Theology and Music Research Papers (original) (raw)

2025, Ecclesia orans

Il contributo si sofferma sull’apporto che il teologo Joseph Ratzinger, prima di assumere il ministero petrino o comunque al di fuori del suo esercizio, ha offerto alla riflessione sulla musica liturgica con accenti originali e degni di nota. Egli si è sovente soffermato sul fondamento teologico della musica sacra e liturgica e sull’apporto che la musica stessa può offrire alla teologia. Si porrà attenzione, in particolare, a tre dimensioni: ecclesiologica, trinitaria e pneumatologica.
Abstract: The contribution focuses on the contribution that the theologian Joseph Ratzinger, before assuming the Petrine ministry or in any case outside of its exercise, offered to reflection on liturgical music with original and noteworthy accents. He often dwelt on the theological foundation of sacred and liturgical music and on the contribution that music itself can offer to theology. Particular attention will be paid to three dimensions: ecclesiological, trinitarian and pneumatological.

2025, Full of Your Glory: Liturgy, Cosmos, Creation

2025, Protestant Existentialists on the Distortion of Faith

Relevance. The question of the distortion of faith has long been a concern for religious thinkers. Among the most insightful analyses were those offered by representatives of Protestant existentialism, including Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, and Rudolf Bultmann. The Purpose. The study aims to explore the concept of "Distortion of Faith" as interpreted by prominent 20th-century Protestant thinkers: Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, and Rudolf Bultmann. Results. The concept of faith has a long history of interpretation in both religious (theological) and philosophical contexts. In a biblical sense, faith is understood as adherence to true doctrine and as a specific existential state. Therefore, a departure from faith is seen as heresy, schism, or apostasy. The theological classification of faith includes three main elements: intellectual, emotional, and volitional. In contrast, the philosophical interpretation of faith is characterized by dynamism and openness, while the religious perspective tends to be more dogmatic. In the works of Protestant existentialists, one can observe a reevaluation of the implications of the distortion of faith. Paul Tillich identifies three types of faith distortions: intellectual, moral, and emotional. Karl Barth argues that religion itself is a form of faith distortion, as it replaces the transcendent essence of faith with anthropocentric practices of piety. Similarly, Rudolf Bultmann asserts that the distortion of faith is manifest in a reliance on myth, particularly in its eschatological and cosmological aspects. Conclusions. Thus, Protestant existentialism rethought not only the essence of faith but also the forms of its distortion. The ultimate goal of Protestant existentialism was to articulate the meaning of authentic faith, liberated from the religious overlays that had muddled its understanding for centuries.

2025, ‘Liturgia Sacra’ 20 (2014), No. 2, pp. 479–491

Handel’s biographer, John Mainwaring, maintained that ‘his [Handel’s] chief practice, and greatest mastery was on the organ and harpsichord’. Johannes Mattheson stated that ‘probably only Bach himself in Leipzig can catch up with Handel in his playing the organ’. Nowadays Handel is perceived chiefly as a theatrical icon, immortal creator of operas and oratorios. Quite a number of organ works by Handel has sunk into oblivion, and only his famous organ concertos Op. 4 and 7 have remained core repertoire items. The organ versions of Handel’s overtures to his operas and oratorios which were so much popular erstwhile have completely disappeared from a present organ repertoire. Those sixty-four works that were published in numerous partial editions by his publisher in London, John Walsh, at the end of the composer’s life came out in a complete edition which was to become the largest collection of the 18th century keyboard music. At present the works are not included in the lists of Handel’s works (if only with a note about doubtful authorship), performed in concerts, nor are they taken into consideration by musicologists, as if they did not exist at all. The organ overtures by Handel fully deserve to be back a part of the repertoire canon. They are not only a document of the epoch, reflecting the practice of keyboard transcriptions which were so common in the baroque, but they also add to variety and significance of a repertoire in which Handel is shown as a peerless organ virtouso and, at the same time, the king of a drama theatre.

2025

La virginidad, la experiencia de una forma-de-vida pobre, feliz y prudente... 1
1. Walter Benjamin diagnosticó la siguiente paradoja: las personas solamente tienen en mente el interés privado más egoísta [das engherzigste Privatinteresse] cuando actúan, pero al mismo tiempo su conducta está determinada, más que nunca, por los instintos de la masa. Y, más que nunca, los instintos de la masa se han vuelto insensatos y extraños a la vida. 2

2025, Saint Bonaventure Friar, Teacher, Minister, Bishop A Celebration of the Eighth Centenary of His Birth

A proposal for harmonizing the apophatic/mystical tradition with virtues ethics via an interpretation of Bonaventure's understanding of hierarchy - a Christocentric and dynamically relational cosmic exemplarism - as a framework for virtues ethics. Analysis includes "The Three Ways," "Hexaemeron," the "Itinerarium," and Bonaventure's adaptation of Ps-Dionysius' "Mystical Theology." I propose that 1) the Bonaventurean approach provides an excellent "harmonic structure" for the kind of improvisational performance (best observed in the performance of formation required for jazz improvisation) necessary for the virtues while 2) maintaining the emphasis on epistemological humility and dependence on divine grace of the apophatic tradition. ISBN 978-1-57659-445-2

2025, Music Theory Online

This article presents an annotated translation of the first two chapters of Yinyuetonglun 音樂通論 A General Treatise on Music (1930/1933), written by Li Tsing-chu 黎青主 (1893-1959). Known as one of the first music aestheticians in modern China, Li advanced an intercultural philosophy of Music through positioning himself alongside the minds of a wide range of Western thinkers, from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Arthur Schopenhauer, from Hermann Abert to Johann Nikolaus Forkel, and notably, Hermann Bähr. In the treatise, Li put forth a mystic ontology of Music, proposing that Music is a medium through which artists can create, access, and conquer an amorphous spiritual world, a world he called the "upper realm." It is through the upper realm, he suggested, that souls can speak to one another. Romantic as it was, Li's work staged an ontological intervention of Music, seeking to dismiss Ritual as the long-standing Confucian ontological core of Music in China. Rather than perpetuate the state's instrumentalization of Music as a (bio-)political force regulated by Ritual, Li proposed a spiritual universality of Music that retools Daoist mysticism through European Expressionist thought, yet does not submit Music to dao as the highest spiritual goal. Li's fascination with the superposition of the mystic and artificial nature of the upper realm characterizes his music theory. This fascination also fuels the many rhetorical tautologies and paradoxes that thrive in the textual imagination it affords. All music-theoretical endeavors, in Li's view, must begin with a music-ontological investigation. More broadly, this article aspires to provide Music Theory with a departure point that explores a cultural milieu in which the exigency of intercultural music-theorizing has left much to be discussed and critiqued.

2025

In this essay I first consider Kendrick Lamar's musical and theological predecessor, Tupac Shakur (2Pac), and the latter's influence on the former. Specifically, 2Pac, in the throes of U.S. racism, labors to create a new kind of Christ and theology for the oppressed of the 21 st century. I then lay out the narrative of Lamar's award-winning To Pimp a Butterfly and analyze its theological language. Concluding, I suggest that, in Butterfly-and as confirmed in the very recently released GNX-that Lamar's understanding and articulation of God is deeply Christian and yet ongoing and in flux, intertwined as it is with his conversion away from the violent tendencies within himself. I suggest also that, because of the kind of God Lamar comes to articulate, Lamar's project is a critique of 2Pac's: where the latter died in a cycle of violence, the former looks for a new way to peace.

2025, https://youtu.be/ruxxcb48-oU

Vivenciando a escola, sabemos que as conversas entre as aulas são, também, oportunidades inestimáveis. A presente anotação decorre de uma conversa assim, com o monitor Benjamim Freitas Barth que, em maio de 2023, mostrou-me essa fuga coral (objeto de um trabalho por ele apresentado na disciplina de análise musical ministrada pelo prof. Acácio Piedade) enquanto falávamos sobre assuntos que perpassavam nossas aulas de teoria musical e harmonia. Assuntos diversos e relacionados, daqueles que não tem começo nem fim, como: acordes diatônicos em progressões por quintas; a compreensão da tonalidade como uma combinação de diatonismos (regiões ou áreas tonais); as interações entre os trajetos natural, harmônico e melódico no modo menor do século XVIII; o entre-lugar “tão longe/tão perto” que determinadas obras e repertórios nos colocam; o uso das sétimas (tétrades) em repertório dito “antigo” e “não popular”; o papel primeiro da belezura musical em nossos planos de aula; a questão da performance historicamente informada; dos liames entre a arte musical, sua teoria e sua análise; a questão da música ser ou não sobre alguma coisa; das relações entre contraponto e harmonia; sobre o ensino e a aprendizagem das formas musicais através de modelos, seus limites e validades; da necessária lembrança da noção de “engenho” frente ao valor dominante da noção de “gênio”; da ‘criatividade” como algo mais do que apenas fazer o que nunca foi feito; etc.

2024, Music Research

In 1965, the United Daily News published an article on Hsu Tsang-Houei’s cantata Army Carts which highlighted his groundbreaking use of twelve-tone technique in Taiwan. The work, Army Carts, should be especially meaningful for Hsu Tsang-Houei, because he was actively promoting modern music back then. The composition of the work began in 1958, but it was not completed until 1991, and finally premiered in 1995. This thirty-year suspension offers a unique lens through which to review Hsu’s tug and pull between his use of twelve-tone composition and its reception in Taiwanese society following his training and immersion in avant-garde and modernist music in Paris.
This article cross-examines Hsu’s music criticism and newly discovered personal correspondence from his sojourn in Paris in order to reconstruct the evolution of his conception of modern music and the multifaceted meanings of twelve-tone musical vocabularies. Through analyses of the composition style of his teacher André Jolivet, the article explores Hsu’s understanding of what he called “spiritual” twelve-tone, and further compares and contrasts his use of twelve-tone in between the two versions of Army Carts written in 1958 and 1991. While Hsu attributed the shelving of his work primarily to the politically sensitive anti-war message inherent in Du Fu’s poetry within the context of the martial law in Taiwan, this paper proposes a different perspective with evidence from archival documents of the Historical Document of Hsu Tsang-Houei housed at the Academia Historica. The author concludes that, despite the embracing support from the mass media, Hsu encountered tremendous resistance to his twelve-tone compositions from both his contemporary musicians and among his audience, which eventually prompted the composer to reassess the use of twelve-tone technique in his works.

2024, MusiCS em perspectivas

Tomando a questão da representação sonora do Diabo na Idade Média como pano de fundo, o presente capítulo retoma textos e partituras de uma das autoridades ligadas à imagem que formamos da música medieval e que, desde seus primeiros escritos, se ocupou da questão da queda do Diabo e do problema da irrupção do mal no mundo: a monja Hildegarda de Bingen (1098-1179). Através de revisão bibliográfica, recorda-se a posição teológica de Hildegarda segundo a qual o Diabo, em virtude de sua própria escolha, foi expulso dos Céus, e com isso tornou-se incapaz de fazer música, foi privado da participação na sociedade coral da Jerusalém Celestial e foi desapossado de uma arte que permite o contato entre criatura e Criador. O apóstata se comunica com estrépito e grunhidos, e os homens e mulheres que são impedidos de cantar se identificam com inimigo ao se afastarem do louvor a Deus. Ilustrando esse afastamento, recupera-se o drama musical Ordo Virtutum, de autoria de Hildegarda, em que o Diabo é tratado como criatura decaída e incapaz de cantar, ao contrário das Virtudes que emanam da mente de Deus. Segue-se com o estudo de outros cantos de autoria de Hildegarda, nos quais os intervalos de trítono ornamentam o texto, mas não se associam a Satanás e sua horda. Conclui-se que a representação artístico-musical do Diabo na obra de Hildegarda se dá, justamente, pela ausência de música, o não ser, o destituído de logos.

2024, Fønix

skal have tak for sin svarartikel i dette tidsskrift, 1 foranlediget af min kronik i Kristeligt Dagblad den 1. oktober, "Det Gamle Testamente hører ikke hjemme i kirkens tekstraekker". Det giver mig anledning til såvel en raekke praeciseringer som nogle videreførende uddybninger. Den første praecisering gaelder det misforståelige i selve overskriften til min kronik. Det, som efter min mening ikke hører hjemme i folkekirkens højmesse, er en saerlig tekstraekke bestående af laesninger udelukkende fra Det Gamle Testamente. Allerede i de to hidtidige tekstraekker var Det Gamle Testamente således også repraesenteret med i alt 14 laesninger, alle hentet fra enten Salmernes Bog eller Esajas' Bog. Af disse optrådte dog alene to som praediketekster (almindelig bededag; begge raekker ved tolvpraedikenen i købstaederne), mens 1. tekstraekke i øvrigt tegnede sig for fire (inkl. hellig tre kongers dag, som dog ikke laengere var lovbefalet helligdag), 2. tekstraekke for elleve (igen inkl. hellig tre kongers dag). Der var derfor tale om en radikal fornyelse med Den Danske Alterbog i 1992, forberedt gennem de to betaenkninger, som den i 1970 nedsatte liturgikommission udsendte i henholdsvis 1975 (den grå Betaenkning 750) og 1985 (den violette Betaenkning 1057). Desuden havde biskopperne med deres lysegrønne Oplaeg til Gudstjenesteordning fra juni 1991 (vist nok uden om liturgikommissionen) foreslået en raekke større eller mindre aendringer, derunder et let

2024, Palestrina: sublime artigiano di Dio. Le sue Messe come preghiera universale, omaggio eloquente a l'intera umanità

Sublime e onesto artigiano di Dio, le sue opere rimarranno per sempre i capolavori di un genio. Per il compositore di scuola romana, scrivere una Messa significava collaborare alla preghiera universale, rendere un omaggio eloquente, preciso e collettivo a tutta l'umanità. Depone la sua personalità per sacrificarla al perfetto esercizio di un'arte considerata un mero mestiere. Artista credente, manovale sincero, fissava nei suoi pensieri la fine di una giornata di lavoro, con la calma certezza che un'opera non richiede tanto di essere sognata quanto di essere fatta, cioè impegnata, costruita pietra su pietra, incessantemente perseguita. Attraverso il suo atteggiamento discreto e fertile, Palestrina ci dà una doppia lezione di musica e di rinuncia.

2024

Bruce Springsteen defines himself as a story-teller. 1 We agree that Springsteen is as talented a story-teller as rock and roll has produced. 2 He has written romances of adolescence and adolescents; lyrical tales of escapes, escapees, and escapists; and elegies on parents and parenthood. The best of Springsteen's song-stories deftly define characters by their purposes and artfully articulate the artist's attitude toward his "material." Not so Springsteen's songs that concern law or politics. In these songs the artist's attitude toward his creations is often lost in a flood of seemingly studied ambiguity and the charactors' purposes are usually murky. Springsteen, in legal and political songs as well as in his other stories, almost always evokes emotion. Until recently, too many of his songs of law or politics have been rock-and-roll Rorschach blots: scenes, acts, and actors without clear purposes and attitudes. In contrast, Springsteen's latest collection, The Ghost of Tom Joad, offers reason to believe that Springsteen will be writing more complete political-legal songs. Esthetes who prefer understated lyrics that permit listeners to draw their own lessons may continue to admire the multiple interpretations Springsteen leaves unobstructed in most of his work, while aesthetes who like artists to tie up loose ends will probably celebrate Springsteen's recent "clarity" of political vision and reduced susceptibility to misunderstanding. Springsteen's songs are sufficiently numerous and his themes sufficiently varied that we hesitate to characterize them briefly lest we do so superficially. However, we should be able, through a few examples, to suggest the best sorts of songs this story-teller sings. The essence of Springsteen's style, we argue, is to introduce familiar, often unsympathetic actors into ordinary, often urban scenes that lead to revelation. 3 The actors, acts, and even costumes and props reveal purposes, often purposes implicit in scenes. The interrelations of those scenes, actors, acts, props reveal the artist's attitudes. The artist's attitudes  and sometimes twenty thousand or more concert-goers  then transform what we thought we understood into something more that we understand more profoundly. In A Grammar of Motives, literary critic Kenneth Burke suggested that such transformations occur only when artists answer  or cause members of their audiences to answer 

2024, Revue CAECILIA

Dans ce complément numérique, nous allons aller des versets à la musique !
Nous allons nous attarder sur ce Discours sur le Pain de Vie (Jn 6,22-71) et son utilisation par Didier RIMAUD pour les besoins de ce cantique. Quelques questions vont jalonner notre réflexion : Quelle place occupe l'évangile de Jean au sein de la liturgie et celle de l'année B en particulier ? Quelle place occupe le Discours sur le Pain de Vie au sein de l'année liturgique ? Comment le choix d'un verset pour le refrain va coordonner le choix d'une musique, mais aussi le choix des autres versets et leur ordonnancement, pour proposer une interprétation cohérente qui n'altère pas le sens du texte original dans son intégralité, mais qui en plus permet d'approfondir le sens d'un geste liturgique où s'accomplit le mystère annoncé ?

2024

Liste des vidéos des communications du colloque international sur la correspondance d'Hildegarde de Bingen.
Colloque ayant eu lieu à Metz, les 22-23 mai 2024

2024, 鄧紹光

Preaching: The Beginning and End of Theology
《時代論壇》820期（2003.05.18）

2024, Australian Journal of Mission Studies, l/2, (2007), pp. 29-38.

Paul Johannes Tillich (1886-1965) is one of the greatest religious thinkers of the twentieth century whose thought has a significant contribution to make in this respect. In this article I will argue and demonstrate how, in the face of religious pluralism, Tillich’s re-thinking of the status of systematic theology – its Christological and logocentric foundations – presents some major conceptual and practical considerations that are imperative for mission studies in the 21st century.

2024, Teresianum 75 (2024) 1

2024, Journal of Literature and Art Studies

Paul Tillich once confided to his secretary at Harvard that he was a schizophrenic. In this article, the author, who is also a schizophrenic, discusses symptoms of schizophrenia in Tillich's biography and theology. Tillich had always insisted that his theology was one of the kairos. By hiding his theological thought behind an arcane Greek word, Tillich dissimulated his own messiah complex. On several occasions, Tillich describes a mystical schizophrenic hallucination with such accuracy that it is obvious to those who have had similar visions that he was speaking from personal experience. This article raises unanswerable questions about the relationships between religious revelation, mystical ecstasy and schizophrenia.

2024

This study began on the day when I realized that the crucifixion music of Liszt's "Via crucis" is almost identical with a section of his Sonata in B Minor. I refer to the only place in the Sonata where dissonant chords alternate with recitatives. Finding prominent music from the Sonata in a profoundly religious work, I was compelled to search for an explanation. The presence in Franz Liszt's Sonata in B minor of the incipit of a Lied melody composed by the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (1786–1859) is mentioned on page XIII in the foreword written by Mária Eckhardt to the 2015 Henle facsimile edition of the Sonata. The foreword is available for download http://www.henle.de/media/foreword/3227.pdf
Szász, a noted pianist and scholar, is Piano Professor at the University of Music, Freiburg, Germany since 1993. Doctorate: 1984, University of Michigan. Former professor at Duke University, University of Dayton, Bowling Green State University. Publications: USA, England, Germany, France, Holland, Romania and Hungary. Expertise: Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Bartók, Enescu. His identification of the Maria Pavlovna melody in the Liszt Sonata, and its divine and diabolical symbols, are noted in the 2015 Henle facsimile edition, see http://www.henle.de/media/foreword/3227.pdf His basso continuo research on Beethoven's five piano concertos was the centerpiece article in a Beethoven monograph, published by Cambridge University Press, and incorporated in three Urtext publications of Beethoven's piano concertos: Henle (Hans-Werner Küthen, ed.), Eulenburg No. 706 (Paul-Badura Skoda, ed.), and Bärenreiter (2015, Jonathan Del Mar, ed.).

2024, Journal of Ecumenical Studies

Employing the metaphor of jazz, this article explores how Christianity is an ecumenical community of differences in dialogue, a unity amidst differences. Far from simply an individualistic medium of expression, jazz trades on a deep sense of tradition and interactive solidarity, even as it reshapes the music so as to release new possibilities for creative application. Accordingly, a case can be made that human communities function as jazz performances, that openness to surprise and novelty are at the heart of what it means to be a community, especially a community founded in the gracious love of God revealed in Christ. As jazz involves ambiguity and risk-but in ways that make possible greater horizons of mutuality and musical invigoration-so, too, does the Christian community, which is a community of solidarity opened toward differentiation and variety in improvising the song of God. Its solidarity is its hospitality.

2024, Pastoral Litúrgica

En este mundo tan polarizado, algunos, afirman que el canto gregoriano fue abolido tras la celebración del concilio Vaticano II, otros, que sigue siendo el único canto apropiado para la liturgia. Pero... ¿qué dice la Iglesia? En estas páginas intento resumir los documentos, las publicaciones y la praxis del canto gregoriano a partir de la reforma conciliar, analizando si existe continuidad o ruptura con la tradición anterior.

2024, Theology Today

Opera is often perceived as an elitist genre of music, admired by snob bish traditionalists and greatly suspected by radical feminists. By viewing opera as an innovative avenue for lament over tragic and sinful human reality long be fore any formal feminist critique, the essay examines the creative role of opera as a mode of encouragement for a different theologia prima-worship in music as otherwise than intellectually satisfying certain theological assumptions. The risky speech of operatic lament as inverted ecstatic praise of the triune God af firms the relevance of critical attention toward the praise of God that, deprived of lament, risks becoming an inauthentic and vacuous worship.

2024, Theology Today

With Melting the Venusberg, Heidi Epstein has produced a daring peregrination through the past and present web of interactions between Christian theology, philosophy, and music. Although numerous books have been written over the past twenty years on the subject of music and gender, as well as on theology, music, and art in general, Melting the Venusberg is a pioneer in the field of systematic theological exploration of music, Western doctrinal tradition, and feminist thought. As such it is a very exciting book for theologians, musicologists, ministers, and all who are interested in exploring the interrelation of theology and music. Epstein's narrative first takes the reader on an archaeological tour through the history of theological engagement with music to deconstruct what she calls the "masculinist musico-theological rhetoric" inherent in the Western theological tradition. The book juxtaposes the postmodern and feminist "after-Auschwitz" attempts to articulate the meaning of music as engendered, dissonant, political, and ambiguous, as opposed to the "sublimely apolitical" disembodied and desexualized musico-theological discourse of "tradition." Tradition here stands for the prematurely harmonizing teleologies of redemption of time as well as the models of tonal and harmonic resolutions prevalent in the patristic, medieval, and some modern theologies of music. It suffers not only from dualism in the form of sexism but also from a methodological overemphasis on metaphysical and mathematical conceptualizations of music's relation to theology. Part 1 proceeds to uncover the metanarratives of musical apologetics of disembodied and decontextualized transcendence camouflaging behind and within the tropes of order and metaphysical numerositas. It, in turn, serves the ends of uncritically proof-texting biblical doctrines and denying "the problem of an irresolvable plurality of conflicting beauties, truths and moral goods" (97). Part 2 offers a constructive proposal that articulates the meaning of music as disruptively liberating, taking with utmost seriousness the erotic and polit-^s

2024, Studies in World Christianity

As Brian Stanley wrote in his Editorial to issue 19.2, theologians are a rare species in world Christianity. The field of Chinese Christianity has been particularly well-ploughed by historians, but the number of English-language monographs on Chinese theology could be counted by a pigeon in one of the furrows. Two works by Alexander Chow-his recent volume, Theosis, Sino-Christian Theology and the Second Chinese Enlightenment, and his article 'The East Asian Rediscovery of Sin' in issue 19.2-show just how important original theological thinking is to our understanding not just of Chinese contextual theology, but the broader territory of world Christianity. Chow's monograph presents rich new readings of three outstanding twentieth-century Chinese theologians (Watchman Nee, T. C. Chao and K. H. Ting, or Ni Tuosheng, Zhao Zichen and Ding Guangxun, in a modern romanisation). Chow interweaves these three historical studies with a theoretical framework which both creates a typology of Chinese theology, by extending the frameworks of Justo González and Stephen Bevans/ Roger Schroeder, and which compares and contrasts a Chinese worldview with Eastern Orthodox thinking and theology. Underlying Chow's work is the hypothesis that Eastern Orthodox theology can better

2024, 新絲路

In this issue, we are very honored to invite YAN Huichang, Artistic Director of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. Director YAN is the first conductor with a professional degree in the Chinese music conducting industry. During his more than 50 years of conducting career, he has directed numerous orchestras in the Greater China region. He has also collaborated with many world-class musicians and educated a legion of students. His experience in leading the orchestra and his striving towards musical perfection provides a role model for the Chinese music world. Artistic director YAN has served the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra for 26 years. Under his leadership, the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra has become a pioneer in the Chinese music world. During his tenure, he led the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra on a world tour and successfully elevated Chinese music onto the international stage. He also established an instrument research and development department within the orchestra, held seminars, organised music festivals, worked with the orchestra's administrative team to corporatise the orchestra, and in recent years, proactively helmed the digitised audio and visual Chinese music content. Such undertakings seem mundane for now; but most can be regarded as pioneering work of the Chinese Orchestra. In this interview, Director YAN will share his philosophy and wisdom of leading the orchestra, as well as his professional requirements for himself over the years. Due to word limit constraints, the interview will be divided into two parts. The author will summarise the interview as follows. LEE Ming-Yen (hereinafter referred to as LEE): I would like to ask, maestro, what is the music tradition of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra? How does the orchestra lend a modern interpretation to its integration of tradition, giving new cultural significance and zeitgeist of the times? YAN Huichang (hereinafter referred to as YAN): The mission statement of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra is the answer to this question. What is the difference between the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and some other orchestras in mainland China? Hong Kong is an international, modern, commercialised metropolis. In such a city, if we position the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra as an urbanized Chinese orchestra, its artistic direction will be different from other orchestras. Just like the mission statement of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra: "The Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra is dedicated to excellence in the art of Chinese music, keeping abreast of the pulse of the times, displaying professionalism, pursuing the highest standards of music, and becoming a world-class orchestra that Hong Kong people are proud of." It is in this urbanised context that the general direction of the orchestra is set. It is impossible for the orchestra to be based on tradition alone without keeping up with the times. What does it mean to display professionalism? That is the professionalism of musicians; they cannot compromise their requirements for music because of self-interest or other things. As for performing music, we strive to attain the highest state of music, and this pursuit of the perfection is infinite, and we are always heading in this direction. We have a sixteen-character set of guidelines in the arts: "From traditional roots to cutting-edge visionary. Embracing diversity and eclectic styles." These guiding principles explain the relationship between musical tradition and modernity very precisely. What is tradition? The concept of traditional Chinese music in ethnomusicology is divided into four categories, which are the four categories of traditional Chinese music: literati music, court music, religious music, and folk music. Those of us who dabble in Chinese music need to have a good understanding of the four major categories of traditional music.

2024, Improvising Church: Scripture as the Source of Harmony, Rhythm, and Soul

Plenty of books diagnose our post-Christian malaise. Here's a dynamic solution. The post-Christian cultural turn is creating the conditions for a crisis of confidence in the church and in pastoral ministry. While such changes can be... more

2024, The Arts and the Bible, Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Wendy J. Porter

2024, Musicalia Istropolitana 5/5

Matthäus Apelles von Löwenstern and His Das ist der Tag den der Herr macht and Lobet den Herren alle Heiden The Musicalia Istropolitana series of editions has presented over a dozen titles dedicated to long-forgotten compositions extant in the territory of present-day Slovakia. 1 Volume Five of Series Five again brings the works of Matthäus Apelles von Löwenstern. His two shorter compositions, Das ist der Tag den der Herr macht (MAL-m09) and Lobet den Herren alle Heiden (MAL-m28), 2 set to music passages from the Old Testament, namely Psalms 118 and 117. In their theme, they follow his other compositions published in Series Five-Alleluja. Lobet den Herren (MAL-m03) 3-Psalm 150, Lobe den Herren meine Seele (MAL-m26) 4-Psalm 103, and Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott (MAL-m14) 5-Psalm 51. Both these pieces are relatively short and have a similar formal 1 For seventeenth-century music, see, for example, the following volumes of our series of editions: Thusius, David:

2023, Amanat Agung

Persoalan mengenai identitas dan relevansi merupakan persoalan yang sudah lama ada perkembangan dogmatika gereja. Identitas yang bersifat universal dan relevansi yang bersifat partikular seolah bertentangan sering menimbulkan ketegangan. Kondisi yang biasa terjadi adalah kecenderungan memperlakukan keduanya tidak seimbang sehingga terjebak dalam ekstrim salah satunya. Jika peneliti berusaha mempertahankan identitas doktrin maka relevansi akan terabaikan. Sebaliknya, jika peneliti berusaha merelevansikan doktrin dalam konteks dan budaya tertentu maka identitas mulai bergeser atau bisa dikatakan tidak 'setia lagi' pada jati dirinya. Kesulitan antara pemahaman dan penerapan dogmatika dapat diatasi dengan teori improvisasi. Improvisasi bukanlah pengulangan atau penciptaan dogmatika yang baru melainkan berfokus pada menyeimbangkan antara identitas dan relevansi sehingga tidak terjadi kejatuhan pada ekstrim tertentu. Tulisan ini bertujuan untuk merumuskan prinsip sintesis improvisasi berdasarkan tiga model improvisasi baik dari Samuel Wells (etika teologis), Kevin Vanhoozer (prolegomena teologi) dan Bruce Ellis Benson (hermeneutika filosofis). Kata-kata kunci: religious dialogue, John of Damascus, syriac christianity, christology.

2023, Journal of Church and State

2023, International Journal of Systematic Theology

2023

According to Catholic literary theory, the novelist, like the Divine Mystery to a certain extent, creates her characters freely and free with the possibility and probability that they may speak against their creator and even finally rebel. This dissertation reflects upon the relative infiniteness of four literary authors-Flannery O'Connor, Mary McCarthy, Walker Percy, and Cormac McCarthy. In the three novels and one imaginative memoir considered in particular, these authors create their existentialist protagonists, who in their turn reflect the conditional existentialism of their creators. This dissertation, thus, seeks to resurrect, with modern sensibilities, the pre-renaissance and renaissance commonplace that the poet is a creator, and to examine how this schema figures into the Catholic belief that man is created in the Divine Mystery's image without a loss of human freedom. Celebrating this mystery of existence, Catholic literary theory suggests that the Catholic universe is for all at all times, and not only for those who identify themselves as Catholics. The value of this dissertation for the field of literary studies lies in that insofar as the poet and novelist has lost her identity as creating out of love because God, the Divine Mystery, created her out of love, then philosophy, history, theology, and literature, itself, are in mortal danger. This is the appeal that writers like O'Connor and Percy conscientiously make and writers like Mary McCarthy and Cormac McCarthy confirm despite themselves. iii Acknowledgements I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my wife, Caitlin Elizabeth Pride, who married me four years ago and has helped me through both my master's and doctorate, including editing this dissertation. She has given me two handsome boys: William Robert, my coursework companion, and Charles Joseph, my dissertation buddy. Caitlin, you are the most beautiful woman in the world, and I am blessed to be your husband. I want to acknowledge my dissertation advisor, Clark Davis, and my readers, Brian Kiteley and Scott Howard, as well as my philosophy chair, Sarah Pessin. I look up to you as amazing teachers and erudite scholars. Thank you to my brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and in-laws. I am grateful to my parents Robert and Carol for handing down my Catholic faith and love of learning. Thank you to the Alleluia Community

2023, International Yearbook for Tillich Research

It is well known that Paul Tillich regarded history as essential to both his philosophy and theology, calling it "most important for my life and thought" 2 and devoting Part V of his Systematic Theology to the topic. I t particularly dominated his writing during the period following the Great War, which will be the focus of this essay. However, the issues raised arerelevant to all of Tillich's work. 3 This essay will also focus chiefly on Tillich's philosophy of history rather than his theology of history, although the two cannot always be kept separate. The chief question raised here will be whether Tillich's philosophy of history, despite its importance for his thought, was able to maintain a vital connection with empirical history. The relationship between the two in his work is ambivalent at best, and raises questions regarding the applicability of his philosophy of history to concrete historical situations. To undertake this investigation it will be necessary first to define the often troublesome terms history, historiography, philosophy of history, and empirical history, and then to locate Tillich's philosophy of history in its historical context. 4 This will be followed by an 1 The author wishes to thank his colleagues in the Department of Religion at Gustavus Adolphus College for their helpful suggestions for this article. He of course has complete responsibility for its contents. 2 P. Tillich, "Author's Introduction," The Protestant Era (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. xvii. 3 I will not, in particular, enter into the question whether his writings in the USA signify a shift in his interpretation of history, as discussed, e.g., in S. Lau, "From Historical Consciousness to Historical Action: A Study of Paul Tillich," Bijdragen, tijdschrjft voor filosofie en theologie 45 (1984), pp. 136-169. The question of dualism and the relationship to empirical history remains in any case. 4 Much, though not all, of this will rely heavily on the analysis of Ernst Troeltsch in Gesammelte Schriften 3. Der Historismus und seine Probleme. Erstes [Einziges] Buch. Das logische Problem der Geschichtsphilosophie. (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1922). Troeltsch is an important interlocutor for this paper, in part because Troeltsch achieved a clear statement of the problems of the philosophy of history, if not their solution, and in part because Tillich acknowledged Troeltsch's philosophy of history as highly significant for his own thought, both as a positive and negative influence. Tillich repeatedly acknowledged Troeltsch's contribution in having posed the right questions, but also having failed to answer them. He understood his own philosophy of history in part as an attempt to overcome the relativism of historicism (or what Troeltsch called "bad historicism.") For Tillich's appreciation and critique of Troeltsch, see "On The Boundary," in P. Tillich, The Interpretation of History

2023, Religions

According to current consensus definitions in healthcare, religious aspects can be part of ”spirituality” but ”spirituality” is open to non-religious traditions as well. Nevertheless, spiritual care is often provided by theologically trained pastoral caregivers belonging to religious groups and institutional bodies. How, then, do we take “religion(s)” into account when pastoral and spiritual care finds itself within a context of a diversity of religions and religious and non-religious biographies? What function does “confessionality” have—except for the fact that spiritual care professions can also be educated at a theological faculty and thus graduates are familiar with confessional premises of the respective denomination institutions? What significance do these premises have as a basis or a target for research and the fields of action and for the self-understanding of chaplains or spiritual caregivers? Our contribution draws attention to the potential for the reflection on “religi...

2023, Journal of early modern Christianity

The Cistercian monastery La Trappe, Mme de Maintenon's school for girls at St Cyr, the schools at A. H. Francke's foundations at Halle and the community established within these foundations bring to the fore the dynamic between withdrawal and engagement and the medial expressions of this dynamic. But each case demonstrates a particular employment of architecture, texts, music and images in the service of withdrawal and engagement respectively. At La Trappe the liturgical life and the furnishing of the abbey church made manifest the appropriation of desert asceticism as well as the Cistercian origin. Meanwhile the ethos of isolation and devotional self-surrender was conveyed beyond the walls by means of treatises, letters, images and the reception of visitors. At St Cyr noble girls were taught to renounce the world. This aim went hand in hand with the disciplinary and educational profile of the school and the royal founders' ambition of to educate the wives and mothers of French noble households. Three paintings produced for the royal institution embody this aspiration in a particularly illuminating way. In the two cases related to Halle, the juxtaposition of theological texts and concepts such as Gelassenheit, musico-poetical culture as well as material and visual expressions of the Pietist reform movement and the employment of the eagle motif contributes to a multi-faceted understanding of the dynamic between withdrawal and engagement and the relation between the withdrawn locus and the society in which it was set.

2023, Religion Past and Present

Even before Hegel, theology has had to face the true dialectical question: is Christianity the true religion that all other religions aspire to be? Do we perceive other religions (i.e. Judaism) as an earlier stage in the fulfillment of Christian revelation, and Christianity, therefore, as the ultimate synthesis or summit of human religious expression? Or, are all religions to be regarded on a plane of equivalence such that they are equally valid? In specific reference to the Christian tradition, what criteria are available to us, as Christians, to discern such a measure of religious perfection? Salvation, it can be said, points forward, toward a state of perfection not yet achieved, and, in this sense, cannot exist outside the Church because it would be (from the Christian viewpoint) a step backwards, a step away from the summit of what is possible for human religious experience. One of the major insights of the past century, however, is that progress, as a historical and political concept, was an all-pervasive, yet perhaps fatally flawed idea, something which only fueled racist and genocidal policies to greater, tragic depths. Discerning the difference, then, between the dialectics of history and politics from the dialectics of religious being is no easy task, for the two have been consistently intermingled from the earliest origins of religious and political practice. Yet what are we to do with the notion that progress, in historical terms, is not always a productive model upon which to base our religious configurations? By seeing things thus, we must begin to ask new questions, such as: what multiple understandings of progress are we working with today? What exactly does a religious dialectics seek to achieve as its end (or ultimate) goal? In religious terms, what would constitute a backwards step or decline of spiritual perfection/harmony? Moreover, what is the role of violence in discerning these distinctions? And what is the role of love?

2023, Religions

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY

2023, Religion Past and Present

2023

2023, Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology

Theology, being a human activity, is inescapably contextual. For the better part of modernity, the activity of theology has been dominated by an attitude of intellectual objectivity and scholasticism which is, in fact, grounded in the particularities of Western culture. Within the Latin American continent, however, the practice is different: a type of sensus fidelium 1 can be appreciated in base ecclesial communities which have at its core a popular, rather than an academic, reading of Scripture. This means the theological activity, though fostered and guided by professional theologians, has remained a grassroots activity. 2 As a result, strains of 1 Ada María Isasi-Díaz offers an excellent definition of sensus fidelium from the perspective of Latin American reality: "The sensus fidelium is the belief that the faithful, from the bishops to the last member of the congregation, being led by the Holy Spirit, do not err in their beliefs.

2023