fundamentalism

Image shows podcast cover with text: Music and the Church with Sarah Bereza. At sarah-bereza.com

Showing Off or Glorifying God? Musical Virtuosity in Fundamentalist Christianity, on Music and the Church Ep. 19

Should you play or sing virtuosic music in church?  Many fundamentalist Christians don’t think so. This week’s episode is the second in our series on musical virtuosity. Last week, Joshua Kalin Busman discussed how evangelical musicians might tone down the difficulty of their music—balancing their churches’ need for musical “amateurism” with the reality the “amateurish” …

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Fundamentalist Christianity’s Philosophical Roots: An Infographic

Growing up in independent, fundamental Baptist churches, I couldn’t figure out why things made sense to the people in charge. Why did the preacher think his explanation of a biblical text made sense? Why did fundamentalist authors say their conclusions were obvious from a bunch of (random to me) “facts”? Didn’t they realize how illogical …

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The Right Kind of Music: Should Church Services Include Classical Music?

This is the last post in my series about puzzling things in my doctoral research on fundamentalist Christianity. Read the others here: Can Hymns Be Prayers?, Why May Women Sing If They May Not Preach?, and Musical Form in Piano Hymn Arrangements. When fundamentalist authors and musicians describe the elements of good music, they list attributes …

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The Right Kind of Music: Why May Women Sing If They May Not Preach?

This is part of a series about my research on fundamentalist Christian music. Read the others here: Can Hymns Be Prayers?, Musical Form in Piano Hymn Arrangements, and Should Church Services Include Classical Music? Many fundamentalists talk about solo singing in a church service as a kind of preaching. But even though fundamentalist women are not …

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The Right Kind of Music: “Drawing the Line” Between Good and Bad Music

This post is about my research on fundamentalist Christian music. Read more about it here!  Fundamentalists speaking and writing about music generally assume a shared belief with their audience that morality exists as a black and white dualism of distinct and absolute categories: good or bad, with a hard and fast line dividing them. Imagine …

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