Ethics and Christian Musicking

Nathan Myrick is Assistant Professor of Church Music in the Townsend School of Music and Director of the Music and Human Flourishing Research Project (funded by a Vital Worship Grant from the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship with Funds provided by the Lilly Endowment, Inc) at Mercer University. A graduate of Baylor University, Fuller Theological Seminary, and Providence University College, his research focuses on musical activity and human flourishing in the context of Christian communities. He is the author of Music for Others: Care, Justice, and Relational Ethics in Christian Music (2021), and the author and series editor of "Music Matters" for Ethics Daily. His work has appeared in ​The Yale Journal of Music and Religion, Bloomsbury Academic, Liturgy, The Hymn, and others. Mark Porter studied at University College, Oxford, and King’s College, London, before completing his doctorate in ethnomusicology at City University, London in 2014. Following this, in 2015, he took up a postdoctoral fellowship at Max-Weber-Kolleg, Universität Erfurt. He is author of ​Contemporary Worship and Everyday Musical Lives (Routledge 2016) and Ecologies of Resonance in Christian Musicking (2020) and is co-founder and programme chair of the biennial Christian Congregational Music: Local and Global Perspectives conference

Introduction: Music and Ethics in Contemporary Christianity-Mark Porter and Nathan Myrick; Part I: The Body and Beyond; 1 Praise, Politics, Power: Ethics of the Body in Christian Musicking-Marcell Silva Steuernagel; 2 The Silence of the Monks—The Ethics of Everyday Sounds-Marcel Cobussen; 3 Delay, or, When Breath Precedes Encounter: Aesthet(h)ic(al) Negotiations in Black Gospel’s Afro-Asian Crossings-Bo kyung Blenda Im; Part II: Fulfilling Responsibilities and Negotiating Values; 4 "That Worship Sound": Ethics, Things, and Shimmer Reverberation-Jeff R Warren; 5 Amateurism-without-Amateurishness, or Authenticity as Vanishing Act in Evangelical Worship Music-Joshua Kalin Busman; 6 Music Business, Ethics, and Christian Festivals: Progressive Christianity at Wild Goose Festival-Andrew Mall; 7 The Ethics of Adaptation in Hymns and Songs for Worship-Maggi Dawn; Part III: Identity and Encounter; 8 "Hillsong and Black": The Ethics of Style, Representation and Identity in the Hillsong Megachurch-Tanya Riches and Alexander Douglas; 9 A Worship-Rooted Lifestyle? Exploring Evangelical Ethics at Bethel Church, Redding, CA-Emily Snider Andrews; 10 Applied Ethnomusicology in Postmission Australian Aboriginal Contexts: Ethical Responsibility, Style, and Aesthetics-Muriel Swijghuisen Reigersberg; 11 Singing Together as Global Citizens: Toward a Musical Ethic of Relational Accompaniment-Maren Haynes Marchesini; Section IV: Valuing the Self; 12 Deceitful Hearts and Transformed Lives: Performing Truth and Truthfulness in Fundamentalist Christian Vocal Music-Sarah Bereza; 13 Beyoncé Mass and the Flourishing of Black Women-Tamisha Tyler; 14 Ethics, Experience, and Western Classical Sacred Music-Jonathan Arnold