Full Description
Music does not make itself. It is made by people: professionals and amateurs, singers and instrumentalists, composers and publishers, performers and audiences, entrepreneurs and consumers. In turn, making music shapes those who make it—spiritually, emotionally, physically, mentally, socially, politically, economically—for good or ill, harming and healing. This volume considers the social practice of music from a Christian point of view. Using a variety of methodological perspectives, the essays explore the ethical and doctrinal implications of music-making. The reflections are grouped according to the traditional threefold ministry of Christ: prophet, priest, and shepherd: the prophetic role of music, as a means of articulating protest against injustice, offering consolation, and embodying a harmonious order; the pastoral role of music: creating and sustaining community, building peace, fostering harmony with the whole of creation; and the priestly role of music: in service of reconciliation and restoration, for individuals and communities, offering prayers of praise and intercession to God.
Using music in priestly, prophetic, and pastoral ways, Christians pray for and rehearse the coming of God's kingdom—whether in formal worship, social protest, concert performance, interfaith sharing, or peacebuilding. Whereas temperance was of prime importance in relation to the ethics of music from antiquity to the early modern period, justice has become central to contemporary debates. This book seeks to contribute to those debates by means of Christian theological reflection on a wide range of musics: including monastic chant, death metal, protest songs, psalms and worship music, punk rock, musical drama, interfaith choral singing, Sting, and Daft Punk.
Contents
Introduction
Part One: A Prophetic Role for Music: Protest and Liberation
Chapter One: Turning Hymns into Protest: Zilphia Horton and the Role of Musical Memory in Labor in the New Deal Era
Chapter Two: Punk Rock and/as Liberation Theology
Chapter Three: Mercy, Music, and the Prophetic Voice of Theology: Jon Sobrino's Extra Pauperes Nulla Salus
Chapter Four: A Prophetic Role for Music: A Response and Synthesis
Part Two: A Pastoral Role for Music: Creating Community
Chapter Five: Sacred Love: The (Eco)Theology of Sting
Chapter Six: Music, Religion, and Peacebuilding: The Pontanima Choir of Sarajevo
Chapter Seven: Breaking Stereotypes and Building Bridges: Nihilism, Lament, And Theodicy Within The Extreme Metal Music Culture
Chapter Eight: A Pastoral Role For Music: Sacramental and Salvific Powers
Part Three: A Priestly Role for Music: Reconciliation and Restoration
Chapter Nine: Random Access Liturgies: Daft Punk as Robotic Priests Restoring Humanity
Chapter Ten: Recalling the Original Harmony
