Artistic Theologian Volume 10 (2023)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Editorial: Songs that Shape Us
Joshua A. Waggener . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Identity Formation through the Lukan Canticles: Nativity Songs in the Heritage of Hebrew Inset Psalms
Jordan Covarelli. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3. An “Epistolary War”: Letters on Hymnody between Isaac Watts and Thomas Bradbury
David W. Music. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4. The Neglect of Confession in Contemporary Worship Music
Braden J. McKinley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5. “I’ll Bring You More than a Song”: Right Worship in Evangelical Perspective
Benjamin P. Snoek. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
6. Abstracts of Recent SWBTS School of Church Music and
Worship Doctoral Dissertations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Book Reviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Book Review Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
SONGS THAT SHAPE US
Joshua A. Waggener
The issue of spiritual formation in Christian worship continues as a persistent topic in evangelical scholarship, as well as a critical question for local church worship ministry. Theologically, the issue can be articulated in questions such as:
• For those “called according to [God’s] purpose” (Rom 8:28) to be glorified with Christ (Rom 8:17, 30), how can Christian worship help to conform them “to the image of [God’s] Son” (Rom 8:29)?
• How might Christian worship play a part in a believer being “transformed by the renewal of [his] mind” (Rom 12:2)?
• As a congregation, how might we “[behold] the glory of the Lord” and be “transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18)?
IDENTITY FORMATION THROUGH THE LUKAN CANTICLES: Nativity Songs in the Heritage of Hebrew Inset Psalms
Jordan Covarelli
Luke has long been regarded as the artist of the New Testament. Many scholars in the last century have written about the masterful literary craftsmanship in his two-volume work of Luke Acts; however, few have written about the songs of praise he includes in the beginning of his Gospel. This is despite the fact that congregations around the world have read these narratives and sung these canticles throughout the last two millennia. Christian scholars and pastors have recently begun to ask why Luke preserved these stories the way he did, thereby recovering the theological value of Scripture’s artistic forms. Among other efforts, biblical scholars like Robert Tannehill, Kindelee Pfremmer De Long, and I. Howard Marshall use narrative criticism to examine the aesthetic power and purpose that Scripture’s narrative artform plays in biblical authority and Christian formation. Scholars like Kevin Vanhoozer and Abraham Kuruvilla have continued the exploration of Scripture’s aesthetic power by drawing upon speech-act theory. In a different discipline, artistic theologians like Jeremy Begbie and David Taylor have begun examining the proper function and use of liturgical arts in contemporary worship. Bridging these two disciplines, I seek to inspect the aesthetic power of the Lukan canticles for worship and formation in its early church context. By drawing on research into the aesthetic power of Old Testament songs, narrative criticism of Luke-Acts, the theological richness of the canticles, and a performance-critical approach to song, I will argue that Luke used the aesthetic powers of poetry and song for audience formation and discipleship.
AN “EPISTOLARY WAR”: Letters on Hymnody between Isaac Watts and Thomas Bradbury
David W. Music
Isaac Watts was a voluminous letter writer who corresponded widely with people on both sides of the Atlantic about a variety of topics. However, apart from an occasional reference, Watts’s surviving letters seldom mention his work in hymnody. Two important exceptions are a letter he wrote to his friend Samuel Say on March 12, 1709, asking for advice about the revision of his Hymns and Spiritual Songs and one to the New England Congregationalist minister Cotton Mather requesting a pre-publication critique of The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament (March 17, 1718).
Another exception occurred during the period 1725–1726 when Watts carried on an extensive correspondence with a fellow Independent minister of London named Thomas Bradbury. These exchanges frequently referred to Watts’s writings of and about hymnody, and they shed light both on his views of his own work in this area and of critiques to which his publications were subjected.
THE NEGLECT OF CONFESSION IN CONTEMPORARY WORSHIP MUSIC
Braden McKinley
Worship at its core is a proclamation and enactment of God’s salvation narrative. As such, worship encompasses the three-fold work of salvation in how its content reflects on justification, nourishes sanctification, and anticipates glorification. In this way, progressive sanctification is an underlying intent of worship practice. Every liturgical gathering is a Spiritenabled opportunity for the worshiping community to grow in holiness.
While Scripture instructs that confession of sin is a necessary component of progressive sanctification, found particularly in Matthew 6:9–13 (the Lord’s Prayer), 1 John 1:9, and James 5:16, this biblical foundation appears to be obscured in the sphere of contemporary worship music (CWM). Lester Ruth and Swee Hong Lim’s informative and helpful Lovin’ on Jesus shares a convicting insight that between 1989 and 2016 there was a considerable absence of CWM songs that function as a confession of sin. The authors write, “There is very little confession of sin, failure, or fault and absolutely no laments of complaints or distress with God.”
“I’LL BRING YOU MORE THAN A SONG”: Right Worship in Evangelical Perspective
Benjamin P. Snoek
Since the debut of contemporary music and instrumentation in public worship services, American Christians have fought vehemently over so-called “worship wars.” Mark Evans notes that “a revolution in Christian music took place in the second half of the twentieth century as the delineation between sacred and secular became increasingly blurred.” The use of secular rock and-roll styles, initially designed to appeal to unchurched surfers at Chuck Smith’s Costa Mesa Calvary Chapel, quickly spread across the country. Fueled by music distribution companies such as Maranatha! Music, these new musical influences became perceived as an affront to the organ-driven European worship style that dominated American Protestant worship. Acrimonious, incendiary fights broke out in churches, many of which split congregations. As Lester Ruth writes, “Around 1993, American Protestants declared war on each other. . . . Bitter disagreements, angry arguments, and political machinations spilled across the church. . . . Congregations voted with their feet, or their wallets, or with raised hands if the question of which worship style was right was brought to a vote.” Musical style became conflated with good or bad worship; in Monique Ingalls’s words, “musical instruments, ensembles, and media became charged symbols used to represent ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’ factions in worship.”
