Evangelical Worship

Almost invariably, media stories with the word evangelical in their headlines are accompanied by a familiar stock photo: a mass of middle-class worshippers with eyes closed, faces tilted upward, and hands raised to the sky. Yet, despite the fact that worship has become symbolic of evangelicalism’s identity in the twenty-first century, it remains an understudied locus of academic inquiry. Historians of American evangelicalism tend to define the movement by its political entanglements (the “rise of the religious Right”), and academic trajectories (the formation of the “evangelical mind”), not its ecclesial practices. Theological scholars frequently dismiss evangelical worship as a reiteration of nineteenth-century revivalism or a derivative imitation of secular entertainment (three Christian rock songs and a spiritual TED talk). But by failing to engage this worship seriously, we miss vital insights into a form of Protestantism that exerts widespread influence in the United States and around the world. Evangelical Worship: An American Mosaic models a new way forward. Drawing together insights from American religious history and liturgical studies, and putting both in conversation with ethnographic fieldwork in seven congregations, this book argues that corporate worship is not a peripheral “extra” tacked onto a fully formed spiritual/political/cultural movement, but rather the crucible through which congregations forge and negotiate the contours of evangelicalism’s contested theological identity.

Russian rock music: “Orthodox art”, new religion or “lovely paganism”?

This article is dedicated to examination of the art of several famous Russian rock bands, which leaders have repeatedly declared their religiosity and to some extent are engaged in missionary activity of the Russian Orthodox Church. The author covers the questions whether it is appropriate to attribute the art of such rock bands to the genre of “Christian rock”, and do the rock musicians contribute to popularization of Orthodox doctrine and churching of their fans, or rather to desecration of religious values and ideals. For solution of the set tasks, the author analyzed song lyrics of the prominent Russian rock bands, as well as interviews of their leaders and other publications in mass media and scientific periodicals that touch upon a religious aspect in rock music. The art of various Russian rock bands often attracted the attention of researchers, who noticed religious (primarily Christian) symbolism in the song lyrics. However, there has not been previously raised a question of whether it is possible to define the art of such rock bands as “Christian rock” or “Orthodox art” based on existence of references to Christian symbolism. It is demonstrated that leaning on the comprehensive analysis of the art of several Russian rock bands that use religious symbols and allusions in their lyrics, there are no grounds to attribute them to the genre of “Christian rock”. Despite the fact that the majority of leaders of these bands and the authors of texts are Orthodox, the lyrics, visual arrangements and videos often have the elements of Neo-Paganism.

Music Festivals, Ephemeral Places, and Scenes: Interdependence at Cornerstone Festival

Cornerstone was an annual four-day-long Christian rock festival in Illinois that ran from 1984 until 2012, first in Chicago's northern suburbs and then on a former farm in the rural western part of the state. Most attendees camped on-site, and many arrived one or two days early when the campgrounds opened before official programming started. Like many contemporary multi-day festivals in relatively rural or remote locations, Cornerstone's festival grounds and campsites functioned as a temporary village. For many attendees, music festivals have supplanted local scenes as loci of face-to-face musical life. Outside Cornerstone, participants’ musical lives might be curbed by family, professional obligations, geographic separateness, or cultural stratification. Inside the festival's physical, social, and cultural spaces, however, a cohesive music scene manifested for a brief time every year. This article examines the production of space and place at Cornerstone. In doing so, it contributes a vital link between scene theory and the growing ethnomusicological literature on festivals.