The Right Kind of Music: Fundamentalist Christianity as Musical and Cultural Practice
My doctoral dissertation, “The Right Kind of Music: Fundamentalist Christianity as Musical and Cultural Practice,” is now available!
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The Right Kind of Music: Good Music Is (Probably) Not What You Prefer
This post is about my research on fundamentalist Christian music. Read more about it here! You know what good music is?The kind I like. That’s one way we use “good” to talk about music. “Good” can also mean the best in its genre, in its style. So, Beethoven’s sonatas are good music, but that sonata …
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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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The Right Kind of Music: Can Music Teach Us About God?
This post is about my research on fundamentalist Christian music. Read more about it here! Can music teach us something about God? Fundamentalist Christians say it can. Specifically, that music can reveal or reflect God’s nature and in so doing, spiritually strengthen those who listen to it. Here’s the line of reasoning: First, music can …
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The Right Kind of Music: The Difference Between Good and Bad Music
This post is about my research on fundamentalist Christian music. Read more about it here! The second major premise of fundamentalist music philosophy is that listeners can learn to tell the difference between good and bad music. (The first is that music is moral.) So, not only is music moral in a good/bad kind of …
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The Right Kind of Music: Is Music Moral?
This post is about my research on fundamentalist Christian music. Read more about it here! Is music moral? Fundamentalist Christians think so. “Music is moral” is the first premise of their philosophy of music—the argument upon which the rest of their views depend. But this argument itself relies on a syllogism: music influences listeners, and …