The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities

Abstract

The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities investigates the role of music in Christian practice and history across contemporary world Christianities (including chapters focused on communities in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia). Using ethnography, history, and musical analysis, it explores Christian groups as sites of transmission, transformation, and creation of deeply diverse musical traditions. The book traces five themes: music and missions, music and religious utopias, music and conflict, music and transnational flows, and music and everyday life. The volume approaches Christian musical practices as powerful windows into the ways music, religious ideas, capital, and power circulate (and change) among places. It also pays attention to the ways Christian musical practices encompass and negotiate deeply rooted values. The volume reveals the active role music plays in maintaining and changing religious, moral, and cultural practices, narratives, and values in a long history of intercultural and transnational encounters. Less