Resonant Witness: Conversations between Music and Theology (Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Liturgical Studies) [Paperback]

Jeremy S. Begbie (Editor), Steven R. Guthrie (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 10, 2011 | Series: Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Liturgical Studies

Resonant Witness gathers together a wide, harmonious chorus of voices from across the musical and theological spectrum to show that music and theology can each learn much from the other — and that the majesty and power of both are profoundly amplified when they do. With essays touching on J. S. Bach, Hildegard of Bingen, Martin Luther, Karl Barth, Olivier Messiaen, jazz improvisation, South African freedom songs, and more, this volume encourages musicians and theologians to pursue a more fruitful and sustained engagement with one another. “What can theology do for music? Resonant Witness helps answer this question with an essential resource in the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of music and theology. Covering an impressively wide range of musical topics, from cosmos to culture and theology to worship, Jeremy Begbie and Steven Guthrie explore and map new territory with incisive contributions from the very best musicians, theologians, and philosophers.” — Bennett Zon Durham University “This volume represents a burst of cross-disciplinary energy and insight that can be celebrated by musicians and theologians, music-lovers and God-lovers alike.” — John D. Witvliet (from afterword)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“What can theology do for music? Resonant Witness helps answer this question with an essential resource in the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of music and theology. Covering an impressively wide range of musical topics, from cosmos to culture and theology to worship, Jeremy Begbie and Steven Guthrie explore and map new territory with incisive contributions from the very best musicians, theologians, and philosophers.”
— Bennett Zon
Durham University

“This volume represents a burst of cross-disciplinary energy and insight that can be celebrated by musicians and theologians, music-lovers and God-lovers alike.”
— John D. Witvliet (from afterword)

About the Author

Jeremy S. Begbie is Thomas A. Langford Research Professor of Theology at Duke Divinity School and senior member at Wolfson College, Cambridge. His other books include Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music.

Steven R. Guthrie is associate professor of theology and director of the Religion and the Arts program at Belmont University. He is also author of the forthcoming book Creator Spirit: The Holy Spirit and the Art of Becoming Human.

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (January 10, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802862772
• ISBN-13: 978-0802862778
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #353,299 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Steve Guthrie is Associate Professor of Theology at Belmont University in Nashville, where he leads Belmont's major in Religion and the Arts. Before coming to Belmont, Dr. Guthrie was Research Fellow, and then Lecturer in Theology at the University of St. Andrews in St. Andrews, Scotland.

Dr. Guthrie earned an undergraduate degree in Music Theory from the University of Michigan, and worked for several years as a musician before becoming disoriented on the way to a gig and stumbling into the world of academic theology. In his spare time, he enjoys playing his Fender Rhodes, eating pizza, or simply quietly meditating on the goodness of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Above all, he enjoys writing breezy, faintly humorous autobiographical paragraphs for the internet; always written in the third person, so that the casual reader will believe that they have been penned by some devoted chronicler of his life and work.

Dr. Guthrie is married to Julie and has four extraordinarily clever and impossibly good looking children. On weekends you will find him playing around the Nashville area with the band "SixtyFour."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth the read!, October 28, 2011

By 

Virgil C. Funk (Portland Oregon USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Resonant Witness: Conversations between Music and Theology (Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Liturgical Studies) (Paperback)

Bringing Music and Theology into dialogue is a difficult challenge. Begbie's introduction describes the difficulty from the musician's side---there are difficulties [unfortunately undescribed] on the theological side that would add to the complexity even further. But with that having been noted, Begbie & Guthrie's contributions to this exploration are significant: Begbie's recognition of the embodiment of music as both music making and music listening is central, (or, quoting Small, "musicking" rather than "music"), the book's outline placing music in relation to the Cosmos, Culture, Theology, and Worship, and their gathering of interdenominatinal authors all make the book "worth the read."

I will be critical of various individual articles as you will, but beginning a contemporary discussion of this topic is well worth the criticism.

Rev. Virgil C Funk

President emeritus

National Association of Pastoral Musicians.