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R Apostu, Alina (2018) Variations on an Anglican theme: Sound, music and the making of Christian bodies. PhD thesis. SOAS University of London. https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/32310/ Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. VARIATIONS ON AN ANGLICAN THEME: SOUND, MUSIC, AND THE MAKING OF CHRISTIAN BODIES Alina Apostu Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD 2018 Department of Anthropology and Sociology SOAS, University of London ABSTRACT This thesis explores how church music-making shapes Christians and how Christians, in turn, shape music-making. Based on a comparative ethnography of two London-based Anglican churches, a „conservative‟ Evangelical church and a „traditional‟ middle-of-the-road parish church, I illustrate how the orchestration of service elements – music, liturgy, prayer, and sermon – creates different sonic environments that, in their turn, mould different modes of „doing church‟ – the acts of integrating individual religiosities into a collective experience. Drawing on the „material turn‟ in religious studies, phenomenology, (ethno)musicology and sound studies, I focus on music practices in rehearsals and services in order to investigate how choir members and their fellow worshippers fashion themselves as Christians through sonic relationships with each other and with God. My main argument is that church music-making brings forth a sensorial awareness of „being Christian‟ by inducing experiences of alterity – the self as other, the Christian-other, the non-Christian-other, and the God-other – while also providing modes of integrating the various dimensions of otherness into the collective body of worshippers. Positioned within the anthropology of Christianity, this thesis indicates possibilities for studying religion beyond restricting its scope to texts and doctrines and by moving beyond a one-sided focus on Pentecostalism in the Global South to include mainline churches in a secularized „global city‟ such as London. Thereby, the thesis sheds a fresh light on the diversity of practices and Christian subjectivities within Protestant understandings of religion. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am most grateful to the people in St Mark‟s and St Anne‟s for allowing me to enter their spaces of worship and be a part of their congregations. Their kindness, patience, and openness towards me made my „baptism‟ as an anthropologist – my first year-long fieldwork – a gentler initiation. At the same time, their curiosity, their appetite for exploring music, worship, togetherness, and many other topics with me, and their challenging questions encouraged me and enabled me to refine my insights. Though their names are anonymised in this thesis, I hope my writing has captured at least a glimpse of my interlocutors‟ candour and humour, and that it conveys the engaging dialogue between us. My crossing of this anthropological initiation would not have been possible without the steady guidance of my supervisor, Dr Marloes Janson. I admire her not only for her meticulous, nuanced, and sharp research and writing, but for her craft, as a supervisor, to blend frank critique, a sense of enduring trust, and refreshing humour. I am indebted to her for our thought-provoking discussions that constantly pushed me to work harder and to think deeper. I am grateful to have had the opportunity, during the first three years of my PhD, to share this exploration of sound and music with my second supervisor, Professor Keith Howard. His wide knowledge, subtle reflections, and witty remarks regarding music-making, organists, or parish churches stand out in my memory and have guided me throughout. I am thankful to Dr Steve Hughes for taking me on, as a second supervisor, after Professor Howard‟s departure from SOAS. Despite working together only in the last year of this PhD, Dr Hughes‟s comments were insightful and helped me consider new perspectives on my ethnography. Guidance comes in many forms and the friendship I have experienced in our PhD cohort has been an invaluable anchor during the heavy waves of the PhD, as well as thoroughly entertaining during the lighter ones. Thank you, Mukta, for our chats and writing meetings at The Observatory, for our thought-provoking walking in circles (both metaphorically and in Gordon Square), and for your honesty. Thank 4 you, Alyaa, for your endearing enthusiasm, for your generosity, and for your cooking – my PhD-writing-mind and taste buds are forever grateful! Thank you, Chenjia, for your delightful, witty reflections on life, wine, food, and cats. Thank you, Fran, Imran, Elisa, Emily, Michele and everyone in our PhD cohort for the drinks and the laughter, the feedback on my chapters, the rants, the support. To Zoe, cheers, my dear! Thank you for making the post-dissertation universe seem possible! To Emma, for the stories that have been and the ones that are to come. To Cristina, for always being there. Thank you, tumi. To Vlad, for so, so many things, but especially for settling the mystery of where that line – „this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship‟ – comes from. To Cristi, for listening and for still laughing a big hearty laugh at my „serious‟ comments. All throughout these past four years, I have had around me a group of dear friends who challenged, (endearingly) teased, and helped me keep a foot „in the real world‟ and not take myself too seriously. To Cristea and Ioana, for reminding me of home. To the Glenshaw Cineclub, for all the films I missed because „I have to write‟. To Radu, for your big heart, to Jorj, for your boldness and freedom, to Ricardo, for your well-crafted banter, to Tom, for your indelible bonhomie, to Edu, for your well- hidden kindness, to Fred, for your (seemingly) effortless creativity, and to all the other cinephiles for the good humour and good food. To honorary cineclub members, Nigel and Swee, for meeting you when I did, for your dear friendship, and for our plans to travel. To my mum and dad for your enduring patience, love, and understanding. I cannot begin to thank you for all that you have given me. To Dudu, with love, with you I enjoy both McDonalds and Nocelle. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................ 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................................... 6 INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................. 8 (Un)churching: the Church of England in between ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ ......................... 15 The anthropology of Christianity and the problem of multiplicity ........................................... 25 Lived Protestantism ....................................................................................................................................... 31 Doing research as doing church ............................................................................................................ 37 Chapter outline ................................................................................................................................................. 46 CHAPTER 1: THE ONE AND THE MANY: THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AS NATIONAL TRADITION AND LOCAL CULTURE ..................................................... 49 The Anglican theme: Weaving Protestant and Catholic threads in making the Church of England ................................................................................................................................................................ 50 Variations on a theme: selecting Anglican practices in the making of individual churches ................................................................................................................................................................................. 65 Concluding remarks ....................................................................................................................................... 84 CHAPTER 2: ST MARK’S, AN ANGLICAN EVANGELICAL CHURCH ‘IN THIS DENOMINATION BUT NOT OF IT’ ............................................................... 86 Being Anglican and Evangelical in the Church of England ............................................................ 90 ‘Sir, we wish to know Jesus!’ - an intellectualist approach to making Christian selves ... 94 The service ......................................................................................................................................................... 97 The congregants of St Mark’s .................................................................................................................. 112 Doing church .................................................................................................................................................

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