{"id":31,"date":"2011-02-17T12:39:40","date_gmt":"2011-02-17T12:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/the_prophet_of_pop\/2011\/02\/the-justin-bieber-bible-study-part-1.html"},"modified":"2011-02-17T12:39:40","modified_gmt":"2011-02-17T12:39:40","slug":"the-justin-bieber-bible-study-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop\/2011\/02\/the-justin-bieber-bible-study-part-1.html","title":{"rendered":"The Justin Bieber Bible Study &#8211; Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\"><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"BieberTitle.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/117\/import\/BieberTitle.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"margin: 0pt auto 20px;text-align: center\" height=\"492\" width=\"318\" \/><\/span><\/div>\n<p>Here it is folks &#8211; The Justin Bieber Bible Study: <i>Never Say Never&#8230; For Nothing Is Impossible With God<\/i>.&nbsp; This short booklet with a poorly worded title was sent to youth group leaders as a part of the promotional campaign for the recently released Justin Bieber film <i>Never Say Never<\/i>.&nbsp; Clearly they had been reading my blog and knew that youth leaders are <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/the_prophet_of_pop\/2011\/02\/the-end-of-youth-group-guitar-hero.html\">running out of things to do<\/a>.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>This promotional tactic is nothing new.&nbsp; The trend began with Mel Gibson&#8217;s <i>The Passion<\/i> and has been used many times since.&nbsp; Much like the material for that film this discussion guide provides questions, Bible readings, and, of course, information on how to arrange a special group showing of the film.<\/p>\n<p>The only difference is that <i>The Passion<\/i> was about Jesus and <i>Never Say Never<\/i> is about Justin Bieber.<\/p>\n<p>I readily admit that I am skeptical of the need for a discussion guide on this film.&nbsp; But, I am willing to approach it with an open mind.&nbsp; After all, I don&#8217;t aim to doubt the faith and sincerity of Justin or his mother, who likely supported this with the best of evangelical intentions.&nbsp; What I do doubt though, are the intentions of others who stand to profit from the film.&nbsp; Since it isn&#8217;t possible to know whether Justin even contributed to this or not, any criticism I may make isn&#8217;t aimed at him.&nbsp; He is only 16 and besides, I am very scared of teenage girls.<\/p>\n<p>Check back in for Part 2 where I examine the opening, including a letter from Justin&#8217;s mother and an introduction that tries <i>really<\/i> hard to convince you that this is a film about faith.&nbsp; I&#8217;ll be discussing whether it succeeds or fails miserably.&nbsp; See you then!<\/p>\n<p>What are your reactions to the Justin Bieber Bible Study?<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/theprophetofpop\">Click here to follow the Prophet of Pop on&nbsp;<b>Twitter<\/b><\/a>&nbsp;or to&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/prophetofpop\">follow him on&nbsp;<b>Facebook<\/b>!<\/a><\/p>\n<p><i>Photo Courtesy of Paramount Pictures<\/i> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here it is folks &#8211; The Justin Bieber Bible Study: Never Say Never&#8230; For Nothing Is Impossible With God.&nbsp; This short booklet with a poorly worded title was sent to youth group leaders as a part of the promotional campaign for the recently released Justin Bieber film Never Say Never.&nbsp; Clearly they had been reading&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139,12,1],"tags":[140,142,141,143,90,819],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-justin-bieber-bible-study","category-pop-star-riot","category-things-that-challenge-my-faith","tag-bieber-christian","tag-bieber-faith","tag-bieber-god","tag-bieber-movie","tag-justin-bieber","tag-justin-bieber-bible-study"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Justin Bieber Bible Study - Part 1 - The Prophet of Pop<\/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\/the_prophet_of_pop\/2011\/02\/the-justin-bieber-bible-study-part-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Justin Bieber Bible Study - Part 1 - The Prophet of Pop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here it is folks &#8211; The Justin Bieber Bible Study: Never Say Never&#8230; For Nothing Is Impossible With God.&nbsp; This short booklet with a poorly worded title was sent to youth group leaders as a part of the promotional campaign for the recently released Justin Bieber film Never Say Never.&nbsp; Clearly they had been reading&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop\/2011\/02\/the-justin-bieber-bible-study-part-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Prophet of Pop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-02-17T12:39:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/the_prophet_of_pop\/files\/import\/BieberTitle.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"S. Russ\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Justin Bieber Bible Study - Part 1 - The Prophet of Pop","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\/the_prophet_of_pop\/2011\/02\/the-justin-bieber-bible-study-part-1.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Justin Bieber Bible Study - Part 1 - The Prophet of Pop","og_description":"Here it is folks &#8211; The Justin Bieber Bible Study: Never Say Never&#8230; For Nothing Is Impossible With God.&nbsp; This short booklet with a poorly worded title was sent to youth group leaders as a part of the promotional campaign for the recently released Justin Bieber film Never Say Never.&nbsp; Clearly they had been reading&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop\/2011\/02\/the-justin-bieber-bible-study-part-1.html","og_site_name":"The Prophet of Pop","article_published_time":"2011-02-17T12:39:40+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/the_prophet_of_pop\/files\/import\/BieberTitle.jpg"}],"author":"S. Russ","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop\/2011\/02\/the-justin-bieber-bible-study-part-1.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop\/2011\/02\/the-justin-bieber-bible-study-part-1.html","name":"The Justin Bieber Bible Study - Part 1 - The Prophet of Pop","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop\/2011\/02\/the-justin-bieber-bible-study-part-1.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop\/2011\/02\/the-justin-bieber-bible-study-part-1.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/the_prophet_of_pop\/files\/import\/BieberTitle.jpg","datePublished":"2011-02-17T12:39:40+00:00","dateModified":"2011-02-17T12:39:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop\/#\/schema\/person\/9ae3136bb7166037d224b3905084add7"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop\/2011\/02\/the-justin-bieber-bible-study-part-1.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop\/2011\/02\/the-justin-bieber-bible-study-part-1.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop\/2011\/02\/the-justin-bieber-bible-study-part-1.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/the_prophet_of_pop\/files\/import\/BieberTitle.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/the_prophet_of_pop\/files\/import\/BieberTitle.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop\/2011\/02\/the-justin-bieber-bible-study-part-1.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Justin Bieber Bible Study &#8211; Part 1"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop\/","name":"The Prophet of Pop","description":"Music, Religion, and Sarcasm","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/the_prophet_of_pop\/?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\/the_prophet_of_pop\/#\/schema\/person\/9ae3136bb7166037d224b3905084add7","name":"S. 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