{"id":269,"date":"2006-04-18T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-18T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2006\/04\/mary-magdalene-superstar.html"},"modified":"2006-04-18T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-04-18T12:00:00","slug":"mary-magdalene-superstar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/04\/mary-magdalene-superstar.html","title":{"rendered":"Mary Magdalene, Superstar"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/MM_Musical.jpg\" style=\"margin-right: 8px\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.explorefaith.org\/ford\/mary.html\" target=\"_new\">Mary Magdalene<\/a>, the woman who according to some gospel accounts was one of the first followers of Jesus to encounter a risen Christ, has long been a much-debated biblical figure&#8211;and now she is about to become the star of her very own musical production. Though little information about Mary Magdalene&#8217;s background is actually found in the Bible, the musical, simply titled <a href=\"http:\/\/www.themagdalenemusical.com\/\" target=\"_new\">&#8220;Magdalene&#8221;<\/a> takes creative license and focuses on Mary as a young girl in love whose life is forever altered when she becomes the victim of a violent sex crime.  Set to tour nationally in 2007, the show was originally produced last year in Nashville at Grace Chapel for a limited engagement<\/p>\n<p>Though contemporary Christian musicians Chris Easton and Michelle Pillar composed the music for the show, this musical aspires to go beyond being a Christian evangelical production celebrating the life of another Biblical character. The musical\u2019s producers have partnered with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ijm.org\/NETCOMMUNITY\/Page.aspx?&amp;pid=178&amp;srcid=-2\" target=\"_new\">International Justice Mission <\/a>to raise audience awareness  of the issue of women being sold into sexual slavery&#8211;often referred to as sex trafficking.<\/p>\n<p>While we certainly see more and more evidence of spiritual and social issues intersecting on the big screen, we still don&#8217;t see it happen nearly as often&#8211;much less with excellence&#8211;when it comes to theater. (New Yorkers, feel free to begin filling the comment box with proof to the contrary&#8230;. <em>now<\/em>.) So I am hoping that this musical will be a successful model for other similar productions&#8211;not to preach, but to thoughfully and creatively reflect on  social issues and why they are also the spiritual matters of the soul.<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;padding-bottom:0.25em\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mary Magdalene, the woman who according to some gospel accounts was one of the first followers of Jesus to encounter a risen Christ, has long been a much-debated biblical figure&#8211;and now she is about to become the star of her very own musical production. Though little information about Mary Magdalene&#8217;s background is actually found in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mary Magdalene, Superstar<\/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\/idolchatter\/2006\/04\/mary-magdalene-superstar.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mary Magdalene, Superstar\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mary Magdalene, the woman who according to some gospel accounts was one of the first followers of Jesus to encounter a risen Christ, has long been a much-debated biblical figure&#8211;and now she is about to become the star of her very own musical production. Though little information about Mary Magdalene&#8217;s background is actually found in&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/04\/mary-magdalene-superstar.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-04-18T12:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/MM_Musical.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"kris rasmussen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mary Magdalene, Superstar","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\/idolchatter\/2006\/04\/mary-magdalene-superstar.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mary Magdalene, Superstar","og_description":"Mary Magdalene, the woman who according to some gospel accounts was one of the first followers of Jesus to encounter a risen Christ, has long been a much-debated biblical figure&#8211;and now she is about to become the star of her very own musical production. 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