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Music & Theology

Author:	Don E Saliers
Published By:	Abingdon Press/Alban Books (Edinburgh)
Pages:	84
Price:	£5.99
ISBN:	978 0 687 34194 8

Reviewed by Luke Penkett.

I warmly recommend this booklet for all who have responsibility for music in our worship and, at ?5.99, it should be affordable by all.

Don E Saliers retired from the Chair of Theology and Worship at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta (where he was also Director of the Master of Sacred Music Program) last year. He is an experienced scholar and writer, and has been a church musician for half a century.

In Chapter One Saliers gets his readers thinking about the role of sound in our experience of the world, especially regarding religious practices that involve music. The second chapter looks at the Christian tradition and, in particular, at Augustine’s teaching. The next draws our attention to Martin Luther’s, Barth’s and Kung’s theologies of music and also to Bach as theologian. Chapter Four examines poetry and doctrine in hymnody. The fifth is entitled “Singing as Political Act”. Then we have a chapter on the sacred and profane in music. Before a concluding postlude, the essay ends by touching on the transcendental realities of music.

One of the many joys of this little gem of a publication is its musical and ecumenical richness. Saliers explores classical, folk and popular idioms and, from his wide knowledge of different ways of worshipping, what he has to write about music and theology crosses all manmade barriers of churchmanship.

If you, or your music leader, or choir person seem(s) to find the yearly round becoming rather lack-lustre, reading this should refresh the place of music in your place of worship.