Research Essay - ANTH107

Sophie Waller - 45960933

Tutor: ​Tomas Wilkoszewski

Word Count: 1247

Due: 2/6/19

In the summer of 2019, I attended my aunt’s church service on a Sunday afternoon. She

is Anglican, like much of my nuclear and extended family, and I was raised going to a small

family-oriented Anglican church, so it didn't occur to me that this service might be different from

the kind I was accustomed to. This proved to be wrong in the first 15 minutes. There were no

breaks between songs, the music continued for sometimes minutes at a time with no lyrics, and

people were swaying and speaking in tongues for the duration of the 30 minutes of music before

the service proper began. I was lost, to say the least, and even more confused because this

was supposed to be the same denomination that I had grown up in. This experience alone

made it strikingly clear to me that not all Christian music is created equally.

This essay will use pre-existing anthropological literature to explore the roles of music in

three different genres of Christian music (contemporary, hardcore, and Orthodoxical liturgy),

with the aim to shed light upon both the discrepancies and similarities.

Contemporary and Pop

In modern pentecostal and non-denominational churches music is simultaneously used

as both a vehicle for ‘spiritual’ expression and a vestibule through worshippers leave behind the

profane/mundane, and enter the sacred. “Instrumental music typically featuring drums,
keyboards, guitar, piano, and sometimes various brass and woodwinds combined with solo,

group and choral singing, are all standard components used to supplement the fervent,

enthusiastic congregational singing” (Miller, Strongman, 2002: 10) that is foundational for such

churches. It is this style of music that congregants rely on as a way to ‘break free’ from their

everyday lives and truly have a religious or spiritual experience (Jennings, 2008).

Miller and Strongman introduced the term ​dissociation​ to explain the phenomenon that

occurs in these churches, wherein spiritual experiences occur (Miller, Strongman, 2002). To

reach a dissociative or trance-like state, one must first be ‘hyperaroused,’ as this is the ‘portal

[…] wherein dissociation can take place,’ (Miller, Strongman, 2002).

This music is designed and engineered to charge emotionally, and elicit certain

responses to reach these trance-like states; achieved with the use of “acoustic driving,

monotony, systematic and repetitive use of accelerando and crescendo, repetitive lyrics,” (Miller,

Strongman, 2002: 9). Other “compositional devices include the use of repetitious, suspended

musical phrases and ascending fifths when approaching a climactic part of the song,” (Miller,

Strongman, 2002: 10). Though the form and order of songs may be somewhat impromptu, it is

ultimately designed for this purpose.

Typical services include 40-50 minutes of this music (Jennings, 2008), often more than

half of it before the sermon, and it can be concluded that this is because without it congregants

may find it difficult to be in the right state of mind, concentrate or properly take in the message,

having not yet entered the sacred.

Hardcore
 Christian hardcore, punk, and metal have observable roots in pentecostal contemporary

music, particularly pertaining to similarities in lyrics, but take a drastically different approach to

religious expression.

Unlike other genres of Christian music, hardcore was founded in rebellion (McDowell,

2017 [1]). It was a response to a socio-political belief shift towards right wing ideology, circa the

Reagan Era, and it aimed to offend ‘normal people’ and criticize conservative Christianity

(McDowell, 2017 [1]). This criticism was largely directed towards people they describe as

‘Sunday Christians’ - those who attend and dress well for church on Sundays, but otherwise put

little action to their words of faith (McDowell, 2017 [1]). Hardcore Christians claim their faith is

more genuine than these people - regardless of whether they themselves attend church every

Sunday - because though they believe their style of music is notorious for being anti-religion and

therefore inherently evil, they have made it spiritual, and therefore are more genuine than

‘Sunday Christians’ (McDowell, 2017 [1]). Hardcore people ultimately aim to challenge the

typical ideals and stereotypes secular people hold of Christians, and show them that Christians

may not always conform to these ideals.

A frequent byproduct of these ‘Sunday Christians’ is the problem of male youth falling

away, and Christian metal music often functions as a solution to this (McDowell, 2017 [1]).

These young men feel they don’t fit in with normal churches, and find themselves heading

towards secular spaces and falling away from their faith. Thus, hardcore Christians follow them,

bringing their gospel, via their music, to gyms, martial arts studios, and other typically secular

spaces (McDowell, 2017 [1]) without running the risk of being perceived as ‘soft’.

Harcore Christian rock also serves another purpose, particularly amongst men - bonding

(McDowell, 2017 [2]). In such an aggression-dominated scene, hardcore men bond through
moshing - the style of dancing performed at hardcore shows characterised by violent thrashing

and jumping (McDowell, 2017 [1]).

In the wake of separating themselves from the modern pentecostal and traditional

churches, but not the faith, these men, through their music have ‘become [a new] church

(McDowell, 2017 [2]).

Liturgical Singing in Orthodoxy

Liturgical singing and worship music in Orthodoxy may be an outlier amongst the genres

of Christian music; the origins of a number of their roles lying more so in belief than purely

objective function.

The primary and perhaps most important function of Orthodox music is to worship God in

the most holy way possible. Akin to contemporary and hardcore Christian music, Orthodox

music ultimately exists to worship God, however unlike the other two, it is never accompanied

by other musical instruments. This is a response to paganism and the use of musical

instruments in ‘unholy’ pagan rituals and ceremonies, and set themselves apart from pagans

and other religions by only using the human voice, deemed the most noble and natural

instrument (Gardner, 1980). This stance was originally held by the Graeco-Byzantine Church,

from which Eastern Orthodoxy adopted their principles of music and singing (Gardner, 1980).

By extension - and this is perhaps the least strictly ‘logical’ of the functions, or at least,

on the surface - this music is believed by Orthodox Christians to “transform […] bodies into

Orthodox bodies of Christ,” (Engelhardt, 2009: 36), making liturgical singing both a very

personal experience, but also one of a larger scale. Engelhardt continues to describe
Orthodoxical music as a “conduit of illumination,” (Engelhardt, 2009; 36), which draws striking

similarity to the contemporary genre’s function of being a ‘vehicle for spiritual expression’.

Another further function of Orthodoxical singing is to create clarity in the message it is

conveying. Contemporary and hardcore music times rely on the emotion alone evoked by the

music to convey their message of worship to their audience, as seen above. However, given the

more downplayed nature of liturgical singing, the music - whilst inextricably linked to the text - is

not designed to elicit an emotional response, rather the words are (Gardner, 1980). With this as

a precedent, the words must express concrete ideas for people to respond to, thus, the function

of liturgical singing is to worship and glorify God, while the words communicate a clear,

unambiguous message, that cannot be communicated through instrumental music alone.

Conclusion

This paper has explored a mere three of extensively numerous subcultures and

denominations of Christianity, wherein even churches within the same denomination may differ

broadly. However, it can nonetheless be concluded from the above findings and evidence that

despite the tremendous differences in sound, production, use, messages, and certain

differences in function, the primary and common role of music within Christian cultures and

churches is to worship their God.

References

Miller, M., Strongman, K. (2002). The Emotional Effects of Music on Religious Experience: A
Study of the Pentecostal-Charismatic Style of Music and Worship. ​Department of Psychology,
University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. A​ vailable at:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0305735602301004

Jennings, M. (2008). ‘Won’t you break free?’ An ethnography of music and the divine-human
encounter at an Australian Pentecostal Church. ​Culture and Religion.​ Available at:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14755610802211544

McDowell, A. [1] (2017). AGGRESSIVE AND LOVING MEN: Gender Hegemony in Christian
Hardcore Punk. ​Gender & Society.​ Available at:

McDowell, A. [2] (2017). “Christian But Not Religious”: Being Church

as Christian Hardcore Punk. ​Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review.​ Available at:
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Gardner, J. (1980). Russian church singing: Orthodox worship and hymnography. Available at:
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Engelhardt, J. (2009). Right Singing in Estonian Orthodox Christianity: A Study of Music,

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670f026e00e