Saturday night and Sunday morning: value monism and pluralism in contemporary evangelical musicianship

ABSTRACT

Drawing on interviews with, and ethnographic observations of, evangelical Christian musicians with experience of contemporary worship music—as well as secular heavy metal and punk rock—this article analyses the competing value relations underpinning contemporary evangelical musicianship. Developing the work of Joel Robbins on value theory and the anthropology of Christianity and the work of Klisala Harrison on ethnomusicology, this article analyses four examples of different value relations between religious service and expressive individualism: strong monism, stable monism, stable pluralism, unstable pluralism. It is shown through case studies of individual musicians that, whereas strong value monist approaches to evangelical musicianship efface the presence of the subjective self and stable monist approaches suspend its presence, stable pluralism allows both religious and secular vocations to co-exist in separate social spaces, while strong value pluralist approaches to evangelical musicianship emphasise or celebrate the presence of the subjective self and, in so doing, sometimes undermine the ritual aims of congregational worship.

KEYWORDS:

• Christianity
• evangelicalism
• value
• worship music

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest is reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Academy of Finland (research grant number 265976).

Notes on contributors

Ibrahim Abraham

Ibrahim Abraham is the Hans Mol Research Fellow in Religion and the Social Sciences at the Australian National University. He is the author of Evangelical Youth Culture (2017) and Race, Class and Christianity in South Africa: Middle-Class Moralities (2021). CORRESPONDENCE: Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, 120 McCoy Circuit, Acton, ACT, 2601, Australia.