a bonus, we&#8217;ve even got&nbsp;a <a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2011\/02\/18\/kosher-beef-between-two-rappers\/\">budding little Jewish rap war between Matisyahu and Drake<\/a>. (Drake, you&#8217;ll always be <a href=\"http:\/\/degrassi.wikia.com\/wiki\/Jimmy_Brooks\">Jimmy Brooks <\/a>to me! Sorry.) Ah, Judaism&#8230; even rappers aren&#8217;t immune to the &#8220;what makes a good Jew&#8221; debate.<\/p>\n<p>Now, this kind of stuff may seem shallow, but on the other hand, think of how many millions of devoted fans these celebrities have &#8212; especially among teens and young adults, the tough ages for religious denominations to reach.&nbsp;Superstars like Bieber and Gaga have more influence on some American youths than pastors, politicians and&nbsp;parents combined&#8230; though, we&#8217;ll have to wait and&nbsp;see if next year&#8217;s March for Life features a&nbsp;&#8220;Belieber&#8221; contingent.<\/p>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>subscribe to Belief Beat<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/a>and<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s awards season, so there&#8217;s lots of celebrity news &#8212; and the religion beat is no exception. Recent headlines include music superstars like Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga using their fame to weigh in on contentious values issues like abortion (Bieber is extremely pro-life) and homosexuality (Gaga, who&nbsp;campaigned for the Don&#8217;t Ask Don&#8217;t Tell repeal,&nbsp;is&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Fun Friday: Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Drake &amp; Matisyahu Inspire Faithful Fans - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/fun-friday-bieber-gaga-drake-matisyahu-inspire-faithful-fans-pun-intended.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fun Friday: Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Drake &amp; Matisyahu Inspire Faithful Fans - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#8217;s awards season, so there&#8217;s lots of celebrity news &#8212; and the religion beat is no exception. Recent headlines include music superstars like Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga using their fame to weigh in on contentious values issues like abortion (Bieber is extremely pro-life) and homosexuality (Gaga, who&nbsp;campaigned for the Don&#8217;t Ask Don&#8217;t Tell repeal,&nbsp;is&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/fun-friday-bieber-gaga-drake-matisyahu-inspire-faithful-fans-pun-intended.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-02-18T15:15:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Fun Friday: Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Drake &amp; Matisyahu Inspire Faithful Fans - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/fun-friday-bieber-gaga-drake-matisyahu-inspire-faithful-fans-pun-intended.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fun Friday: Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Drake &amp; Matisyahu Inspire Faithful Fans - Belief Beat","og_description":"It&#8217;s awards season, so there&#8217;s lots of celebrity news &#8212; and the religion beat is no exception. Recent headlines include music superstars like Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga using their fame to weigh in on contentious values issues like abortion (Bieber is extremely pro-life) and homosexuality (Gaga, who&nbsp;campaigned for the Don&#8217;t Ask Don&#8217;t Tell repeal,&nbsp;is&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/fun-friday-bieber-gaga-drake-matisyahu-inspire-faithful-fans-pun-intended.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2011-02-18T15:15:47+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/fun-friday-bieber-gaga-drake-matisyahu-inspire-faithful-fans-pun-intended.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/fun-friday-bieber-gaga-drake-matisyahu-inspire-faithful-fans-pun-intended.html","name":"Fun Friday: Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Drake &amp; Matisyahu Inspire Faithful Fans - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-02-18T15:15:47+00:00","dateModified":"2011-02-18T15:15:47+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/fun-friday-bieber-gaga-drake-matisyahu-inspire-faithful-fans-pun-intended.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/fun-friday-bieber-gaga-drake-matisyahu-inspire-faithful-fans-pun-intended.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/fun-friday-bieber-gaga-drake-matisyahu-inspire-faithful-fans-pun-intended.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Fun Friday: Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Drake &amp; Matisyahu Inspire Faithful Fans"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}