Listening to Popular Music: Compass: Christian Explorations of Daily Living - Softcover

Compier, Don H; Jensen, David H

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0800698916 ISBN 13: 9780800698911

Publisher: Fortress Press, 2013

Synopsis

Many Christians regularly enjoy listening to rock and roll, blues, country, and hip-hop while driving in the car, jogging, or relaxing in the den, and most would not censor lyrical themes rarely found in "Christian music." Often we justify our practices by describing this guilty pleasure as just entertainment or relaxation, accepting the divide between what liturgical theologian Don Saliers has called "Saturday evening and Sunday morning." Reflecting on music from the Beatles to Los Lobos, Don Compier argues that Christian faith shapes what we hear while in turn positively contributing to Christian spiritual formation. In exploring how musical styles have been received and resisted throughout Christian history" and critically engaging issues of commerce and social justice, he shows how attention to the situated spirituality of listening breaks down the supposed split between the "sacred" and the "secular" in contemporary Western culture.

About this title

About the Author

Don H. Compier is dean and professor of theology at Community of Christ Seminary at Graceland University, Independence, Missouri. His books include John Calvin's Rhetorical Doctrine of Sin (2001), What Is Rhetorical Theology? Textual Practice and Public Discourse (1999), and Empire and the Christian Tradition: New Reading of Classical Theologians, co-edited with Kwok Pui Lan and Joerg Rieger (Fortress Press, 2007).

Review

In Listening to Popular Music, Don Compier turns out a masterful conversation between popular culture music of our time and the mainstream Western theological tradition The result is an immensely readable foray into beats and steps, alongside the Word and words of crooners theological and musical, offering a mellifluous riff at the crossroads between popular creativity and venerable tradition. --James Perkinson, Ecumenical Theological Seminary, Detroit, Michigan

Edition details

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0800698916
• ISBN 13: 9780800698911
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 144