But true liberty, in art and in life, is created by constraints.Taylor Swift answers to no one.Not music industry executives: Her songs returned to TikTok in the middle of a licensing dispute between the app and her label.Not mayors: When she graced their cities during her Eras tour, they declared days in her honor.Not the international community: A Singapore-exclusive stop in Southeast Asia sparked a row between the city-state and nearby Thailand and the Philippines. The Japanese embassy issued a statement about her Super Bowl travel plans.And Swift doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon. She announced new music within minutes of winning her latest Grammy for album of the year.You might take all this as proof of Swift’s business genius, nothing personal. But in her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, there’s definitely an “above it all” attitude. These songs are snarly. America’s sweetheart may have nothing left to prove. But she certainly has scores left to settle.Swift is hardly a stranger to revenge. This is the songwriter, after all, who brought us lyrics like “It’s obvious that wanting me dead / Has really brought you two together.”But TTPD broadens her aggression and scorns the prospect of reconciliation. A small-town girl takes on her community over a controversial love affair and trolls her parents with a joke pregnancy announcement. A depressed performer boasts sardonically about how well she can sell happiness to frenzied fans. A woman seethes at being seen as a problematic starlet by her new boyfriend’s circle.There’s a track suspiciously similar to an Olivia Rodrigo song (the two singers have a rumored feud). The title of another appears to name-drop Kim Kardashian, an older nemesis.Critics agree that ...Continue reading...

A late historian explores how crusade hymns told both the classic story of gospel salvation and the evolving story of evangelical worship music.Crowds of over 50,000. Famous special guests. Hundreds of cities in the US and around the world. Beloved, catchy songs. For many, these might sound like readouts from the Taylor Swift Eras Tour hype machine. But exchange the glittery girl power for the gospel in baritone, and you have one of the most successful musical touring acts in the postwar world: the Billy Graham Crusades.The first association that “Billy Graham Crusade” may evoke is not musical at all, but rather a close-up shot of the evangelist, with his penetrating, wide-eyed gaze and raised forearms, thundering, “The Bible says …” Admittedly, music was not the main focus.Yet as the late historian Edith Blumhofer shows in her final book, Songs I Love to Sing: The Billy Graham Crusades and the Shaping of Modern Worship, neither Graham’s ministry nor the late-century rise of contemporary Christian music can be understood without it. As crusade song leader Cliff Barrows pursued his main goal—“sing to save”—he and his teammates bridged stylistic, cultural, and generational divides, transforming evangelicals’ music into the harmonic blend of old and new that is familiar today.Mining rich resourcesBefore unpacking this highly original book, a few words about the author. Blumhofer is an American religious historian renowned for her empathetic biographies of hymnist Fanny J. Crosby and evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, as well as broader studies of evangelicalism and Pentecostalism. She concluded her career with this new study, sadly succumbing to a battle with cancer in the process.To finish the project, she tapped Jesus People expert Larry Eskridge, with whom she had for many years directed the Institute ...Continue reading...

One of the nation's leading evangelists is warning Christian parents that Taylor Swift's newest album contains lyrics that seemingly oppose the faith. Swift released The Tortured Poets Department on April 19.

Taylor Swift's new album, The Tortured Poets Department, has garnered criticism from faith leaders who have taken to social media this week to express their distaste with the lyrical content that they believe mocks God and Christians.?

One of the nation's leading evangelists is warning Christian parents that Taylor Swift's newest album contains lyrics that seemingly oppose the faith. Swift released The Tortured Poets Department on April 19.

Seminary leaders say that the country, where Baptists are the largest Protestant denomination, has lost hundreds of churches in the war with Russia. Southern Baptist leaders have written to US House Speaker Mike Johnson, a member and former official of their denomination, urging him to support Ukraine in Russia’s war against its Eastern European neighbor.“As you consider efforts to support Ukraine, we humbly ask that you consider the plight of Christians,” wrote the leaders, who either have ties to the SBC’s Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary or to Ukrainian Baptists. “The Russian government’s decision to invade Ukraine and to target Baptists and other evangelical Christians in Ukraine has been a tragic hallmark of the war.”The letter, sent Monday, was signed by Daniel Darling, director of the seminary’s Land Center for Cultural Engagement; Richard Land, the namesake of the center and a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC); Yaroslav Pyzh, president of Ukrainian Baptist Theological Seminary; and Valerii Antoniu, president of the Baptist Union of Ukraine.Johnson is a former trustee of the ERLC, serving when Land—who also is a former commissioner of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom—was its president.In February, the Senate passed a $95 billion package for funding Ukraine, Israel and other allies, with $60 billion earmarked for Ukraine. But Johnson, whose tenure as House speaker may rely on his handling of the bill, has yet to schedule a House vote on the funding measure.Conservatives in the House who oppose funding for Ukraine on “America First” grounds, led by US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, have threatened to trigger a vote to remove Johnson from office.“Speaker Johnson has a really difficult ...Continue reading...

A Taylor Swift scam left Sam and her daughter heartbroken to discover the concert tickets they purchased were fakes. But then, local radio hosts decided to try and make things right!

My name is Lynne M Taylor, however, I'm also known as Common Core Diva. My combined expertise as a former educator has led me to become a trusted resource for many in the US, as well as across the world. My purpose today is to...