Longfellow Christmas Carol Writing Contest

Deadline Christmas Day!

What makes a poem a carol?  Listen to my podcast The Scriptorium at bondbooks.net/the-scriptorium-podcast for carol writing contest details (and prizes!). Do any of these qualify as Christmas carols? "Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer," "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas," "Frosty the snowman"? Most of us would agree that these represent more of the residual fluff that has emerged to pad the season with a sort of vague wintry charm, but they're not carols. 

How about Longfellow's poem written in 1863, "I heard the bells on Christmas Day"; does it qualify as a Christmas carol? Hate is still tragically strong and does indeed mock the song of peace on earth good-will to men, as we have so painfully been reminded of late. But is it really a Christmas--Christ worship--carol? Determined not to be a cynic, though the cannons of the Civil War were nearly drowning out the chimes of the Christmas bells, Longfellow takes a significant leap between the last two stanzas of his carol, and concludes, “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail ...”

But how did he get to that conclusion? I think a genuine Christmas Carol, a hymn in praise of Jesus' coming into the world as a baby for the sole purpose, "...to save his people from their sins," fills in the gap between Longfellow's deep despair expressed in the second-to-last stanza of his poem, and his final inexplicable confidence that the right will somehow prevail over the wrong expressed in the last stanza. But what or rather Who bridges the gap between the despair and the hope? Answer with the gospel of grace alone in Christ Jesus alone and you have the material for a true Christmas carol.

Longfellow Christmas Carol Contest--prizes!
How to enter:
1. Subscribe to bondbooks.net
2. Share the contest on social media with two friends.
3. Write your own 5-line stanza (5th line is the same as Longfellow's) giving gospel reasons for Longfellow's optimism about the wrong failing and the right prevailing. Make sure you use the same meter and rhyme scheme Longfellow used. 
4. Go to bondbooks.net; after subscribing, click on contact and follow instructions.
Prizes:
1st--A free copy of my new release The Resistance.
2nd--A free copy of my book War in the Wasteland
3rd--A free copy of my New Reformation Hymns cd Rise & Worship​
Grand Prize for a Longfellow-esque lyric--50% discount on my April 2019 Oxford Creative Writing Master Class

Deadline December 25, 2018 bondbooks.net/the-scriptorium-podcast