{"id":3987,"date":"2019-08-01T11:36:36","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T15:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/practicalmattersjournal.ecdsdev.org\/?p=3987"},"modified":"2019-08-06T11:18:06","modified_gmt":"2019-08-06T15:18:06","slug":"faith-in-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pmcleanup.ecdsdev.org\/2019\/08\/01\/faith-in-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith in Music: Attempting a Free, Public, Online Course in Practical Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Download PDF: Beaudoin, Faith in Music<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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Abstract<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The author reviews a free, open, online course on popular music that he taught from a practical theological perspective. By considering several dimensions of the structure and content of the course, and with continual reference to literature in practical theology and cultural studies, he attempts to identify its practical theological significance and to detail a critique opening onto a reconstruction for future iterations of such a course.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Around the\ntime I was defending my dissertation at Boston College, Thomas Groome handed me\nan article titled \u201cMusic and Practical Theology\u201d by Bernard Reymond from the International Journal of Practical Theology<\/em>.[1]<\/a>\nHaving been introduced by Groome to practical theology several years earlier,\nthis was the first work interrelating practical theology and music I had read. Nearly\ntwo decades later, I taught a course trying to bring practical theology and music\nto bear on each other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having taught the course two years ago, I have spent time reviewing the experience, in its practical theological significance, as I prepare to refine the course for future purposes, including teaching it as a for-credit course, offering it for free in other community contexts, and writing it up as a book. As I reviewed the course, I sorted my learning into several categories. On the one hand are structural and process elements that are theologically saturated: launching the course, motivations for teaching, structure and content, diversity and access; on the other hand are conceptual markers that are theologically saturated: sound theology, God, and faith in music. In what follows, I consider these each in turn and conclude with considerations for the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Launching the Course <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

My\nteaching is always an experiment in working out my intention that students go\ndeeper in understanding and acting in their situation, wherever they are. On\nthe \u201cpresenting\u201d level, the curriculum is about our studies (topics, themes,\nreadings, lectures, questions), but in depth, the curriculum is about the\ndesires and powers circulating in our situations. I felt these stakes keenly during\nthe four years of preparation and the ten weeks of teaching \u201cFaith in Music:\nSound Theology from the Blues to Beyonc\u00e9.\u201d Designed as a free, public, and\nonline course, I was trying to utilize digital educational technology to\nexperiment with practices of and purposes for theological education in my\ncontext at Fordham University.[2]<\/a>\n\u201cFaith in Music\u201d was envisioned as a modest version of the \u201cmassive online open\ncourses\u201d[3]<\/a>\nthat had captured educators\u2019 imaginations. This one would be more modest than\nmassive, and Fordham did not have a proven infrastructure for producing such\ncourses, but was committed to making it available to anyone who could access\nit. From the beginning, I partnered with WFUV (90.7 FM), a venerable New York\nCity \u201crock and roots\u201d radio station housed at Fordham.[4]<\/a>\nThe project enjoyed the support of leadership at WFUV, the Graduate School of\nReligion and Religious Education (GSRRE), and the wider university.[5]<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I taught\nthe course over ten weeks in spring 2017 on Course Sites, a digital teaching\nand learning platform produced by Blackboard, an online vendor with which\nFordham contracts for its online and hybrid courses. As an asynchronous online\ncourse (we did not meet \u201clive,\u201d and students could access the Course Site at\nany time while it was open), I put together all the course materials\nbeforehand, leaving me free to interact with students (on the discussion board\nand occasionally over email). I made available ten modules, one week at a time.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Motivations for Teaching<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Why did I\nwant to get into free online open theological education? One track of my\nacademic career has been about making insights generated in academic theology\nand religious studies accessible to the larger world, particularly religious\ncommunities and the educated public. Practical theology has historically placed\nitself in service to Christian faith communities, and in its \u201crebirth\u201d in\nrecent decades has turned more toward service of the world. I also grew up among\nMidwestern white lower middle-class and working-class kids, many of whom had no\naccess to elite education. Decades later, I am still \u201cthat kid\u201d amidst \u201cthose\nkids.\u201d Rock music for me still has the tang of class pushback, even as it also\nsubstantiates the middle-class whiteness that was also part of my world. As I\nhave grappled with what to do with this personal heritage of two domains of\nwhiteness (working-class\/middle-class) that were both deeply imbricated in rock\nmusic, and entangled with what was possible in gender, sexuality and religion, I\nhave often found my way to involvement in projects that redistribute academic\nknowledge. On the one hand, it is a way of saying I have not forgotten my\nstruggling public-housing peers (and this dimension of myself), and on the\nother hand it is a way of disposing of social and epistemic advantage\naccumulated amidst white suburban peers (and this dimension of myself).[6]<\/sup><\/a>\nThat I teach in a relatively well-off Catholic- and Jesuit-heritage university\nis also an impetus. Part of this heritage is the social mission of the\nuniversity.[7]<\/sup><\/a>\nI look around me at Fordham and see a university that can \u201cafford\u201d to give away\nsome of what we do where we can make a difference. The goal of individual and\nsocial transformation has become so frequently invoked in contemporary\npractical theology that it is in danger of becoming commonplace, yet as a\npractical theologian in a Jesuit-heritage university I am keen to emphasize the\noverlap between the university\u2019s ideals and the investments of practical\ntheology in reconstructed practice, faithful action, noble change, and at the\nlimit revolution. These all stand behind my desire to publicize Fordham\u2019s\ntheological education through a free, online, open course. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Structure and Content <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

These commitments not only informed my desire for such a course, but the choices of what to include, of how to structure the topics we would study, and the imagined experiential route through which students would proceed as the course unfolded. I was aware from the beginning that I meant for the course to show what a practical theology could do with popular music for an educated public audience. More specifically, I taught the course as an exercise in practice-minded theology. \u201cPractice-minded\u201d is my way of holding together and holding open the gifts, potentials, and stakes of self-identified practical theologies as well as other cognate discourses on religion and theology (and more) that form the practice-nexus described by terms like: practice, praxis, experience, performance, action. Practice-minded theology includes the self-designated professional realm of practical theologies and any other forms of academic inquiry that seem useful for practical theology\u2019s purposes. These purposes are never only formulated from \u201cwithin\u201d formal practical theological discourse, but are continually revised \u201cwithin\u201d and at the \u201cedges\u201d by practical theological discourses\u2019 interactions with, dependence on, and at times resistance to and exclusion of, cognate forms of academic inquiry. It is this broad sense of practice-minded theology that I try to instantiate in all my teaching and in \u201cFaith in Music\u201d in particular. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The course featured a number of elements that were meant to create a kind of playspace within each \u201cunit.\u201d The first and last weeks were an introduction and summation, and the middle eight weeks were given to the study of eight musicians and their musical catalogues: Robert Johnson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Elvis Presley, George Harrison, Carlos Santana, Lauryn Hill, Bj\u00f6rk, and Beyonc\u00e9. Each week with the artists included a suite of materials that I created for students to explore at their own pace and order. For each artist, students had access to an audio lecture I had recorded (typically 30-45 minutes) in mp3 format, a lecture transcription in Microsoft Word, a bibliography of sources that informed the lecture, a list of songs referenced in the lecture, a YouTube playlist of videos that tracked the songs mentioned in the lecture, a list of Internet links to resources related to the artist (interviews, performances, talks), and audio interviews from the WFUV archives related to the artist. In addition, I conducted five audio interviews that I interspersed throughout the course, two with WFUV disc jockeys, two with a theologian and a religious educator with experience in music, and one with the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Sam Phillips.[8]<\/sup><\/a> Students could read, watch, or listen to these materials online or download them to their own devices. They could turn to the class discussion board to discuss with other students and with me what they were learning, to share their questions, and to offer a variety of recommendations of music and other resources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did I\nchoose these eight artists? I wanted to prioritize African-American influence\nin popular music and white reconstructions of that influence with some\ncomplexity, while also registering the international character of US popular\nmusic. I wanted to underscore the Christian specificity of this musical\ntradition but also its broader religious\/spiritual conditions. I wanted to\ncraft a century-long narrative that took up blues in the American South and\naddressed Hip Hop and pop music in the present. I was concerned about tokenism\nand essentialism in selecting artists, aware that my role as a white and male\ncreator of this narrative substantially prespecified what I might see, feel,\nand select in that narrative. My experience as a musician predisposed me toward\nvaluing accomplished musicianship in popular music artistry. As a result, the\nguitar and its changing fortunes (and theological significance) were central,\nbut the singing voice was crucial as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found I\ncould meet some of my goals for equitable attention by how I told the story of\nthe life and music of the artists. For example, Robert Johnson\u2019s music allowed\nme to learn and teach about Hawaiian backgrounds to Southern slide guitar, and\nGeorge Harrison\u2019s music invited attention to the Indian spiritual and musical\ninfluences central to his life and work. Including Bj\u00f6rk permitted\nconsideration of a modern secular artist claiming no religious affiliation and\nopened the question of what counts as contemporary secular tradition. Lauryn\nHill showed how music can simultaneously embody an inherited Christian\nbackground and a newly chosen religious foreground like Rastafarianism. During\nthe long planning process, I realized I needed to try to select artists as much\nfor what they could let us explore as for what role the artists themselves play\nor played in popular music. Carlos Santana\u2019s life and catalogue exemplify an\naccessible artist working over the course of a long and productive career\nacross cultures (Mexican, US, global), genres (blues, jazz, Latin, rock), and\nreligions and spiritualities (Catholicism, Sri Chinmoy, and energetic, eclectic\nspiritual seeking), exhibiting a restless search for faith in music.[9]<\/sup><\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was not\nsure how New York-centric to make the course. (How much should such an online\ncourse be \u201crooted\u201d in the geography of its \u201ccreators\u201d?) I settled on thinking\nthat the Fordham origins, the WFUV partnership, the use of the WFUV archives,\nand my inclusion of Lauryn Hill (from across the Hudson River in New Jersey) were\nenough to register New York-ness. I also felt a certain ragged cosmopolitan\nspirit about the course symbolized its New York home base, and I had seen\nseveral of these artists in concert in the city in the years leading up to the\ncourse. (I had also recorded dozens of video segments of these concerts that I\nended up not using in the course.) In other words, I felt I was doing<\/em> some degree of New York in the\ncourse. By the conclusion of \u201cFaith in Music,\u201d I was satisfied with the arc of\nthe artists, but I also knew how much of a partial construction it was. During\nthe teaching, I felt regret at leaving out obvious musicians who deserved to be\nthere, famous and not-so-famous. Students would often say, \u201cSo-and-so should be\nin this course!\u201d They were right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diversity and Access<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One\nhundred and eight students were enrolled. While the course did not survey\ndemographic information, most students seemed to live in the United States. My\nimpression is that slightly more than half of the participants identified as\nwomen. Of statements that revealed age or generation, we had a small cohort of 20-30-somethings\nand over-70s, with probably a majority aged 40-65. Most of those enrolled seemed\nto have at least passing familiarity with Christianity. Some shared their\nreligious affiliation, church commitments, or backgrounds. Several mentioned\ntheir lack of religious affiliation. A few were affiliated with religious or\nspiritual traditions other than Christianity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I noticed\nthat whereas a few students claimed an Asian-American perspective in\ndiscussions (in one case occasioned by a section on Hawaiian backgrounds of\nblues guitar), no one was claiming African-American or Latinx perspectives. I then\nwondered how white the atmosphere effectively was for those participating on\nthe discussion board. This realization was \u201cfeedback\u201d for me on who was\nactually accessing the course, and who would consider Fordham\u2019s offering of\nsuch a course interesting. It was also a revelation of my inadequacy in\nconceptualizing the discussion board pedagogically in racially and ethnically\ninclusive terms. Although I was gratified by participation in discussions, I\nwas troubled as well. By the end, I wondered who this learning was \u201cfor.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the\nplanning, I had had a sense of wanting to make the course as \u201copen\u201d as possible\nto people to come and go as they pleased, without making demands on\nregistrants. I thought it important for this experiment to keep the bar for\nentry low.[10]<\/a>\nI realized I did not think well about how to invite specific constituencies,\nand about how to submit my ideas about course accessibility to critical\nfeedback from other scholars.[11]<\/a>\nReplicating longstanding racial legacies at Fordham and in my School in\nparticular, I did not effectively intervene in the closed loop of relatively\nprivileged white men, with me at the center, who were crucial to this course\ndevelopment. My goals for theological equity were focused on the \u201ccurriculum,\u201d\nnot on advertising, outreach, or recruitment for the course. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so,\ngiven the understanding of \u201ccurriculum\u201d above to which I am ostensibly\ncommitted (a course of study subtended by plumbing desires and powers that\ncondition our situations), I can see now that I did not adequately\nconceptualize or sufficiently advocate diverse access as central to \u201cFaith in\nMusic.\u201d There were some questions along the way about who should underwrite\nadvertising for the course (the School, the radio station) and how much\nadvertising, and where, was enough. In retrospect, I did not see the question\nof advertising and publicizing as something that was my responsibility, and\nthis is one place where administrative and faculty duties are a blurry zone. I understand\nbetter now that these questions of outreach and advertising are ways of talking\nabout what and whom the course is \u201cfor.\u201d[12]<\/a>\nThey are practical theological matters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions\nof access to theological education matter for practical theology because one of\npractical theology\u2019s constitutive rhetorics is that of a practice-nexus distinct\nfrom a concept-nexus or an object-nexus. By concept-nexus, I mean theology that\ntakes itself to be grounded in concepts and concept-like material, such as\nideas, speculations, systems, assertions, propositions, and beliefs. By\nobject-nexus, I mean theology that takes itself to be grounded in objects and\nobject-like material like texts (including scriptures), manuscripts, artwork,\nbuildings, and what is often called \u201cmaterial culture.\u201d By practice-nexus, I\nmean that practical theology functions as a protest or contrast genre in\nrelation to the \u201cothers\u201d of practice (such as concept or object). This\npractice-nexus is driven by the conviction that what counts as theology is\ngrounded in practice and a constellation of practice-adjacent notions, such as\naction, performance, praxis, and experience. Practical theology as the rhetoric\nof a practice-nexus is typically taken to be a protest toward, a contrast to,\nor meaningfully distinct from the concept-nexus and the object-nexus.[13]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\npractice-nexus constitutive of practical theology is entangled in an ambiguous\nhistory that has invented new freedoms as well as marginalizations.[14]<\/a>\nThose of us who traffic in practical theology take up with that history. For\npractical theologians with influence to take up with it in a way that\nreproduces its exclusions is a misuse or abuse of the heritage we aim to direct\nin service of others. Practical theology remains a potentially radical project\nfor Christian experience\u2014and because its history and present situations are\nentangled with other-than-Christian experience, it remains open for that to be\nits project as well.[15]<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is\nconsistent with the brokenness I inherited through (but not only through)\npractical theology that \u201cFaith in Music\u201d fell short of the community it could\nhave welcomed. Indeed, the course was positioned to discourage that fuller\nwelcome. It is also consistent with the forms of attention I have garnered\nthrough (but not only through) practical theology that I can articulate this\nvision anew, work on the \u201cepistemologies of ignorance\u201d informing my teaching,[16]<\/a>\nthe practice of separating teaching duties from outreach and recruitment, and\nintend a different future, integrating questions about audience, outreach and\naccess into what \u201cFaith in Music\u201d is \u201cabout\u201d in its future iterations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sound Theology<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In accord\nwith the course title, my central concern for the study of each artist was to notice\nand cultivate a \u201cfaith in music\u201d that could be part of a \u201csound theology.\u201d By\n\u201csound theology,\u201d I set myself as an advocate in the class for generating\ntheology of and from the \u201csounds\u201d we studied. This phrase also felicitously\nsuggests that theology be \u201csound,\u201d which I take to mean striving for public\npersuasiveness, justifying itself in the measure of truth, beauty, and goodness\nthat it furthers. Practical theological persuasion is itself not only a matter\nof how sounds become theologically significant, but of how theology sounds\u2014and\nsounds to\u2014its hearers.[17]<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I teach on\nthe presumption that we have to have good reasons and just rhetorics for\npractical theological work. By good reasons, I mean reasons that stand up to\nscrutiny as good argument among those who value good argument inside and\noutside of theology. By just rhetorics, I mean to recognize that we are\npersuaded not only by good reasons but by persuasive, poetic, even beautiful\nwriting and other forms of theological presentation; further, that these\npersuasive rhetorics ought to be ultimately in service of justice toward\nourselves and all others in our (local and global) society, as tested by the\nworld it contributes to creating for those with least access to the necessities\nof a noble life. Good reasons can never be separated cleanly from justly\npersuasive rhetorics. I consider good reasons, good argument, and justly\npersuasive rhetoric not as stable descriptors with durable content, but as\npragmatic pointers toward a way of managing unavoidable disputes in theology.\nIn other words, I presume good reasons, good argument, and justly persuasive\nrhetoric to be radically historically contingent, and even my specification of\nthem as an index of my cultural-historical specificity.[18]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, the\ncourse was meant to ride the question: What are good reasons and justly\npersuasive rhetorics for having this engagement between theology and music\nhappen? Why do we think our theological traditions might have something\nsignificant to say here, and how do we convey that with care, style, and\nbeauty? No less important is the moment in theological work where we ask why\nthis theological engagement with music matters for us and for those affected by\nthis conversation. Do we see that we or others might become different, gain\nknowledge, insight, wisdom, or virtue, might simply grow or change, as a\nresult? And will this engagement, which is both ever new and ever rooted in our\npast, make us reconsider both this music and theological traditions? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point\nis that despite theology\u2019s historical tendencies to see itself as the protector\nof divine (private) property known as \u201crevelation,\u201d neither sounds nor theology\ncan stay the same in this kind of engagement, and we will only retrospectively\ncome up with reasons for that novelty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To pursue a sound theology is to find ways to bring together musical culture and theological culture and to find out why and how it matters that that happens, using that knowledge to make wiser future discernments. These discernments are not ultimately for producing specialized knowledge alone, but for learning how to live more fully in such a way that others may also elect life with agency. Theological research must conform to the best standards of research, and at the same time offer the potential for living wisely and well.[19]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

God<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To take\nthe approach I wish to take in \u201cFaith in Music\u201d raises the question of the\nunderstanding of God\u2014usually taken to be the most important matter in\ntheology\u2014to which popular music may be related. Is it possible to maintain a\nmultireligious and multisecular form of attention when teaching a\npractice-minded course on popular music that is still \u201ctheological,\u201d that still\ndeals with \u201cGod\u201d? Theology is often defined as \u201cwords\u201d (logia<\/em>) about \u201cGod\u201d (theos<\/em>),\nor \u201cGod-talk.\u201d Many practical theologians will agree that Western theologies\ninherit two deficiencies in this definition. First, such speech can easily be\ndivided off from action, from practice, from doing. Theologians often characterize\nsuch speech as essentially ruminative or speculative: theories for getting\ncloser to the nature of divine things.[20]<\/sup><\/a> But if\nspeech is also action, then ways of referring to God can be construed not as\ndetached ruminations but as ways of doing something, cutting a path. Speaking\nabout God, in other words, is always effective or ineffective in and for a\nsituation\u2014an action that comes out of our lives and makes a difference in life.\nTheology\u2019s cutting of a path also shapes the pathmaker, the person doing the\n\u201cspeaking.\u201d In other words, logia<\/em>\nabout God changes the speaker and all who are affected by their logia<\/em>. (Of course, that change may be in\nthe form of \u201cmaintaining\u201d a situation.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, this\ninherited speech called \u201ctheology\u201d typically assumes security in its object, a\npresumption that speech about God basically knows what it is talking about. Indeed,\nit is difficult to imagine teaching theology today, especially in seminary or\ntheological-school settings, without this working presumption. Theo-logia<\/em> tells us that the intended\n\u201cobject\u201d of the logia<\/em>, the speech, is\ntheos<\/em>. Religious traditions for whom\na God has been central, including Christianities influential for practical\ntheology, tend to make \u201ctheology\u201d into \u201cspeech about God\u201d in the sense of\n\u201cspeech about our<\/em> God, speech about\nthe God whose essential character we already know.\u201d This is not \u201cincorrect,\u201d\nbut it is performatively in-group speech. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In-group speech can be an effective mechanism for cementing affiliation to a community or tradition. Such language voices ways that religious or other communities talk about ultimate reality, about the God already basically known, as \u201cour God,\u201d as the \u201cGod of our people,\u201d and \u201cwe the people of God.\u201d It speaks about the God who is thought to be, in essential and effectively unchangeable ways, known before theology shows up. Such speech helps build up communities and induces shared habits, which are essential to continuity in any community.[21]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What that\nconfidence about the \u201cobject\u201d of theology lacks, however, is everything\nexcluded by the in-group appeal: the voices and experiences of those for whom\nthis account of God, this God, does not make sense, the voices and experiences\nof those who do not experience these repetitions of speech as the kind of\nadherence that helps.[22]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theology\nand theologians often come from academic and religious communities that charge\nus with maintaining the group\u2019s borders, with repeating essential authorized\nclaims about the group\u2019s God. The kind of theology I needed to do in \u201cFaith in\nMusic\u201d was to try to unseal the border, a border between religion and nonreligion\nthat was not effectively sealed anyway. In a course that was trying to take\nresponsibility for exclusions in the theological history of popular music, I\nhad to ask about that theos<\/em>, that\n\u201cGod\u201d so essential to theology. I found it helpful to use the language of \u201cGod\u201d\nless and to return to the language of theos<\/em>\nmore. Calling theology \u201cspeech\u201d about theos<\/em>\ncan throw off our step a bit, put us slightly off guard, make things helpfully\nstrange, encourage us to wonder once again what this speech-path is for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theos<\/em> is the Greek term that different\nreligious communities adopted from ancient philosophical traditions, traditions\nthat already had their own theologies. Theos<\/em>\nwas the term that, among other functions and effects, came to describe efforts\nto account for a community\u2019s claiming reality with which one had to contend,\nfor the power of powers as understood by authorizers of a specific community. Theos<\/em>, this power-rich term, traffics in\nlife-stakes.[23]<\/sup><\/a>\nThe term\u2019s power cannot be separated from its danger or its possibility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even\nthough theos<\/em> is the term\nChristianities have tended to translate \u201cGod,\u201d the critical referents theos<\/em> and God are not simply\ninterchangeable, despite long centuries of traditions working diligently to\nequate the word theos<\/em> to their\nconcept of God, to claim theos<\/em> for\nGod. I prefer to keep that space open instead of closing it off. I prefer to do\nso in order to practice hospitality and seek truth beyond the religious or\nnonreligious in-group\u2014to discipline my attention toward the popular musical\nworld that has so substantially formed me and shapes the society of which I am\na part. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theos<\/em> can be handled (with care) not as\na resting place or a secure space, but a provocation. Theology builds paths and\npersons referred to theos<\/em>, where theos<\/em> is itself a concept that is also\nan activity, a perpetual opening. Thus held, theology can consolidate attention\nin the direction of claiming power, of becoming more. That claiming power can\nbe called God, Goddess, gods, love, sacred, divinity, and\u2014more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I do\ntheology, then, in \u201cFaith in Music,\u201d I practice speech about theos<\/em>. I put into play ways of making\nsense of a claimed \u201cgreater\u201d power. This sense-making can include what\nin-groups call God. Most important for my teaching was to try to analyze diverse\nartists\u2019 voices in terms of what theos<\/em>\nmight be, taking responsibility for what such speech makes possible in their\n(and our) songs, lives, communities, and world.[24]<\/sup><\/a> I\noperationalize this theos<\/em> through how\nI present faith in music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faith in Music<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The title\nphrase, \u201cfaith in music,\u201d is a deep theme of the course. By \u201cfaith in music,\u201d I\nmean two things at once. On the one hand, \u201cfaith in music\u201d means how confidence\nin what matters most to artists\u2014this is what I mean by their \u201cfaith\u201d\u2014gets into\ntheir music. We study how values and practices that matter from the artists\u2019\npersonal or cultural backgrounds end up in the music. On the other hand, \u201cfaith\nin music\u201d means how music itself becomes central to what matters most, how\nmusic is<\/em> that in which the artist\n(and others) come to entrust their confidence, their hope, their life. They\nshow what a faith in music itself looks like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By \u201cfaith\nin music,\u201d I mean popular music as that in which musicians and fans can have\nfaith, and popular music as an influential way in which religious\/secular\ntraditions are articulated and reconstructed. Faith in music is about music\nbeing enough to hold or register what matters for individuals and communities,\nwhether or not musicians or fans have an institutionally recognizable religious\nidentity. For such persons, faith in music seems particularly effective at\nconsolidating ways of life, at making certain kinds of people through what\nmusic means to those who take refuge in it. In other words, musical experience\nserves as a kind of spiritual exercise, a force for shaping what matters most,\nfor what we most may be. Music reaches us in deeply holding and motivating\nways. We are different for our faith in music.[25]<\/sup><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ask\nstudents to keep this notion of faith in music in mind as they go from artist\nto artist. I also invite them to think about what faith in music means for\nthem: How do your commitments and\npractices get into the music that you make or that you treasure? And how is\nmusic itself sufficient for you?<\/em> When\nis it enough that you have music? What music can be the most\u2014or even all\u2014that\nyou need? What is your faith in music? <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\npreparing and teaching the course, what I came to see about faith in music is\nthat each of these artists was heir to complex religio-secular heritages that\nwere figured in sound and that they refigured those heritages in the creation\nand performance of songs. I realized I was trying to help the students and\nmyself appreciate how songs reflect where the artist came from \u201cspiritually,\u201d while\nthe songs are also novel displays, new creations of faith in music. To take\nthis approach is not to short-circuit the commercial\/ideological conditions for\nthe production of music or to romanticize the role of a singular artistic\ngenius in music-making, especially in the consumer capitalist music business,\nand the ensemble settings, in which most of the musicians we studied were\noperating. (That said, I realize in retrospect that I selected musicians who\nexercise a singular creative force in their work and usually stood out from\ntheir bands, so I privileged George Harrison\u2019s solo work over his membership in\nThe Beatles, Lauryn Hill\u2019s over The Fugees, and Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s over Destiny\u2019s\nChild.) We can try to learn what is distinctive about the faith in music of each\nartist while seeing that faith and that music as inseparable from commercial,\nideological conditions. The notion of \u201cGod\u201d that I invoke above suggests that the\nambiguities of material armature of what comes to be called theological or\nmusical material are always a part of the work. No faith, no music, no faith in\nmusic gets to count as pure. At the same time, it is this very \u201cimpure\u201d faith\nin music that goes so far in making artists what they are and making music fans\nwhat they are. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking Ahead<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While I\nhad written about music and theology before, the process of creating and\nteaching \u201cFaith in Music\u201d was my most intensive learning experience since my\ndissertation, which was the time Thomas Groome handed me that article on\npractical theology and music. Preparing this course helped me realize that I\nchose these artists not just because they help me teach about music and\ntheology; I chose them because I need them as I work in and out of something\nlike an alternative spiritual tradition that wends its way through popular\nmusic, a theological path called faith in music. In teaching this course, I\ncreated something like a new pantheon of theology teachers for myself and\nothers. I read, watch, or listened to their interviews, viewed their\nperformances, studied scholarship on their music, and listened to each artist\u2019s\nentire catalogue on vinyl. I wanted to share with students, and learn more for\nmyself, the prospects for faith in music as a living practice today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmaterial has proven continually useful after the course ended, and I have\ncontinued to share it when the theme of faith and music comes up in\nconversation. A minister friend used the Rosetta Tharpe material for preaching.\nI shared the Elvis Presley material with an undergraduate who loved Elvis and\nspirituality. A campus minister used the George Harrison material in her own\nspiritual direction. Talking about the course on campus and in the city (and\nonline) spawned its own alternative curriculum as I learned of others\u2019 favorite\nartists or songs, and religiously or spiritually or otherwise motivating\nexperiences with music. All these \u201crecords\u201d exist in everyday life, and I would\nlike to find a way to bring them into theological education. I did keep a\nrecord of email exchanges that occurred during the course. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am now\nthinking about future versions of the course online and on campus. Which\nartists should be added? How do I improve connecting the material to the range\nof audiences (public, academic, religious) that might find it helpful? I have\nbegun considering seeking grants for these purposes and will write a book based\non the course. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The existential, political and professional stakes for me in this work have come increasingly clear. I sense more clearly how practical theology is both a home and not a home for me\u2014because of my faith in music. I have been a practicing rock musician for thirty-five years, and I am at home in the world of bands and live music, a world of now casual, now intentional spiritual exploration. My experience of musicianship is that learning\u2014with others\u2014musical forms of attention is also training in hearing, feeling, and playing what matters. Living substantially with music puts in place a kind of faith. Such attention and exploration is grounded in the rehearsal room, the concert venue, the recording studio, the privacy of the headphone experience and the publicness of the pub. I taught \u201cFaith in Music\u201d aware of that formation. I can only hear and feel practical theology as part of my faith in music. What I tried to show about artists\u2014that their songs pull forward their faith heritages and make something new out of a faith in music\u2014has been true of my experience teaching this course: my new song was the course. It has been a way of living from what I inherited theologically and, through my own faith in music, what I can make of that now for a yes to life in a way that supports the yeses of others to their own lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feature image by Spencer Imbrock<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a>.<\/em>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Notes<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> Bernard Reymond, \u201cMusic and\nPractical Theology,\u201d International\nJournal of Practical Theology<\/em> 5, no. 1 (2001).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> The Graduate School of Religion\nand Religious Education (GSRRE) at Fordham has been engaged in online education\nsince 2007, and I have been teaching online and hybrid courses since 2014. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> Popular \u201cmassive online open\ncourses\u201d (MOOCS) have been created by contract between companies, such as\nCoursera, edX, and Udacity, and higher education institutions. Some colleges\nand universities have made their own freestanding massive online open courses.\nAmong the most popular have been courses in computer science, artificial\nintelligence, and mathematics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> In a theologically evocative\nexample of the semiotics of university facilities management, for many years\nWFUV resided on the top (third) floor of Keating Hall, the Gothic-style\ncenterpiece of Fordham\u2019s Bronx campus, and the Graduate School of Religion and\nReligious Education in the basement. In 2005, WFUV and GSRRE changed places. A\nsymbology of \u201cfoundations\u201d and \u201cheights\u201d entertained my imagination all along,\nas I considered music and religion\/spirituality\/faith in a commutative\nrelationship grounded in sounds evoking elevation and depth. I mused that long\nbefore \u201cFaith and Music\u201d joined cellar and attic, underground and overlook,\nfaith and music occupied both places at Fordham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> Encouragement and material support\nfor the course was initially provided by Dean Colt Anderson of the GSRRE and\nWFUV General Manager Chuck Singleton, and I learned considerably from the\ncreative support of WFUV Director of Communications John Platt, who helped me\nshape the structure of the course and facilitated access to WFUV archives. I\nalso benefited from technical assistance from Fordham Instructional\nTechnologist Nicole Zeidan and research assistance from GSRRE graduate student\nJasmine Gomez. Fordham University Provost Stephen Freedman was instrumental in\nencouraging the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> On \u201cepistemic advantage\u201d for\npractical theology, see Courtney T. Goto, Taking\non Practical Theology: The Idolization of Context and the Hope of Community<\/em>\n(Boston: Brill, 2018), 202-205. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a> Jesuit philosopher Ignacio\nEllacur\u00eda, in his 1982 commencement address at Santa Clara University, stated\nthat \u201cThere are two aspects to every university. The first and most evident is\nthat it deals with culture, with knowledge, the use of the intellect. The\nsecond, and not so evident, is that it must be concerned with the social\nreality–precisely because a university is inescapably a social force: it must\ntransform and enlighten the society in which it lives\u2026 [T]he universitv should\nbe present intellectually where it is needed: to provide science for those\nwithout science; to provide skills for those without skills; to be a voice for\nthose without voices; to give intellectual support for those who do not possess\nthe academic qualifications to make their rights legitimate.\u201d See Ellacuria,\n\u201cIgnacio Ellacuria, S.J.\u2019s June 1982 Commencement Address,\u201d Santa Clara University,\nIgnatian Center for Jesuit Education, accessed 24 May 2019, https:\/\/www.scu.edu\/ic\/programs\/ignatian-tradition-offerings\/stories\/ignacio-ellacuria-sjs-june-1982-commencement-address-santa-clara-university.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a> The WFUV disc jockeys included\nJohn Platt and Alisa Ali. The theologian was Michael Lee of Fordham University,\nwho is also a guitarist, and the religious educator was Tamara Henry of New\nYork Theological Seminary, whose research focuses on Hip Hop and religious\neducation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/a> I owe the inclusion of Carlos\nSantana to a suggestion by Colt Anderson, who was then the Dean of the Graduate\nSchool of Religion and Religious Education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[10]<\/a> I was surprised that 156 people\nhad registered to receive information about the course, but the number of\npeople who actually got into the website was 108. I did not know if this was\ntypical, but I wondered how we could have made it easier to get in from the\nbeginning without the added step of registering in the Course Site, which\ninvolved registrants creating their own username and password. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[11]<\/a> I should have applied to my online\ncourse planning the research collected in Eleazar S. Fernandez, ed., Teaching\nfor a Culturally Diverse and Racially Just World<\/em> (Eugene: Cascade, 2014).\nIn that book, a number of theologians and educators discuss the politics of\naccess to theological education. For example, Archie Smith, Jr., asks \u201cWho is\nour student and who ought to be?\u201d See Smith\u2019s chapter, \u201cYou Cannot Teach What\nYou Do Not Know,\u201d at 93.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[12]<\/a> The above reflections are embedded\nin a constellation of work on practical theology on racial-ethnic diversity and\nhospitality as a generator of or hindrance to theological production, and a\ncritique of white-centrism and white racism in practical theology. See Goto, Taking on Practical Theology<\/em>; Anthony G.\nReddie, \u201cNow You See Me, Now You Don\u2019t: Subjectivity, Blackness and Difference\nin Practical Theology in Britain Post Brexit,\u201d Practical Theology<\/em> 11,\nno. 1 (2018); Phillis Isabella Sheppard, \u201cBuilding Communities of Embodied\nBeauty,\u201d in Black Practical Theology<\/em>, eds. Dale P. Andrews and Robert London\nSmith, Jr. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2015); Gordon E. Dames,\n\u201cA Multicultural Theology of Difference: A Practical Theological Perspective,\u201d\nin Churches, Blackness, and Contested\nMulticulturalism: Europe, Africa, and North America<\/em>, eds. R. Drew Smith, William Ackah, and Anthony G. Reddie (New\nYork: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); Tom Beaudoin and Katherine Turpin, \u201cWhite\nPractical Theology,\u201d in Opening the Field\nof Practical Theology: An Introduction<\/em>, eds. Kathleen A. Cahalan and Gordon S. Mikoski (Lanham: Rowman\nand Littlefield, 2014).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[13]<\/a> In this paragraph, I am informed\nby Gerben Heitink\u2019s description of practical theology in the Dutch context as\nemerging out of a twentieth century \u201ccrisis of faith\u201d answered by a \u201ctheory of\naction\u201d such that practical theology can be understood in that context as a\n\u201ctheory of crisis.\u201d While I leave the particulars of the Dutch history to\nHeitink\u2019s analysis, I treat the notion of crisis (and its attempted\ntransformation) as a provisionally salutary bridge across a range of discourses\nthat self-identify as practical theology beyond the Dutch context. See Gerben\nHeitink, Practical Theology: History, Theory, Action Domains<\/em>, trans.\nReinder Bruinsma (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 3. Obviously, materials\ndenominated \u201cpractice,\u201d \u201cobject,\u201d and \u201ctext\u201d are interwoven with each other\ndepending on what the theologian takes to be the significant matter for\nsituating or grounding theology. \u201cPractice\u201d is famously, and necessarily,\ncontested in the field, which is what gives rise to my prioritizing it as the\ndistinctive \u201cpractice-nexus\u201d focus of practical theology. See the range of\nentries about practice and practices in Bonnie L. Miller-McLemore, ed., The\nWiley-Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology<\/em> (Malden: Blackwell, 2012).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[14]<\/a> For example, the field has\nfurthered racialization and disavowed the foundational, formative and ongoing\nwhiteness that funds racist ways of construing theology and of producing\ntheological knowledge through the field\u2019s material practices of writing books,\narranging conferences, and more. In Opening the Field<\/em>, see Courtney\nGoto, \u201cAsian American Practical Theologies\u201d; Ospino, \u201cU.S. Latino\/a Practical\nTheology\u201d; Beaudoin and Turpin, \u201cWhite Practical Theology.\u201d The field has also\nlargely presumed a Christian-centrism in its theology and tasks. See Kathleen\nJ. Greider, \u201cReligious Pluralism and Christian-Centrism,\u201d in The Wiley-Blackwell\nCompanion to Practical Theology<\/em>. These are the case even as the field has\nbeen responsible for curating freeing practices in many communities: see for\nexample Don C. Richter\u2019s chapter, \u201cReligious Practices in Practical Theology,\u201d\nin Opening the Field<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[15]<\/a> One of the promises of practical\ntheology is as a radical project for the study and generation of plural forms\nof curating \u201cdivine\u201d experience. This is so because of the field\u2019s longstanding\nprioritizing of the theological significance of practice, a significance\nassigned Christian significance but not controlled by Christianity, and\nassigned personal and ecclesial significance but profoundly social-political.\nThe field has not yet taken the measure of the depth of the abandonment to\npractice its own navigation portends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[16]<\/a> Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana,\neds., Race and Epistemologies of\nIgnorance<\/em> (New York: State University of New York, 2007). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[17]<\/a> This approach to practical\ntheology and music has accumulated over my thirty-five years as a practicing musician,\nand twenty-five years in the study of theology. Some of the most influential\nliterature that has shaped this approach include: the sacred gendered\nsignificance of popular musical performance as ritual in Susan Fast, In the\nHouses of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music<\/em> (New York:\nOxford, 2001); the historically and embodied coding of sounds as sacrally\nmeaningful in Christopher Partridge, The Lyre of Orpheus: Popular Music, the\nSacred, and the Profane<\/em> (New York: Oxford, 2014); the stakes of color,\ngender and class in the blues ground of US popular music in Kelly Brown\nDouglas, Black Bodies and the Black Church: A Blues Slant<\/em> (New York:\nPalgrave Macmillan, 2012); the sexual significance of theological contestation\nin ordinary life in Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology: Theological\nPerversions in Sex, Gender and Politics<\/em> (New York: Routledge, 2001); and\nthe notion that practical theology is an essentially contested discourse of\ntheological significances from different perspectives that I take from the\nresearch consortium Action Research Church and Society, including Helen\nCameron, Deborah Bhatti, Catherine Duce, James Sweeney, Clare Watkins, Talking\nAbout God in Practice: Theological Action Research and Practical Theology<\/em>\n(London: SCM, 2010). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[18]<\/a> See a text as curiously underappreciated\nin USA practical theology as is the pragmatic USA philosophical tradition on\nwhich it relies: Sheila Greeve Davaney, Pragmatic Historicism: A Theology\nfor the Twenty-First Century<\/em> (Albany: State University of New York, 2000).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[19]<\/a> On practical wisdom, see Dorothy\nC. Bass and Craig Dykstra (eds.), For\nLife Abundant: Practical Theology, Theological Education, and Christian\nMinistry<\/em>, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008); Dorothy C. Bass, Kathleen A.\nCahalan, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, James R. Nieman, Christian B. Scharen, Christian Practical Wisdom: What It Is, Why\nIt Matters<\/em> (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016). I leave for a future work the\nquestion of why recent influential practical theology literature advancing the\npractical-wisdom perspective remains largely the province of white scholars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[20]<\/a> See Bonnie Miller-McLemore, \u201cThe\nTheory-Practice Binary and the Politics of Practical Knowledge,\u201d in Conundrums in Practical Theology<\/em>, eds. Joyce\nAnn Mercer and Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore (Boston: Brill, 2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[21]<\/a> Mi-Rang Kang, Interpretative Identity and Hermeneutical Community<\/em> (Berlin: Lit\nVerlag, 2011); Don C. Richter, \u201cReligious Practices in Practical Theology,\u201d in Opening the Field of Practical Theology<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[22]<\/a> Heinz Streib, Christopher F.\nSilver, Rosina-Martha Cs\u00f6ff, Barbara Keller, Ralph W. Hood, Jr., Deconversion: Qualitative and Quantitative\nResults from Cross-Cultural Research in Germany and the United States of\nAmerica<\/em> (G\u00f6ttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2009); Joan Hebert Reisinger,\nLet Your Voice Be Heard: Conversations on\nthe Margins of the Church<\/em> (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012); Tom Beaudoin,\n\u201cSecular Catholicism and Practical Theology,\u201d International Journal of Practical Theology<\/em> 15, no. 1 (2011).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[23]<\/a> For example, a male\/masculine\nimaginary rarely strays far from the theos<\/em>\nthat Christian theology inherited, and debates about the viability of the\nGod-concept continue. See Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow, Goddess and God in the World: Conversations\nin Embodied Theology<\/em> (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2016). On God and\/as claiming\npower with which one contends, see Naomi Janowitz, Icons of Power: Ritual Practices in Late Antiquity<\/em> (University\nPark: Pennsylvania State University, 2002); Anna Marmodoro and Irini-Fotini\nViltanioti (eds.), Divine Powers in Late\nAntiquity<\/em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017); Meerten B. ter Borg\nand Jan Willem van Henten (eds.), Powers:\nReligion as a Social and Spiritual Force<\/em> (New York: Fordham University\nPress, 2010).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[24]<\/a> Evelyn L. Parker, Between Sisters: Emancipatory Hope Out of\nTragic Relationships<\/em> (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2018). See also the\nprescriptions for the future in Elaine Graham, \u201cOn Becoming a Practical\nTheologian: Past, Present, and Future Tenses,\u201d HTS Teologiese Studies\/Theological Studies<\/em> 73, no. 4 (2017).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[25]<\/a> Eric Clarke, Nicola Dibben,\nStephanie Pitts, Music and Mind in\nEveryday Life<\/em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); Tia DeNora, Music in Everyday Life<\/em> (New York:\nCambridge University Press, 2000); Christian B. Scharen, \u201cRocking: Practical\nWisdom at Work in Pop Culture,\u201d in Christian\nPractical Wisdom<\/em>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Download PDF: Beaudoin, Faith in Music Abstract The author reviews a free, open, online course on popular music that he taught from a practical theological perspective. By considering several dimensions of the structure and content of the course, and with<\/p>\n

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