“Fundamentalists and Pentecostals share all the virtues and vices of popular culture,” says Nathan Hatch as he applies his analysis of the development of American Christianity. “Following the long tradition of democratic Christianity in America, Fundamentalists [which includes what are more commonly known today as Evangelicals] and Pentecostals reject modernity as it is expressed in… Continue Reading
Historically,1 the term “culture” did not emerge in its common use until the late 18th century. The term itself is much older, its Latin roots centered squarely in discussion of agriculture. As early as 1776, however, the term began to be used metaphorically to describe what Matthew Arnold called “the best which has been thought… Continue Reading
Nicholas Wolterstorff, the Noah Porter Emeritus Professor of Philosophical Theology at Yale University, confronts the common trends in aesthetics in 1980 with his engaging Art in Action. This work is a simplification of his more academic treatise, Works and Worlds of Art. Even so, the ideas about art Wolterstorff tackles require a modicum of familiarity… Continue Reading
A primary goal of Vaughan Williams was, of course, to compose art music. His many hours finding and indexing folk tunes resulted in the use of many of those melodies in his own compositions. As such, a distinction between art and folk music in his understanding is self-evident. Cecil Sharp, however, makes this distinction more… Continue Reading
A common error exists frequently in contemporary discussions of the use of folk idioms as a compositional element in art music. Many authors today equate folk music with popular forms such as jazz, rock, and blues. In fact, the terms “folk” and “popular” have unfortunately come to be synonymous in conventional speech. For instance, George… Continue Reading
This far in our journey we have witnessed an almost unbroken stream of Judeo-Christian tradition. From King David to Lutheran composer Johann Crüger (1598-1662) we find a slow and steady cultivation of poetic and musical forms. There were certainly bumps in the road and many changes along the way, yet for around 1800 years the quality… Continue Reading
When Martin Luther (1483—1546) sparked a Reformation of the Church by nailing his Ninety-Five Theses to the Church door at Wittenberg in 1517, he challenged the Roman Church’s doctrine and practice, but never its musical forms. The musical forms of the Reformation continued to follow in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The most significant change Luther made for… Continue Reading
Editor’s note: This article is posted partially in response to discussion of Scott Aniol’s post on medieval hymnody. I have suggested elsewhere that the civilization of the medieval West was imbued with Christian ideals, and that those ideals were abandoned after the Enlightenment. This assertion provokes several challenges in the popular mind, two of which… Continue Reading
When Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in 313 with the Edict of Milan, and Christianity soon became the religion of the entire empire, the cultural conditions within which the Church thrived changed into a situation that had not been enjoyed since before the Hebrew exile. Soon the Church gained prominence over all aspects of politics and… Continue Reading
On the wall in my study I have three portraits. All three are portraits of theologians who were also heavily involved with music. They are Martin Luther, J.S. Bach, and Isaac Watts. All three men fought their battles in defense of high standards for worship music. All three had their share of controversy. And all… Continue Reading
My goal in this series is to help believers apply the Bible to their musical choices in life and worship. My contention is, however, that believers today approach the issue of musical choices with certain errant foundational presuppositions that need to be corrected before they can rightly apply the Bible in this area. So my… Continue Reading
I’ve taken pains on this site to explain the differences between high culture, folk culture, and pop culture. Last night my wife and I witnessed a very enlightening collision of all three types of culture. Some friends of ours invited us to join them for an evening at the Rockford Symphony (incidentally, we had front… Continue Reading