Table Of ContentCongregational MusiC-Making and
CoMMunity in a Mediated age
Congregational music can be an act of praise, a vehicle for theology, an
action of embodied community, as well as a means to a divine encounter. This
multidisciplinary anthology approaches congregational music as media in the
widest sense – as a multivalent communication action with technological,
commercial, political, ideological and theological implications, where processes
of mediated communication produce shared worlds and beliefs.
Bringing together a range of voices, promoting dialogue across a range of
disciplines, each author approaches the topic of congregational music from
his or her own perspective, facilitating cross-disciplinary connections while
also showcasing a diversity of outlooks on the roles that music and media
play in Christian experience. The authors break important new ground in
understanding the ways that music, media and religious belief and praxis become
‘lived theology’ in our media age, revealing the rich and diverse ways that people
are living, experiencing and negotiating faith and community through music.
asHgate Congregational MusiC studies series
Series Editors
Monique M. ingalls, Baylor university, usa
Martyn Percy, university of oxford, uk
Zoe C. sherinian, university of oklahoma, usa
Congregational music-making is a vital and vibrant practice within Christian
communities worldwide. Music can both unite and divide: at times, it brings
together individuals and communities across geographical and cultural
boundaries while, at others, it divides communities by embodying conflicting
meanings and symbolizing oppositional identities. Many factors influence
congregational music in its contemporary global context, posing theoretical
and methodological challenges for the academic study of congregational music-
making. increasingly, coming to a robust understanding of congregational
music’s meaning, influence and significance requires a mixture of complementary
approaches. including perspectives from musicology, religious and theological
studies, anthropology and sociology of religion, media studies, political economy,
and popular music studies, this series presents a cluster of landmark titles
exploring music-making within contemporary Christianity which will further
Congregational Music studies as an important new academic field of study.
Other titles in this series
Christian Congregational Music
Performance, Identity and Experience
edited by Monique ingalls, Carolyn landau and tom Wagner
Congregational Music-Making and
Community in a Mediated age
edited by
anna nekola
Denison University, USA
toM Wagner
University of Edinburgh, UK
© anna nekola, tom Wagner and the Contributors 2015
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
anna nekola and tom Wagner have asserted their right under the Copyright, designs and
Patents act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing limited ashgate Publishing Company
Wey Court east 110 Cherry street
union road suite 3-1
Farnham Burlington, Vt 05401-3818
surrey, gu9 7Pt usa
england
www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
a catalogue record for this book is available from the British library.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Congregational music-making and community in a mediated age / edited by anna nekola and
tom Wagner.
pages cm. – (Congregational music studies series)
includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 978-1-4724-5919-0 (hardcover) – isBn 978-1-4724-5920-6 (ebook) –
isBn 978-1-4724-5921-3 (epub) 1. Church music. 2. Christianity and culture. 3. Mass media–
religious aspects–Christianity. i. nekola, anna e. (anna elizabeth), 1974- editor.
ii. Wagner, Thomas, 1980- editor.
Ml3001.C69 2015
264’.2–dc23
2015016392
isBn: 9781472459190 (hbk)
isBn: 9781472459206 (ebk – PdF)
isBn: 9781472459213 (ebk – ePuB)
Bach musicological font developed by © yo tomita
Printed in the united kingdom by Henry ling limited,
at the dorset Press, dorchester, dt1 1Hd
Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii
Notes on Contributors ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction: Worship Media as Media Form and Mediated Practice:
Theorizing the Intersections of Media, Music and Lived Religion 1
Anna E. Nekola
Part I technology, Place and PractIce
1 Music as a Mediated Object, Music as a Medium:
Towards a Media Ecological View of Congregational Music 25
Tom Wagner
2 Music, Ritual and Media in Charismatic Religious Experience
in Ghana 45
Florian Carl
3 Panoptic or Pastoral Gaze? The Worship Leader in the New
Media Environment 61
Tanya Riches
4 Who Gets to Sing in the Kingdom? 81
Ruth King Goddard
Part II communIty creatIon
5 ‘This is a Chance to Come Together’: Subcultural Resistance and
Community at Cornerstone Festival 101
Andrew Mall
vi Congregational Music-Making and Community in a Mediated Age
6 ‘Through Every Land, By Every Tongue’: Sacred Harp Singing
Through a Transnational Network 123
Ellen Lueck
7 YouTube: A New Mediator of Christian Community 141
Daniel Thornton and Mark Evans
8 Belonging, Integration and Tradition: Mediating Romani
Identity Through Pentecostal Praise and Worship Music 161
Kinga Povedák
Part III embodIed SonIc theologIeS
9 On the Inherent Contradiction in Worship Music 183
Allan F. Moore
10 ‘Yet to Come’ or ‘Still to Be Done’?: Evangelical Worship
and the Power of ‘Prophetic’ Songs 199
Joshua Kalin Busman
11 Music and Happiness: Salvific Practice in a Feelgood Age 215
Clive Marsh
12 The Dance + Pray Worship Experience in Finland: Negotiating
the Transcendent and Transgressive in Search of Alternative
Sensational Forms and Affective Space 231
Marcus Moberg
Afterword: Of Animatrons and Eschatology: Congregational Music,
Mediation and World-Making 249
Monique M. Ingalls
Index 259
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
5.1 Cornerstone 2009 Festival map. © Cornerstone Festival /
Jesus People USA, reproduced with permission 110
5.2 Camp Busted Guitar, reproduced with permission of the
author 112
5.3 Amateur generator stage and flyers, reproduced with permission
of the author 113
tables
1.1 Hillsong LIVE’s production activities are coordinated with
holidays and major church events (based on chart in Riches
2010, 146) 36
7.1 YouTube CCS videos analysed 146
7.2 YouTube CCS Data 149
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Notes on Contributors
Joshua Kalin Busman received the PhD in musicology from the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holds a BM in music composition from Middle
Tennessee State University as well as an MA in musicology from UNC-CH.
His dissertation research deals with music in contemporary American
evangelicalism using phenomenology, ethnography and popular music studies.
In addition to working on his dissertation, Joshua also works as a tutor at the
UNC Writing Center, directs Gamelan Nyai Saraswati, a central Javanese
ensemble based at UNC-CH, and serves as Arts Coordinator for Emmaus Way
Church in Durham.
Florian Carl is a Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology and Head of the Department
of Music and Dance at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. He holds an MA in
Musicology, Social Anthropology and African Studies from the University of
Cologne and a PhD in Ethnomusicology from Hanover University of Music,
Drama and Media, Germany. He is author of Berlin/Accra: Music, Travel, and
the Production of Space (LIT 2009) and his articles appear in the Yearbook for
Traditional Music, The Globalization of Musics in Transit (Routledge 2014) and
Ghana Studies.
Mark Evans is a Professor and Head of the School of Communication at the
University of Technology, Sydney. He is Series Editor for Genre, Music and
Sound (Equinox Publishing) and is currently editor for The International
Encyclopedia of Film Music and Sound. He co-edits the international journal,
Perfect Beat, and holds an Australian Research Council (ARC) grant to design
an artistic and environmental map of the Shoalhaven basin in New South Wales.
His upcoming books include Sounding Funny: Comedy, Cinema and Music
(with Phillip Hayward) and Moves, Movies and Music: The Sound of Dance
Films (with Mary Fogarty).
Ruth King Goddard is a DWS candidate at Robert E. Webber Institute
of Worship Studies, Jacksonville, Florida. She has an MA in Theological
