Exploring Christian Song

Exploring Christian Song
Author: M. Jennifer Bloxam
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2017-06-12
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1498549918

This essay collection celebrates the richness of Christian musical tradition across its two thousand year history and across the globe. Opening with a consideration of the fourth-century lamp-lighting hymn Phos hilaron and closing with reflections on contemporary efforts of Ghanaian composers to create Christian worship music in African idioms, the ten contributors engage with a broad ecumenical array of sacred music. Topics encompass Roman Catholic sacred music in medieval and Renaissance Europe, German Lutheran song in the eighteenth century, English hymnody in colonial America, Methodist hymnody adopted by Southern Baptists in the nineteenth century, and Genevan psalmody adapted to respond to the post-war tribulations of the Hungarian Reformed Church. The scope of the volume is further diversified by the inclusion of contemporary Christian topics that address the evangelical methods of a unique Orthodox Christian composer’s language, the shared aims and methods of African-American preaching and gospel music, and the affective didactic power of American evangelical “praise and worship” music. New material on several key composers, including Jacob Obrecht, J.S. Bach, George Philipp Telemann, C.P.E. Bach, Zoltan Kodály, and Arvo Pärt, appears within the book. Taken together, these essays embrace a stimulating variety of interdisciplinary analytical and methodological approaches, drawing on cultural, literary critical, theological, ritual, ethnographical, and media studies. The collection contributes to discussions of spirituality in music and, in particular, to the unifying aspects of Christian sacred music across time, space, and faith traditions. This collection celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music.

Living with Confidence in a Chaotic World

Living with Confidence in a Chaotic World
Author: Dr. David Jeremiah
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-03-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0785250948

In this updated edition of his classic book, New York Times bestselling author Dr. David Jeremiah offers biblically based, practical instruction for living a confident life in a world filled with chaos and crisis. Confidence can be hard to come by these days as millions of people experience immeasurable, unanticipated challenges. People are losing their jobs, their houses, and their life savings at an unprecedented rate. Violence, natural disasters, and moral depravity seem to be skyrocketing. In the midst of all this chaos, we need to know . . . what on earth should we do now? Bible teacher Dr. David Jeremiah brings a message of hope and confidence from the priceless counsel of the Word of God. If we rely on God's Word to advise us, calm us, and fill us with hope and trust in the One who understands what is happening, we can weather any storm. Dr. Jeremiah answers our most urgent questions, including: How can we weather this storm with a calm heart? What does it truly mean to “wait on the Lord”? What is Jesus saying to our chaotic world today? How on earth did we get into this mess? Can we take a broken world and rebuild it into something fruitful? Living with Confidence in a Chaotic World shows us all that with the power and love of Almighty God, we can live with confidence in this age of turmoil.

Preach It!

Preach It!
Author: Carol Tomlin
Publisher: SCM Press
Total Pages: 134
Release: 2019-02-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 033405737X

Studies of preaching and preaching style have up to this point focused almost exclusively on a western eurocentric understanding of good preaching. Preach It encourages students, both vocational and scholarly, to look beyond these approaches and to learn from traditions with which they are less familiar. The distinctive style and techniques that African Caribbean Pentecostal preachers have inherited has been shaped by historical, political and socio-economic factors impacting on black Caribbean people (including clergy). Using a variety of socio-linguistic and theological approaches, Preach It reflects on these techniques, and outlines how preachers across church traditions might learn from them and use them in their own contexts.