I the Right Kind of Music: Fundamentalist Christianity As
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The Right Kind of Music: Fundamentalist Christianity as Musical and Cultural Practice by Sarah Bereza Department of Music Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Philip Rupprecht, Supervisor ___________________________ Louise Meintjes ___________________________ Jacqueline Waeber ___________________________ Jeremy Begbie Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Music in the Graduate School of Duke University 2017 i v ABSTRACT The Right Kind of Music: Fundamentalist Christianity as Musical and Cultural Practice by Sarah Bereza Department of Music Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Philip Rupprecht, Supervisor ___________________________ Louise Meintjes ___________________________ Jacqueline Waeber ___________________________ Jeremy Begbie An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Music in the Graduate School of Duke University 2017 i v Copyright by Sarah Bereza 2017 Abstract Fundamentalist Christians loosely affiliated with Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC) teach that music influences listeners’ faith and moral characters for both good and evil, expounding their views since the evangelical Worship Wars began in the 1960s over the use of popular music styles in church services. In their dichotomous moral view, good music reveals God’s nature, allowing born-again listeners to draw closer to God and witness their salvation to unbelievers, and bad music pulls listeners away from God by promoting immorality and false worship. Fundamentalists also prioritize mental engagement with music over emotional and physical responses to it because they believe that people more directly relate to God through their conscious minds and only indirectly with their bodies, as when fundamentalist musicians make music with their bodies, an activity that they believe glorifies God. Considering their discourse and practices from ethnographic and theological perspectives, I argue that these reveal a view that all musical sound is dangerous in its insistent entrance into listeners’ bodies: music is like fire—useful under control but devastating if unrestrained. I examine the outworkings of their beliefs in three primary areas: recorded music, congregational singing (both aloud and silent as congregants practice inner singing while listening to instrumental hymn arrangements), and solo and soloistic vocal music. Musicians’ invisibility on recordings underscores how fundamentalists’ iv beliefs are primarily about musical sound, not performers’ movements or appearances. Robust congregational singing reflects believers’ “joy of salvation,” but their collective emotional affects are limited, and they are physically constrained to small movements that almost never bloom into something fuller. Finally, although fundamentalist leaders consider classical music and its associated performance practice to be “excellent,” even this musical style must be restrained for classically trained vocalists to minister in their churches. These arguments are based on my fieldwork and my analyses of fundamentalists’ extensive written and recorded discourse on music. v Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. xi List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. xii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... xiii Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1 The Perceived Effects of Religious Belief on Sacred Music ............................................... 9 Methodological Approaches ............................................................................................... 13 Fieldwork Overview ............................................................................................................. 18 Interpreting the Public and Private Views of BJU Employees ....................................... 20 A Fundamental Church Service .......................................................................................... 25 1. Separation as the Impetus for Fundamentalists’ Musical Subculture ............................. 33 Music and the Slippery Slope into Compromise .............................................................. 40 Music and Compromise at BJU ......................................................................................... 44 Separation and the Creation of Fundamentalist Subculture .......................................... 51 Denominational Surrogacy and Music at BJU ................................................................ 57 Institutional Reputation of BJU ......................................................................................... 62 The Worship Wars ................................................................................................................ 69 Secondary Separation’s Implications on Music and Its Associations ......................... 76 2. Fundamentalists’ Philosophy of Music ................................................................................ 84 Historical and Cultural Contexts to Fundamentalists’ Philosophy of Music .............. 86 vi Christian Thought on Music’s Moral Influence .............................................................. 87 Moral Associations of Music in the United States .......................................................... 93 Sources of Fundamentalist Music Philosophy .................................................................. 98 Music as a Communicative Moral Agent ........................................................................ 103 Black and White Morality ................................................................................................ 107 Music as a Mirror of God’s Nature ................................................................................. 111 Decoding Musical Elements .............................................................................................. 114 The Relative Importance and Intelligibility of Lyrics .................................................. 119 Criteria for Secular Lyrics ................................................................................................ 121 Criteria for Sacred Lyrics ................................................................................................. 125 Decoding Music Itself ....................................................................................................... 127 The Meanings of Specific Musical Elements ................................................................. 135 The New Song ...................................................................................................................... 138 When the Mind Is Most Important ................................................................................... 148 A Trichotomous Human Being ....................................................................................... 148 Further Thinking on Neoplatonism ............................................................................... 160 3. Corporate Worship in Fundamental Church Services ..................................................... 169 Congregational Music and the Importance of “Right” Worship ................................. 174 Competing Views on the Purpose of the Song Service ............................................... 180 Influences on the Shape and Planning of the Song Service ........................................ 186 The Pastoral Role of Music Directors ............................................................................. 188 The Core Repertoire of Fundamentalist Hymnody ....................................................... 191 vii Standard Repertoire of Hymnals Popular in Fundamental Churches ...................... 192 Gospel Songs ...................................................................................................................... 196 Newer Songs ...................................................................................................................... 198 Hymnals and Their Supplements ................................................................................... 201 The Joyful Sound of Congregational Singing ................................................................. 206 Joy in Trials ........................................................................................................................ 209 Leadership of Congregational Singing ............................................................................ 216 Directives to Sing and Praise of Singing ........................................................................ 219 Piano Accompaniment of Singing .................................................................................. 222 Tempo and Durations ....................................................................................................... 227 Interpreting a Hymn for Congregational