On Praise and Worship Music: An Essay to its Cultured Despisers
“Praise and worship” music is one of the most oft-evoked and heavily contested markers of evangelical Protestantism in the United States. Its most vocal advocates herald praise and worship and its meteoric rise since the 1960s as nothing less than the rebirth of Western Christianity, citing its unique ability to attract an entire generation of “lost sheep” into the fold. On the other hand, its most virulent critics condemn praise and worship as dangerous or blatantly... Read More
CCM, Heavy Metal, and the Lure of Possibility
Just last week, I was reading Deena Weinstein’s landmark 1991 study Heavy Metal: A Cultural Sociology and I was nearly stopped in my tracks by the final chapter, which deals with metal’s “detractors” from across the political spectrum. While conservative criticisms of heavy metal are well-known through the work of groups like the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC)––most often centered on its lyrical proclivities for violence, sexuality, and images of Satanic ritual––the... Read More
James Blake and Marks of Specters
The idea of “deconstruction” has achieved a somewhat surprising ubiquity in our current culture. In addition to relatively long-standing applications in literary and cultural criticism, deconstruction has also found a home in political punditry and haute cuisine (what does it mean to “deconstruct” a meatloaf anyway?). But perhaps most enamored with the idea of deconstruction are music critics, particularly those alternative critics who cover the broadly-defined... Read More
Can Moving Music to the Cloud Drive Bring Christians Closer to Heaven?
Music has interacted with other media for decades—from film scores to television theme songs, radio music stations to news stories and podcasts—music rarely stands alone. When music does stand “alone,” as in perhaps the case of music for the sake of music such as with live symphony or rock music performances, it remains ever mediated. Jeremy Begbie, who has written much on theology through the arts, describes the experience of music as being “mediated through an extensive... Read More
Just Like God, Indie Rock is Resurrected
One year ago, Paste Magazine’s associate editor Rachel Maddux wrote a provocative article that asked the question, “Is Indie dead?” Comparing the question to the one TIME writer John T. Elson wrote forty five years ago concerning the more existential question, is God dead?, Maddux ties the theological question to the musical one: Elson wrote of some believers who accepted God’s death as truth but chose to continue as if nothing was different, just to maintain... Read More
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