The Spirit and the Song:
Pneumatological Reflections on Popular Music
explores pertinent pneumatological issues that arise in music. It offers three distinct contributions: first, it asks what, if anything, music tells listeners about God’s Spiritedness. Can the experience of music speak to human spiritedness, the world’s transcendentality, or a person’s own self-transcendence in ways nothing else does or can? Second, this book explores how the Spirit functions within, and even determines, culture through music. Because music is a profound human expression, it can find itself in a rich dialogue with the Spirit. Third and finally, this book explores the contested status of music in Christian spiritual traditions. It deals with music as inspired by the Spirit, music as participation in Spiritedness, and music as temptation of “the flesh.” As such, this book also engages music’s placement in Christian spiritual traditions. The contributors of this book ask how Christian convictions about and experiences of the Spirit might shape the way one thinks about music.