Christian Pop, Minus the Pep

by Eve Tushnet

Does your soul need a lay-me-down instead of a pick-me-up? Harrison Lemke's Fertile Crescent Blues is a deep Biblical meditation expressed through feel-bad indie music. Continue Reading »

6 Jun 2016

Beyoncé and the Fertility of Forgiveness

by Leah Libresco Sargeant

The most screenshotted sequence in Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade is “Hold Up.” After discovering her husband’s infidelity, she walks down the street smashing storefronts with a baseball bat, finally crushing a row of cars in a monster truck. Viewed alone, the song seems like a simple . . . . Continue Reading »

4 May 2016

No Apology for Bach's Theology

by Nathaniel Peters

As the cantor of Leipzig, Bach was responsible for composing music for Sunday ­services, which produced reams of choral ­music, mostly cantatas. Because of this, it would be difficult to find a composer who wrote more sacred music. Like Victoria and Bruckner, Bach’s works stem from his own devotion. But more than any other composer, Bach uses complex music to articulate theology. . . . Continue Reading »

3 May 2016

Rhyme and Reason

by Rebekah Curtis

Hymns are chimerical critters. Their bodies are made of poetry, and their breath is music. The natural ligature of these beasts is rhyme. But sweet rhyme has fallen on strange times in both poetry and music. In poetry, rhyme is terribly out of fashion. It has come to serve more as a rhetorical . . . . Continue Reading »

3 May 2016

Prince: Dance. Music. Sex. Religion.

by Stephen Niezgoda

Iʼm twenty years old, maybe twenty one. Weʼre four deep in my little two-door Saturn, on our way back from a show in the city. Itʼs late. I canʼt remember who played, but they were good. (They were all good back then, or at least I thought they were.) Weʼre passing the auxiliary cord, sharing . . . . Continue Reading »

25 Apr 2016

David Bowie's Search for God

by William Doino Jr.

One doesn’t often find people of faith, especially conservatives, rallying around an entertainer who became famous for dressing up as an androgynous rock-star named Ziggy Stardust, singing, “Rebel, Rebel,” and pushing musical expression to its outer limits. And yet, when David Bowie died last . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Feb 2016

Worship Wars

by Richard J. Mouw

I listened in on a conversation recently on “the worship wars” in evangelical-style congregations and I heard some interesting observations. My main dissent, which I did not express, was that the discussants were treating the battles about worship as a relatively recent phenomenon—several . . . . Continue Reading »

26 Jan 2016

The Play of Daniel

by Mark Movsesian

Earlier this month, I had a chance to see the Gotham Early Music Scene’s production of The Play of Daniel, a medieval Christmas pageant, performed as part of the annual Twelfth Night Festival at New York’s Trinity Church. The festival, which the church started several years ago, revives the idea . . . . Continue Reading »

11 Jan 2016

Winter Songs

by Nathaniel Peters

Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession by ian bostridge knopf, 528 pages, $29 One hundred and fifty years ago, lieder—art songs, in English—held a place in society that no music holds today. These were songs for a soloist with piano accompaniment, something for two people . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Jan 2016

I'll Write Til I'm Right With God

by O. Alan Noble

“I am a sinner, who’s probably gonna sin again”Kendrick Lamar’s breakthrough album, good kid m.A.A.d. city, is a conversion narrative, tracing the moral journey of a young Kendrick through vice, violence, and grace. I don’t mean that the album is just redemptive or that one can interpret . . . . Continue Reading »

31 Aug 2015