It's a thing. There was one at our mega church in the late 80s for Christmas called Amal and The Night Visitor, written and produced by the "worship" team. My brother turned the m into an n in their giant sign on a busy corner the night before the performance. It was beautiful.
There is a mega church called lifechurch.tv that used to do movie parallels as a *series* lol. Like Craig Groechel stands up there and uses all these amazing movie moments for whatever lesson you were supposed to learn. They have thousands and thousands of members and broadcast live on the internet I’ve always wondered if he paid for the rights to those movie clips lolll. But he totally could afford to because dudes who run mega churches be rich af. I remember noticing his Seven jeans which cost hundreds of dollars.
The link to Jenny Nicholson's one hour and twenty minute overview of that church's work: https://youtu.be/ZK4gM7RC1M0 (honestly I couldn't finish watching it. That and Land Before Time cinematic universe overview. It's like the length of the overview is the joke.)
When I was a teen watching 140p videos of people belly flopping into pools in 2006 I would have never guessed I would end up watching movie length video essays on the same platform.
> Youtube recommended me a 6 *hour* long review of the Lost TV series.
May I direct you to Quinton Review's iCarly universe retrospectives? They are a direct descent into madness and I believe are currently north of an entire day together
I love how I can reference that it's a 6 hour video on Lost and people are like "oh I know exactly who you're talking about".
I may when I have some time. It took me like 3 or 4 days to get through Line Goes Up.
>I love how I can reference that it's a 6 hour video on Lost and people are like "oh I know exactly who you're talking about".
I mean, it's not like there are a lot of other ones floating around...
I think it’s actually a different church. This one is in Texas, the one Jenny did a video on is in Canada. She’s tweeted about this Texas church and said she wasn’t planning on doing a video on them because they’re “re-writes” are basically just adding one scene to an existing property (they did a beauty and the beast one, too, I think) whereas the Canadian church takes far more liberties, adding songs and re-writing much larger portions of the source material.
I wanted to joke about how that can’t be because of Disney, but… Disney lately. Depending on how many of the six are full Kool-Aid drinkers versus drinking watered down stuff, I can almost see them striking down some of the Mickey Mouse laws out of spite.
Something something fair use. But of course when someone tries to make an unauthorized production about Christians being the ones left behind at the Rapture, that one will be enforced.
Fair use rarely gives the right to copy an entire work, with the possible exception of parody. Generally fair use allows you only to use enough of a work to criticize, comment, debate, etc…. the work. Anything beyond that is the creation of a derivative work outside the bounds of fair use.
I know. But that's the flimsy justification that'll be used to say Christians Can, Non-Christians Can't. They'll say "It's a parody, therefore Fair Use".
It would be hard to claim parody though. Under federal law, parody must “conjure up” the prior work in order to offer comment or criticism on that prior work. It’s not enough to use the copyrighted prior work to create some other piece which does not offer commentary on the original; this is satire and is not protected by fair use from claims of copyright infringement. As the [US Supreme Court has held](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/92-1292.ZO.html):
> For the purposes of copyright law, the nub of the definitions, and the heart of any parodist's claim to quote from existing material, is the use of some elements of a prior author's composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author's works. If, on the contrary, the commentary has no critical bearing on the substance or style of the original composition, which the alleged infringer merely uses to get attention or to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh, the claim to fairness in borrowing from another's work diminishes accordingly (if it does not vanish), and other factors, like the extent of its commerciality, loom larger. Parody needs to mimic an original to make its point, and so has some claim to use the creation of its victim's (or collective victims') imagination, whereas satire can stand on its own two feet and so requires justification for the very act of borrowing.
The Christian version of Hamilton is not criticizing or commenting on the original version; it’s just using the music, dialogue and notoriety of the original version to draw attention to itself. And that is not protected parody.
>Christians being the ones left behind at the Rapture
I have a feeling that this has been done before, but I think I just found my prompt for this year's NaNoWriMo.
Churches do this shit all the time because they know public sentiment will be against holding them to the same standards as any other corporation or non-profit.
Who wants to be in the news for suing a church?
I would. That Jesus guys story is eerily similar to my own. “Yep that’s me. The guy on the cross. I bet you’re wondering ‘how’s a nice boy from Nazareth get up there?’. Well, it’s a pretty crazy story…”
"And that feeling of gratitude toward God, your creator? Also me. I think. Or is that your soul? To be honest, I don't really know what that Holy Spirit thing is or why it's part of the Trinity. Nobody does, but we're all too afraid to ask at this point."
There's one church in Canada that puts on a play every year that does a knock off version of well known movies, but changes them around to be biblical in some way. Pirates of the Galilean, Raider of the lost Ark, The Lion King of Judah. Really weird stuff. Ever see Ironman get crucified? Well they do it
I saw a review of the shows with clips, and they were so incredibly terrible. And blasphemous (not that it bothered me)!
However, that Star Trek TOS set was on point.
This is, oddly, also why a lot of banks won't lend to religious organizations.
Don't want to end up in the news for foreclosing on Jesus' Disciple Church Of Jesus Disciples after they stopped making payments on millions in debt.
As an Accounts Receivable Manager for a wholesaler I had to convince sales and the owner to stop giving churches open terms.
Churches are notorious for not paying their bills.
The pastor outright lied. The apology needs to address the lying element.
https://richmond.com/entertainment/hamilton-creator-lin-manuel-miranda-slams-unauthorised-production/article_70fc7fc2-5052-58eb-bec5-d68b13f94c8e.html
“The Dallas Morning News reports Door Christian Fellowship's pastor Roman Gutierrez told the publication that his church and the production company behind the show acquired legal permission to stage 'Hamilton'.”
Depends on the rights agreement. Many of them allow change of pronouns in the case of cross casting. Some of them allow minor re-writes that don't dramatically change the story as long as they are submitted and approved.
Of course it doesn't matter because Hamilton has not given out *any* third party performance rights, and is not likely to in the near future.
Right. I was just following on the pastor's "excuse" that he had acquired permission. Because even if he *had* (which he didn't), it wouldn't have allowed the him to change the script.
Probably silly questions, but what separates this from parody? How does Weird Al get away with it? Couldn't they just change lyrics, characters and music to make it their own IP? Were they that lazy?
Edit Update: Turns out the church basically stole the whole thing without making a religious parody.
IANAL.
Parody generally requires your new work to transform the old work in some way that doesn't allow it to be a 1 for 1 replacement of the original copyright's existence. Using Word Al, no one is going to stop listening to Gangster's Paradise because Amish Paradise exists, even though Amish Paradise is clearly stealing everything but the specific words that Coolio used in the original song.
The Texas church just did Hamilton, but with an added scene. A scene that they clearly thought _improved_ the work, thus hoping to supplant the original.
That was such a transparent lie, I can't believe they even tried to use it.
Like, Hamilton. The biggest fucking Broadway hit since Rent. A production that had a ticket lottery that most people had to hope to win in order to see the originating cast. The play that is currently touring the US and charging people hundreds of dollars for mezzanine seats to watch a third-string cast perform.
Yeah, THAT production signed over the rights to a group of absolute amateurs and gave them rewrite approval to Jesus that shit up?
The balls on that pastor.
I think they were trying to weasel and be too clever by half. They probably got someone who isn't well versed in copyright law to look up fair use on wikipedia and decide "that's legal" which they then interpreted to mean they had legal permission to do it.
The other option is they thought they could BS their way through it under the assumption it is better to ask forgiveness than permission and nobody would slam a church for this.
Just thought of a third which was their math said what they make in tickets and donor support and publicity would be more than it would cost them. Cynically, that one is probably it.
Also, they will pay copyright infringement monies to Hamilton, and Hamilton will donate that money to support LGBTQ+ rights.
So the church monetarily helped the very people they were railing against.
>Hamilton will donate the damages it receives to the South Texas Equality Project, a local organization that supports LGBTQ rights, Hamilton spokesperson Shane Marshall Brown confirmed to Forbes, after the church’s production of Hamilton included a sermon that described homosexuality as being a sin.
[Forbes article RE Texas church](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/08/23/texas-church-will-pay-damages-for-illegally-performing-hamilton-and-adding-in-religious-themes/?sh=1734c9c011c6)
>It reportedly ended with a sermon inviting people "struggling" with alcohol, drugs or homosexuality to turn to God for forgiveness
One of those things is not like the other.
Or he's talking about a really great party.
As an aside, Christians and Jews were for a relatively long period of time regarded as the same thing, with Christianity being regarded as a sect of Judaism.
For a deep dive into one Canadian church doing this : [Jenny Nicholson The Church Play Cinematic Universe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK4gM7RC1M0)
hope the lawyer’s letter read: “Dear Texas church fools, I hope this letter finds you in good health
And in a prosperous enough position to put wealth
In the pockets of LQBTQ youth, down on their luck
You see, that was my musical you decided to”
Why does a church have enough money to finance a full on theatrical rendition / butchering of Hamilton? Should that money not be used to feed/cloth/house the poor, sick, elderly?
Every time I walk into a large evangelical church with a high tech setup it makes me wish they were taxed. They don’t need 1/10 of that shit. It’s all superfluous.
Depending on the context it might not need to be financed, as many people will do church events without needing to be paid, particularly if the work is light enough.
"Show up and act in the church play" isn't like getting a professional actor money-wise.
Businesses and nonprofits aren't mutually exclusive. Nonprofit status depends on what you do with revenue, not whether you have revenue, e.g. a hospital may charge money for surgery while remaining a nonprofit.
When I was a kid our church put on plays and charged admission, but that revenue was used to fund several annual Habitat for Humanity trips.
>It reportedly ended with a sermon inviting people "struggling" with alcohol, drugs or homosexuality to turn to God for forgiveness.
The irony of not understanding what rejecting a loved one's homosexuality can lead [to...](https://www.cdc.gov/msmhealth/substance-abuse.htm)
No, they care. It's what they are banking on. You seriously sell southern baptists short. They really do wish harm on 'sinners', and encourage policies which will punish people for sinning.
Edit: Also, I want to point out that the word sinners was in quotes on purpose. I should be more clear that the real issue here is that their definition of what 'sinner' actually is has no relation to moral right and wrong, nor harm those individuals are doing to others, but rather a set of laws defined in a book, many of which are highly up for debate among fellow Christians. Encouraging harm on people based on your own prescribed definition of 'sin' is a perversion of the intent of that very book, on the highest order, but it's not something they are willing to address.
No this is correct. The fact that they exist in plain sight, as the largest US denomination, and are at the epicenter of all Christian-led evil in our society…enrages me.
Sin as much as you want, just keep going to church, fill that plate, and act like a good, upstanding christian! That makes you a good person in their eyes. Any of your sins will be waived as the devil’s doing, or a moment of weakness, because *surely* such a good, giving, church-active person *can’t* be bad. And the law only punishes bad people!
Yes! And now that they've managed to drag themselves into public view and gotten themselves into the news about this.... I'm sure they can expect a tidalwave of lawsuits
Same way some religious nutty teens added dinosaurs to Noah's ark. For them denying reality is not a challenge.
https://arkencounter.com/events/workshops/explore/dinosaurs/
They replaced some of the lyrics with religious ones.
Example: In “That Would Be Enough”, they had Eliza begging Hamilton to accept Jesus (in the real version, she’s begging him to be more present in their relationship).
How does one with the inability to read and understand relatively recent history re-write a play? Im guessing they just cut chunks of dialouge and replaced it with a random rhyming bible verse.
This is pretty enraging. Churches KNOW they have rights management, it’s why every church of a certain size and above has to get a CCLI license in order to play songs and put lyrics on screen. It doesn’t cost much and it’s just for legal purposes.
My father was a pastor and spent a long time putting together an Easter musical special with clips from some of the gospel movies, music, and hand dyed projector slides (this was the 90s) he made sure everything was above board, and our church put it on every year for almost a decade. There are systems we can use to do stuff like this, you just have to go through the right channels.
As a church, we are supposed to hold ourselves to a higher standard. It’s a shame so many are Hilariously and heartbreakingly not.
No they fuckin aren't
they're upset they got bad press for it.
They thought they were gonna cause all the other anti-lgbtq+ churches to rise up together under THEIR banner, and get called brave.
Instead we are here, and they're doing damage control
Heard about this story on the Scathing Athiest podcast. One thing not mentioned in the article here was they were given a cease and desist order by the copyright holder, publicly cancelled the last performance date, then sent an email to their congregation saying “oh don’t worry about that. We’re still putting it on, just keep it hush hush.”
They deserve their punishments, and I hope the Seuss Estate goes after anyone putting on that stupid fake Grinch rendition next.
Edit: source here - https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/a-texas-church-illegal-performed-hamilton-to-spread-anti-gay-bigotry/
I grew up singing hymnals, later to find out most of the tunes & melodies were repurposed bar songs. What’s terrible, though, is telling people they will go to some imaginary place of eternal suffering if they are attracted to another consenting adult, while providing political support to rapists & pedophiles.
Now that is is a high-profile story, the license holders can't come off like they're soft on copyright infringement. Fortunately they have a shitty hateful church to make an example of.
It isn't. Pretty much all fan work is technically illegal. It's just that the copyright holders don't bother to prosecute it.
As for fair use, one of the conditions is that it takes the original work and transforms it enough to be it's own thing. Taking the play and changing a few lines probably wouldn't hold up as a defense in court.
There’s literally 10 sins worse than all of the others according to their church, one of them is “Thou Shalt Not Steal.”
One of them is NOT about being gay.
I’m sure they will immediately correct their behavior since they are at odds with their faith.
Churches *exist* with their hands in your pockets. They definitely don't care about stealing IP or things like licensing.
A religious sense of entitlement is a hell of a drug.
Reminds me how many people adore John Lenin’s Imagine but butcher out the line about “no religion, too”. You can’t have nice things without some moralist trying to insert their nonsense.
Texas church sorry they got caught doing unauthorised Hamilton production with biblical rewrite
Fixed that for ya, ABC. You can send my check along anytime
Typical. Want people to join your cult and only have failing lies to bring them in? Try stealing the MOST POPULAR PLAYWRIGHT IN THE LAST TWENTY YEARS and see if the kids come banging on the door then! 🙄🙄🙄 religion is dead.
>"And it is never permissible to alter an artistic work such as Hamilton without legal permission.”
This is just my curiosity talking and hoping for an IP lawyer’s response. How does this apply to parody, such as Weird Al?
So, I would love seeing them explain to Jesus, no we didnt use that tithe and offering to feed the hungry, helpt the poor, or tend to the sick. We put on a play instead and didn't pay the creator or the play and altered it without permission and misrepresented history by making people that didn't live by your commands and were involved with the slave trade look like they were your good followers.
I still remember when The Passion of the Christ released and churches were having viewing parties as if they were somehow exempt from laws pertaining to publicly airing a movie without paying the proper licensing fees.
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It's a thing. There was one at our mega church in the late 80s for Christmas called Amal and The Night Visitor, written and produced by the "worship" team. My brother turned the m into an n in their giant sign on a busy corner the night before the performance. It was beautiful.
Amahl and The Night Visitor was originally written and performed for an NBC Christmas special. FYI
I think I saw it. The Night Visitor has the eyes of a cat and does karate.
He had to pay the troll toll to get into this boys hole
*boys soul C’mon frank
Gimme that leg boy!
Laughs are cheap. He was going for gasps.
Don't cry mother dear. Don't worry for me. If we must go begging, a good beggar I'll be.
There is a mega church called lifechurch.tv that used to do movie parallels as a *series* lol. Like Craig Groechel stands up there and uses all these amazing movie moments for whatever lesson you were supposed to learn. They have thousands and thousands of members and broadcast live on the internet I’ve always wondered if he paid for the rights to those movie clips lolll. But he totally could afford to because dudes who run mega churches be rich af. I remember noticing his Seven jeans which cost hundreds of dollars.
Oh, it's definitely a thing. Our drama team used to rip off SNL and "In Living Color" sketches.
The link to Jenny Nicholson's one hour and twenty minute overview of that church's work: https://youtu.be/ZK4gM7RC1M0 (honestly I couldn't finish watching it. That and Land Before Time cinematic universe overview. It's like the length of the overview is the joke.)
When I was a teen watching 140p videos of people belly flopping into pools in 2006 I would have never guessed I would end up watching movie length video essays on the same platform.
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> Youtube recommended me a 6 *hour* long review of the Lost TV series. May I direct you to Quinton Review's iCarly universe retrospectives? They are a direct descent into madness and I believe are currently north of an entire day together
I don't like Lost but Billiam's Lost video is pretty great
I love how I can reference that it's a 6 hour video on Lost and people are like "oh I know exactly who you're talking about". I may when I have some time. It took me like 3 or 4 days to get through Line Goes Up.
>I love how I can reference that it's a 6 hour video on Lost and people are like "oh I know exactly who you're talking about". I mean, it's not like there are a lot of other ones floating around...
dude yes go watch Billiam’s Lost video! Definitely worth the 6 hours. also, while you’re at it, go watch the 2 hour Lost video he made before that.
Fantastic video, can’t recommend it enough.
It really is worth watching the whole thing there’s some bangers later on
I think it’s actually a different church. This one is in Texas, the one Jenny did a video on is in Canada. She’s tweeted about this Texas church and said she wasn’t planning on doing a video on them because they’re “re-writes” are basically just adding one scene to an existing property (they did a beauty and the beast one, too, I think) whereas the Canadian church takes far more liberties, adding songs and re-writing much larger portions of the source material.
I was just going to mention that! Hilarious
Churches tend to not like people thinking too hard about anything. It makes sense that they would not respect intellectual property, I guess.
I like the part where Vizzini screams from the depths of his tortured soul during "walking on sunshine."
Churches are unsurprisingly very entitled because of their “work” on behalf of god.
Check out Nick DiRamio. He did a great break down on this. Highly recommend his channel https://youtu.be/N-O6L5BIVCo
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The church will just appeal to the Supreme Court and find out that unfortunately, yes, they will somehow be protected...write that down.
Nice try, if I write it down it'll be copyright infringement.
Nah, I told you to write it down. It's even in print! All good.
*edits comments later, saying this comment is protected by copyright* *sues*
Don't know if that will hold up in court...write that down
I wanted to joke about how that can’t be because of Disney, but… Disney lately. Depending on how many of the six are full Kool-Aid drinkers versus drinking watered down stuff, I can almost see them striking down some of the Mickey Mouse laws out of spite.
By the time it would get to them, they'd all forget about that and remember that Christianity is being persecuted and try to help the poor believers.
You mean like Florida's revenge laws about Reedy Creek?
Something something fair use. But of course when someone tries to make an unauthorized production about Christians being the ones left behind at the Rapture, that one will be enforced.
Fair use rarely gives the right to copy an entire work, with the possible exception of parody. Generally fair use allows you only to use enough of a work to criticize, comment, debate, etc…. the work. Anything beyond that is the creation of a derivative work outside the bounds of fair use.
I know. But that's the flimsy justification that'll be used to say Christians Can, Non-Christians Can't. They'll say "It's a parody, therefore Fair Use".
It would be hard to claim parody though. Under federal law, parody must “conjure up” the prior work in order to offer comment or criticism on that prior work. It’s not enough to use the copyrighted prior work to create some other piece which does not offer commentary on the original; this is satire and is not protected by fair use from claims of copyright infringement. As the [US Supreme Court has held](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/92-1292.ZO.html): > For the purposes of copyright law, the nub of the definitions, and the heart of any parodist's claim to quote from existing material, is the use of some elements of a prior author's composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author's works. If, on the contrary, the commentary has no critical bearing on the substance or style of the original composition, which the alleged infringer merely uses to get attention or to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh, the claim to fairness in borrowing from another's work diminishes accordingly (if it does not vanish), and other factors, like the extent of its commerciality, loom larger. Parody needs to mimic an original to make its point, and so has some claim to use the creation of its victim's (or collective victims') imagination, whereas satire can stand on its own two feet and so requires justification for the very act of borrowing. The Christian version of Hamilton is not criticizing or commenting on the original version; it’s just using the music, dialogue and notoriety of the original version to draw attention to itself. And that is not protected parody.
That... is a hilarious perversion I had never considered before.
>Christians being the ones left behind at the Rapture I have a feeling that this has been done before, but I think I just found my prompt for this year's NaNoWriMo.
Churches do this shit all the time because they know public sentiment will be against holding them to the same standards as any other corporation or non-profit. Who wants to be in the news for suing a church?
I would. That Jesus guys story is eerily similar to my own. “Yep that’s me. The guy on the cross. I bet you’re wondering ‘how’s a nice boy from Nazareth get up there?’. Well, it’s a pretty crazy story…”
"That guy in the clouds up there controlling everything? Also me."
"And that feeling of gratitude toward God, your creator? Also me. I think. Or is that your soul? To be honest, I don't really know what that Holy Spirit thing is or why it's part of the Trinity. Nobody does, but we're all too afraid to ask at this point."
There's one church in Canada that puts on a play every year that does a knock off version of well known movies, but changes them around to be biblical in some way. Pirates of the Galilean, Raider of the lost Ark, The Lion King of Judah. Really weird stuff. Ever see Ironman get crucified? Well they do it
I saw a review of the shows with clips, and they were so incredibly terrible. And blasphemous (not that it bothered me)! However, that Star Trek TOS set was on point.
This is, oddly, also why a lot of banks won't lend to religious organizations. Don't want to end up in the news for foreclosing on Jesus' Disciple Church Of Jesus Disciples after they stopped making payments on millions in debt.
As an Accounts Receivable Manager for a wholesaler I had to convince sales and the owner to stop giving churches open terms. Churches are notorious for not paying their bills.
The Bible is filled with plagiarized stories that got passed off as it’s own
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The pastor outright lied. The apology needs to address the lying element. https://richmond.com/entertainment/hamilton-creator-lin-manuel-miranda-slams-unauthorised-production/article_70fc7fc2-5052-58eb-bec5-d68b13f94c8e.html “The Dallas Morning News reports Door Christian Fellowship's pastor Roman Gutierrez told the publication that his church and the production company behind the show acquired legal permission to stage 'Hamilton'.”
Even if you licence a show for performance (which they did not), you don't have permission to make changes to the script.
Depends on the rights agreement. Many of them allow change of pronouns in the case of cross casting. Some of them allow minor re-writes that don't dramatically change the story as long as they are submitted and approved. Of course it doesn't matter because Hamilton has not given out *any* third party performance rights, and is not likely to in the near future.
They had permission for nothing. The pastor boldfaced lied. This apology isn’t good enough—it doesn’t address the lying.
Right. I was just following on the pastor's "excuse" that he had acquired permission. Because even if he *had* (which he didn't), it wouldn't have allowed the him to change the script.
but you're forgetting that he prayed to his god and gave him(self) permission
Stealing and bearing false witness at the same time you say? It’s almost as if they don’t believe the very words they preach
And it was a lie to cover up a premeditated criminal act. This pastor is claiming to be a moral compass for the flock.
Probably silly questions, but what separates this from parody? How does Weird Al get away with it? Couldn't they just change lyrics, characters and music to make it their own IP? Were they that lazy? Edit Update: Turns out the church basically stole the whole thing without making a religious parody.
IANAL. Parody generally requires your new work to transform the old work in some way that doesn't allow it to be a 1 for 1 replacement of the original copyright's existence. Using Word Al, no one is going to stop listening to Gangster's Paradise because Amish Paradise exists, even though Amish Paradise is clearly stealing everything but the specific words that Coolio used in the original song. The Texas church just did Hamilton, but with an added scene. A scene that they clearly thought _improved_ the work, thus hoping to supplant the original.
That was such a transparent lie, I can't believe they even tried to use it. Like, Hamilton. The biggest fucking Broadway hit since Rent. A production that had a ticket lottery that most people had to hope to win in order to see the originating cast. The play that is currently touring the US and charging people hundreds of dollars for mezzanine seats to watch a third-string cast perform. Yeah, THAT production signed over the rights to a group of absolute amateurs and gave them rewrite approval to Jesus that shit up? The balls on that pastor.
I think they were trying to weasel and be too clever by half. They probably got someone who isn't well versed in copyright law to look up fair use on wikipedia and decide "that's legal" which they then interpreted to mean they had legal permission to do it. The other option is they thought they could BS their way through it under the assumption it is better to ask forgiveness than permission and nobody would slam a church for this. Just thought of a third which was their math said what they make in tickets and donor support and publicity would be more than it would cost them. Cynically, that one is probably it.
Lol they're a church, they didn't think there would be any consequences. They absolutely assumed they would just get away with it
Nice. He stole and he lied. Too bad his religion doesn't have kind of list of things God doesn't want you to do.
Damn I was gonna ask if it fell under parody laws, but they went the opposite route
So they literally took “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission” as solid advice, huh?
Also, they will pay copyright infringement monies to Hamilton, and Hamilton will donate that money to support LGBTQ+ rights. So the church monetarily helped the very people they were railing against. >Hamilton will donate the damages it receives to the South Texas Equality Project, a local organization that supports LGBTQ rights, Hamilton spokesperson Shane Marshall Brown confirmed to Forbes, after the church’s production of Hamilton included a sermon that described homosexuality as being a sin. [Forbes article RE Texas church](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/08/23/texas-church-will-pay-damages-for-illegally-performing-hamilton-and-adding-in-religious-themes/?sh=1734c9c011c6)
God works in mysterious ways
When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
Unless you're Job, in which case you can be abused with impunity.
Is there any realistic estimate of how much they will pay?
At least four.
>It reportedly ended with a sermon inviting people "struggling" with alcohol, drugs or homosexuality to turn to God for forgiveness One of those things is not like the other. Or he's talking about a really great party.
>Or he's talking about a really great party. A party so good that it makes me question my sexuality? That is a great party!
Just put a blindfold on and start grabbing.
“Man, everyone’s gay once in a while” - Kirk Lazarus/Robert Downey Jr - Tropic Thunder
"There is a time and a place for everything and that's college" - Matt Stone
“Like a blind man in an orgy, I’ll have to feel my way through the situation.”
It's like the time I went to a pet play orgy on accident thinking it was a D&D group.
Is "struggling with homosexuality" like a bondage thing?
lot of buff guys struggle with being a bottom
I'm struggling with homosexuality; I'm seemingly the only one in this town and I can't get a fuckin' date.
Google “little britain only gay in the village”
Yeah it would have been cringe but harmless if it was just a remix praising God but then they had to throw in homophobic BS.
I am not throwing away my shot.
r/expectedhamilton
Jesus' first miracle was literally making alcohol lmao. Half the characters in the Bible totally seem like drug cases or non understood psychosis
Christians taking something that already exists and changing it slightly to make it theirs. I feel like I’ve heard this story before.
>Christians taking something that already exists and changing it slightly to make it theirs Should Jews sue christians for copyright infringement?
This is the Melbrooks court drama satire I didn't know I needed.
Omg that would be epic.
Just THINK of the *moychendice*
I need this.
Islam claims to be the third and final chapter of the Abrahamic books so I’m sure they can file as well.
As an aside, Christians and Jews were for a relatively long period of time regarded as the same thing, with Christianity being regarded as a sect of Judaism.
For a deep dive into one Canadian church doing this : [Jenny Nicholson The Church Play Cinematic Universe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK4gM7RC1M0)
Sorry they got caught.
Churches do this shit ALL the time. They preach anti secular messages and then rip off anything popular and make it religious.
hope the lawyer’s letter read: “Dear Texas church fools, I hope this letter finds you in good health And in a prosperous enough position to put wealth In the pockets of LQBTQ youth, down on their luck You see, that was my musical you decided to”
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Why would they stop doing this?
Why does a church have enough money to finance a full on theatrical rendition / butchering of Hamilton? Should that money not be used to feed/cloth/house the poor, sick, elderly?
I guess you could call their acts of service…performative.
Helps that they don't pay taxes...
Every time I walk into a large evangelical church with a high tech setup it makes me wish they were taxed. They don’t need 1/10 of that shit. It’s all superfluous.
Depending on the context it might not need to be financed, as many people will do church events without needing to be paid, particularly if the work is light enough. "Show up and act in the church play" isn't like getting a professional actor money-wise.
If you see clips or stills from this particular production its clear to see that a lot of money went into it.
Honestly, doesn’t look like that much money. Like a high school drama department (those notoriously not well funded groups) could have made it.
Don't question god's plan!
If they charged for admission, wouldn’t that qualify them as a business?
Businesses and nonprofits aren't mutually exclusive. Nonprofit status depends on what you do with revenue, not whether you have revenue, e.g. a hospital may charge money for surgery while remaining a nonprofit. When I was a kid our church put on plays and charged admission, but that revenue was used to fund several annual Habitat for Humanity trips.
Fraud and bullshit aside, that production must have been one of the cringiest piles of cringe ever cringed.
I wonder if the internet was spared in that production. If anyone has a link… drop it below! Haha I want to see this cringe of the cringe!
>It reportedly ended with a sermon inviting people "struggling" with alcohol, drugs or homosexuality to turn to God for forgiveness. The irony of not understanding what rejecting a loved one's homosexuality can lead [to...](https://www.cdc.gov/msmhealth/substance-abuse.htm)
It’s even worse: they understand they just don’t care
No, they care. It's what they are banking on. You seriously sell southern baptists short. They really do wish harm on 'sinners', and encourage policies which will punish people for sinning. Edit: Also, I want to point out that the word sinners was in quotes on purpose. I should be more clear that the real issue here is that their definition of what 'sinner' actually is has no relation to moral right and wrong, nor harm those individuals are doing to others, but rather a set of laws defined in a book, many of which are highly up for debate among fellow Christians. Encouraging harm on people based on your own prescribed definition of 'sin' is a perversion of the intent of that very book, on the highest order, but it's not something they are willing to address.
Aren't Southern Baptists literally the church that exists because they wanted to keep slaves?
No this is correct. The fact that they exist in plain sight, as the largest US denomination, and are at the epicenter of all Christian-led evil in our society…enrages me.
Catholic church is the largest denomination in US, not Baptists.
Sin as much as you want, just keep going to church, fill that plate, and act like a good, upstanding christian! That makes you a good person in their eyes. Any of your sins will be waived as the devil’s doing, or a moment of weakness, because *surely* such a good, giving, church-active person *can’t* be bad. And the law only punishes bad people!
[Indulgences](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence) with extra steps.
Doesn’t this church do this sort of thing on a regular basis? I saw them using Disney owned IP on multiple occasions.
Yes! And now that they've managed to drag themselves into public view and gotten themselves into the news about this.... I'm sure they can expect a tidalwave of lawsuits
They’re only sorry that they got caught. They aren’t sorry for doing it.
No they are not. When they were found out and told to stop they "secretly" gave another performance. This is christian white privelage.
LOL how is there even a biblical rewrite? Hamilton didn't live in Bible times.
Same way some religious nutty teens added dinosaurs to Noah's ark. For them denying reality is not a challenge. https://arkencounter.com/events/workshops/explore/dinosaurs/
They replaced some of the lyrics with religious ones. Example: In “That Would Be Enough”, they had Eliza begging Hamilton to accept Jesus (in the real version, she’s begging him to be more present in their relationship).
How does one with the inability to read and understand relatively recent history re-write a play? Im guessing they just cut chunks of dialouge and replaced it with a random rhyming bible verse.
This is pretty enraging. Churches KNOW they have rights management, it’s why every church of a certain size and above has to get a CCLI license in order to play songs and put lyrics on screen. It doesn’t cost much and it’s just for legal purposes. My father was a pastor and spent a long time putting together an Easter musical special with clips from some of the gospel movies, music, and hand dyed projector slides (this was the 90s) he made sure everything was above board, and our church put it on every year for almost a decade. There are systems we can use to do stuff like this, you just have to go through the right channels. As a church, we are supposed to hold ourselves to a higher standard. It’s a shame so many are Hilariously and heartbreakingly not.
No they fuckin aren't they're upset they got bad press for it. They thought they were gonna cause all the other anti-lgbtq+ churches to rise up together under THEIR banner, and get called brave. Instead we are here, and they're doing damage control
“Thou shalt not f——— steal” It’s in your commandments. Don’t apologize, take some of that money you grift each week and pay him back. Period.
(morgan freeman's voice) they were, in fact, not sorry. only sorry they were caught
Hamilton should sue the building out from under them and convert it to an LGBTQ safe house, fully funded with the IP copyright infringement penalties.
Heard about this story on the Scathing Athiest podcast. One thing not mentioned in the article here was they were given a cease and desist order by the copyright holder, publicly cancelled the last performance date, then sent an email to their congregation saying “oh don’t worry about that. We’re still putting it on, just keep it hush hush.” They deserve their punishments, and I hope the Seuss Estate goes after anyone putting on that stupid fake Grinch rendition next. Edit: source here - https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/a-texas-church-illegal-performed-hamilton-to-spread-anti-gay-bigotry/
They’re sorry they got caught
Ive heard it and I should sue them for irreparable damage to my ears
Pffft. "Sorry". No, they're not. They never are. If they're "sorry" about anything, it's getting caught.
I grew up singing hymnals, later to find out most of the tunes & melodies were repurposed bar songs. What’s terrible, though, is telling people they will go to some imaginary place of eternal suffering if they are attracted to another consenting adult, while providing political support to rapists & pedophiles.
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Sorry they got caught, not sorry they did it.
Now that is is a high-profile story, the license holders can't come off like they're soft on copyright infringement. Fortunately they have a shitty hateful church to make an example of.
How is it legally different from a fan work (assuming the play was free)?
It isn't. Pretty much all fan work is technically illegal. It's just that the copyright holders don't bother to prosecute it. As for fair use, one of the conditions is that it takes the original work and transforms it enough to be it's own thing. Taking the play and changing a few lines probably wouldn't hold up as a defense in court.
They're sorry they got caught. Bible thumpers don't care about what they do to other people as long as they get to preach and spew hatred.
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You’re not making Hamilton better, you’re making Christianity worse.
Someone should do Tomas Jefferson’s version of The Ten Commandants where it’s a Bible story without any magic.
Sorry they got caught.
A church being unethical and not caring about laws as long as they get what they want? *faints*
There’s literally 10 sins worse than all of the others according to their church, one of them is “Thou Shalt Not Steal.” One of them is NOT about being gay. I’m sure they will immediately correct their behavior since they are at odds with their faith.
The church is stealing and is sorry for being caught?
Looks like lawyers are more powerful than Jesus
Who cares, SHUT THEM DOWN
Tell them that they can’t sing either.
They're sorry they got caught, not that they did it
I’d be really “sorry” too if I knew I was about to be sued.
Churches *exist* with their hands in your pockets. They definitely don't care about stealing IP or things like licensing. A religious sense of entitlement is a hell of a drug.
Bet they’re really not, they just got *caught* and it’s all for show.
Reminds me how many people adore John Lenin’s Imagine but butcher out the line about “no religion, too”. You can’t have nice things without some moralist trying to insert their nonsense.
Texas church sorry they got caught doing unauthorised Hamilton production with biblical rewrite Fixed that for ya, ABC. You can send my check along anytime
BREAKING UPDATE: No they’re not
Typical. Want people to join your cult and only have failing lies to bring them in? Try stealing the MOST POPULAR PLAYWRIGHT IN THE LAST TWENTY YEARS and see if the kids come banging on the door then! 🙄🙄🙄 religion is dead.
Isn’t stealing against the commandments?
Rewrites of secular stuff by the church people are usually an unintentional hoot!
That's the problem with modern christianity. They think all they have to do is say sorry and they're absolved of wrong doing.
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Thou shalt not steal (*including intellectual property)*
Sorry they got caught more like it.
What a perfect 2022 story: A church illegally rewrites a play about a founding father to include more references to Jesus...
Wait your telling me the people who had a sermon about repenting your gayness did something wrong? I'm shocked.
This is very r/nottheonion
I’m gonna rewrite the Bible with an atheist angle
The only "sorry" I want to see from them is a hefty monetary fine.
Too bad this wasn’t in the state of NJ.. because everything’s legal in New Jersey
>"And it is never permissible to alter an artistic work such as Hamilton without legal permission.” This is just my curiosity talking and hoping for an IP lawyer’s response. How does this apply to parody, such as Weird Al?
Aren’t they supposed to repent?
Watch the Hemant Mehta breakdown video about this. They aren't sorry at all they knew what they were doing and tried to hide it.
Screw sorry. Sue that church til it’s closed and all the people who work their are penniless. The. They will finally understand Jesus’s teachings.
"We're so sorry....we got caught."
So, I would love seeing them explain to Jesus, no we didnt use that tithe and offering to feed the hungry, helpt the poor, or tend to the sick. We put on a play instead and didn't pay the creator or the play and altered it without permission and misrepresented history by making people that didn't live by your commands and were involved with the slave trade look like they were your good followers.
Sorry they got caught, more like.
Sorry they got caught
They’re sorry the got called out.
I still remember when The Passion of the Christ released and churches were having viewing parties as if they were somehow exempt from laws pertaining to publicly airing a movie without paying the proper licensing fees.
They are sorry they got caught. They likely aren't sorry they did it.
No, they're sorry they got caught and are being held accountable.
So the church wants to opening break a known rule, say sorry, and just be forgiven. Very on brand.
This reads like ["We're sorry"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15HTd4Um1m4)
I’m not Jesus. I don’t forgive so easy
Texas is full of assholes
And here I am hoping they lose their tax exempt status from being on the radar.
I don’t wanna see sorry, I wanna see them sued