In 1993, David Morgan published an article examining the role of Warner Sallman\u2019s religious images, including his 1940 Head of Christ<\/em>. Morgan details how this image\u2014reproduced over 500 million times by 1984\u2014was created to visualize the attributes of Christ in contrast with previous images of Christ.[1]<\/sup><\/a> Morgan argues the image shaped how people imagine and respond to God, and thus Sallman\u2019s \u201cpictures need to be approached as social documents capable of illuminating the social and cultural history of American Protestantism.\u201d[2]<\/sup><\/a> article is part of a body of research that considers the ways that everyday artistic practices contribute to the expression and formation of spiritual values and ethical responsibilities.[3]<\/sup><\/a> In line with Heidegger, this work sees art as world-disclosive; that is, that \u201cthe world itself can take on new aspects because of it.\u201d[4]<\/sup><\/a> Substantial work can be done to continue inquiry into the arts and spiritual values. In what follows, I examine contemporary worship music (CWM), the congregational music most prominently used within self-described \u201cevangelical\u201d churches, paying close attention to how spiritual and ethical values are performed in this musical practice that features congregational singing. I argue that CWM performances dialogue with developments inside and outside of the church, influencing the shape of spirituality and ethical values for evangelical congregants.<\/p>\n Methods Morgan utilizes to examine Sallman\u2019s images include formal image analysis, comparison with images historical context, and the reception of images. Parallel methods of analyzing composition and reception are also prominent within musicology, but these methods often overlook the important role of the performer in music. Over the past twenty years or so, a turn in musicology has taken place to seriously consider the roles of performers. Christopher Small\u2019s 1998 book Musicking<\/em> is often cited in this movement. Small reacted to musicological approaches that treat music as an object, ignoring the role of the performers. He argued that \u201cmusic is not a thing at all but an activity, something that people do.\u201d[5]<\/sup><\/a> Small\u2019s creation of the verb \u201cmusicking\u201d continues to be cited in methods for performance research.<\/p>\n Musical performance research is best considered a dispersed movement, but one particularly influential development in performance research took place within two Arts and Humanities Research Council funded projects the United Kingdom. The \u201cCentre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music\u201d hosted at Royal Holloway, University of London from 2004-2009, led to the \u201cCentre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice\u201d at Cambridge University, and in 2015 to the establishment of the Cambridge Centre of Music Performance Studies. While far from the only group of scholars to be part of this performative turn in musicology, these research centres gathered like-minded scholars and led to several oft-cited publications. The development of performance studies challenged existing foci in musicology, but unfortunately did not make similar challenges in terms of repertoire. Performances of pieces by Chopin, Debussy, and Beethoven were among the first research projects in these research centres, and canonical Western art music composers and figures remain central to much of this work. Despite limitations in repertoire, this work developed new methods to analyze the creative work of performers.[6]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Many of the methods developed within musical performance studies would be interesting to apply to contemporary worship music, and what follows is indebted to these methods. For this study, however, I am primarily interested in the potential to expand the notion of performer beyond professionals and performance beyond musical sound. Of course, ethnomusicologists have long been interested in amateur music makers, and sociologists have long been interested in social performance. Here I draw upon many different methodologies to consider first and foremost how congregants perform not just to make sound, but perform values through musicking. Through an analysis of the performances of contemporary worship music, I argue that congregants perform both spiritual and ethical values. The article outlines a sort of annotated inventory of performative elements in contemporary worship music (CWM), attempting to open spaces for further investigation while making the argument that contemporary worship music articulates and shapes the values of those singing.<\/p>\n The term \u201ccontemporary worship music\u201d is becoming more commonly used within academic work on this musical practice, but other terms seem more commonly used in non-academic venues. Apple Music, for example, retains the older genre name \u201cPraise and Worship,\u201d and participants in the practice seem to more commonly call it \u201cworship music.\u201d While much could be said about the development of the genre and the shifting boundaries both theologically and musically, here it is enough to say that contemporary worship music is a genre of song used predominantly within churches that identify as \u201cevangelical.\u201d[7]<\/sup><\/a> Within this musical practice, there is a shared belief that \u201ccongregational song should be set to the musical style of the surrounding culture.\u201d[8]<\/sup><\/a> The decision to not sonically separate from surrounding culture participates in a larger historical debate about the relation of sacred music to wider culture that has sources in Judaism and continued throughout the history of Christianity. However, as I\u2019ll argue later, the adoption of the music of the \u201csurrounding culture\u201d in CWM is limited to a specific range of genres.<\/p>\n To get a sense both of the prevalence of CWM and the centralization of production, Hillsong, an Australian based group of churches and producer of CWM, claimed in 2012 that 25 million people a week sing Hillsong songs in church, a claim that has grown to 50 million as of early 2019.[9]<\/sup><\/a> Hillsong album sales were claimed at over 13 million by 2012, and their 2013 and 2015 albums both peaked at number five on the Billboard 200<\/em> charts.[10]<\/sup><\/a> CWM\u2019s continued integration into the distribution and consumption models of popular music has grown to the point that churchgoers are, according to Monique Ingalls, \u201cfirst introduced to new worship songs not through congregational singing but through avenues outside church,\u201d creating a continuity between musical experiences in church services and in personal devotional times, entertainment, and background listening.[11]<\/sup><\/a> To cite one example of this continuity, in 2013 Chris Tomlin\u2019s album Burning Lights<\/em> debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200<\/em> charts.[12]<\/sup><\/a> In 2015, Tomlin\u2019s songs accounted for five of the top 25 worship songs sung in US churches, according to Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI), the copyright license body for most CWM.[13]<\/sup><\/a> Tomlin has since had two albums make the top 10 in the Billboard 200.[14]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n CWM is often discussed separately from Contemporary Christian Music (or CCM), especially in academic discourse. In short, CCM is music made for listening (rather than corporate singing) that has lyrics reflecting a Christian position.[15]<\/sup><\/a> As CWM has reached chart significance and as artists are creating albums that seem to mix CWM and CCM, in some distribution avenues these distinctions blur or overlap. For example, Billboard\u2019s \u201cChristian\/Gospel\u201d section features a Hot Christian Songs<\/em> list that includes a mixture of CWM and CCM.[16]<\/sup><\/a> The interaction of these two somewhat distinct musics is worth considering, but in this article I will focus upon CWM.<\/p>\n CWM may not be represented separately on Billboard, but because of the way it is licensed through CCLI, an alternative charting system has developed. CCLI was founded in 1984 in response to a copyright lawsuit. It describes itself as \u201ca ministry of the church and a service to the church, in order to better educate and equip the church about copyright laws, to protect the church from the consequences of copyright infringement and to encourage greater utilization of copyrights in church services.\u201d[17]<\/sup><\/a> CCLI claims to serve more than 250,000 churches worldwide.[18]<\/sup><\/a> CCLI hosts a platform called \u201cSongSelect\u201d that provides tools aimed at assisting those who select songs in churches, and many features are available to those without a CCLI license.[19]<\/sup><\/a> This platform includes \u201cdiscovery\u201d tools that parallel the discovery features in modern digital music distribution, including featured songs\u00a0\u00a0and, most prominently, a \u201cTop 100\u201d based upon the reporting of churches.[20]<\/sup><\/a> CCLI recently launched the Spotify playlist \u201cSang on Sunday\u201d for \u201cthe top songs in church in the USA this week,\u201d based partially upon the downloads of lyrics and lead sheets from the SongSelect platform.[21]<\/sup><\/a> Changes in distribution and discovery methods over the past number of years likely contributed to the rate of turnover in these charts, with the average age of songs on the CCLI top 25 moving from 17 years old in 1997 to 7 years in 2015.[22]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n The ideological home of CWM is in the local church congregation, but modern recording and distribution avenues create several other possibilities for listening to and performing CWM alone or with others. Monique Ingalls\u2019s 2018 book Singing the Congregation: How Contemporary Worship Music Forms Evangelical Community <\/em>examines CWM in contexts including church services, Christian mega-conferences, public performances in parades, and online communities created through YouTube \u201clyric videos\u201d of CWM songs. Ingalls calls each of these \u201cconstellations \u2018congregations\u2019 and the activities that form them \u2018modes of congregating.\u2019\u201d[23]<\/sup><\/a> She argues that each of these modes \u201cinclude but extend far beyond the weekly gatherings of local institutional churches, revealing conflicts over musical authority and carrying broader implications for how evangelical Christianity positions itself relative to other groups in North American society.\u201d[24]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 While I limit my analysis to particular elements of performance within church congregation performances of CWM, my aim here is to develop arguments useful for considering how these performances relate to musical and non-musical practices outside of Sunday mornings.<\/p>\n Despite the prevalence of CWM on the popular music charts\u2014and that it just might be the most performed music in North America outside of lullabies\u2014it remains underrepresented in musicological work, although this is beginning to change.[25]<\/sup><\/a> The aims of this article are to expand upon existing work in this area and to lay the groundwork for additional work on CWM. Performances of spiritual and ethical values within musical practice can be analyzed in several ways, and I begin with an investigation of performative roles in CWM.<\/p>\n Keith Sawyer, in his article \u201cThe Improvisational Performance of Everyday Life,\u201d makes the argument that everyday life involves both relying on established scripts and improvisation.[26]<\/sup><\/a> Some situations\u2014such as ordering food at a restaurant\u2014are heavily scripted in that they have predictable start and end points, goals, and rely upon repeated social and verbal conventions. These scripted situations retain the ability to break from them in small or large ways, leaving improvisational space. Other activities\u2014such as having a conversation with a friend on a walk\u2014are more improvisational, open to variance and change in direction. Yet even these seemingly non-directed situations retain some structure and script through existing knowledge of language, short verbal scripts repeated to show active listening, and the structure imposed by having a conversation on a walk. Elsewhere I\u2019ve argued that all musical experience is improvisational because \u201cimprovised action is negotiated with other people,\u201d leading to the argument that \u201cimprovisation\u2014as the negotiation of contingencies\u2014occurs both within musical experience and human relationships.\u201d[27]<\/sup><\/a> I begin my analysis with a discussion of some of the performative roles of those involved in CWM, how these roles relate to existing \u201cscripts,\u201d and how the roles establish a foundation for the enactment of spiritual and ethical values.<\/p>\n The placement of performers and instrumentation in CWM establish performative roles, include those of leaders and followers. Musicians are located on the stage, and congregants in the rest of the hall. The standard setup of this musical practice coheres with the setup of modern rock concerts, including the placement and distribution of singers and instrumentalists, the sound system, visual projections, lighting and stage effects. Songs are often led by a singer playing acoustic guitar (or piano), with common instrumentation including drum kit, electric bass, a keyboard instrument, electric guitar, and background vocalists. Musicians on the stage are amplified, creating a sonic difference between the leaders and audience. While performance volume varies in churches, some churches aim for levels as high as 90-95 decibels and hand out ear plugs at the door. The physical distribution of people in the space is in dialogue with several social situations (or, to put it in Sawyer\u2019s terms, \u201cscripts\u201d). The similarity to popular music concerts establishes the importance, authority, and leadership of those on stage. The pastor usually speaks from a location similar to that of the worship team leader, reinforcing musical authority by location. The location of projected lyrics above or beside musicians reinforces the orientation of the space, pointing the congregation sonically and visually towards the stage. While evangelical churches often include little fixed visual imagery, the stage is often the location of an often unadorned cross. If the church has an \u201caltar call,\u201d this often takes place at the edge of the stage. These vestiges of past church building practices draw upon the authority of past architectural scripts, just as vestiges of liturgy appear in the (often fairly rigid) order of service. These performative roles establish the authority not just of the music leaders, but of the music itself, meaning that the music has an important place within and beyond congregational performance.<\/p>\n My initial description of CWM stated that it adopts the musical styles of the surrounding culture. While this is correct, it is important to note that CWM\u2019s adoption of the surrounding musical culture is not complete, and all popular music genres are not equally considered appropriate. There remains a substantial gap between the musical genres represented on the Billboard Hot 100<\/em> and the most played CWM songs. Guitar-led music\u2014commonly, acoustic guitar with a healthy dose of delayed electric guitar\u2014ranging from contemporary indie to pop country is the norm, whereas the hip-hop\/R&B that dominates today\u2019s popular music is virtually absent from CWM. Despite the fact that only half of American evangelical Protestants under 30 are white,[28]<\/sup><\/a> particular musical genres and styles of dress overly represent a particular class of whiteness in CWM. Sonically, the influences of U2 and Coldplay dominate, with reverb drenched anthemic rock interlaced with intimate acoustic guitar or piano led ballads.[29]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Most songs adhere to the verse\/chorus\/bridge form fairly standard in much popular music. If hymns in strophic form are retained from earlier church music repertory, they are often adapted to this standard through the addition of a chorus, and sometimes also through the reduction of harmony in verses to heighten harmonic tension that is released in the chorus, as in Chris Tomlin\u2019s \u201cAmazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone).\u201d The musical specificity of CWM reveals how it exists in dialogue with other musical practices: \u201csimultaneously a popular music, a vernacular music, and a sacred music, contemporary worship music is distinct from traditional hymns, on the one hand, and Christian pop music for personal listening, on the other.\u201d[30]<\/sup><\/a> While there is often a recognizable quality to CWM recordings, these recordings might also fit into recordings of these adjacent genres. Timothy Rommen develops an argument about \u201cthe ethics of style,\u201d wherein \u201cbeliefs and convictions and animating questions of identity\u201d are \u201cexpressed in and through musical style.\u201d[31]<\/sup><\/a> Although Rommen developed the argument in an analysis of the musical practices of the Trinidadian Full Gospel community, it would seem to also apply to performances within CWM.<\/p>\n The historical debates and church splits based upon musical style\u2014most recently the \u201cworship wars\u201d of the 1980s and 1990s\u2014should be warning enough not to ignore musical sound and genre. CWM musical style seems to be valued when it fulfills the function of bringing people together and opening access to the transcendental. Drawing upon both the work of Birgit Meyer and Benedict Anderson, Ingalls examines the ways that music establishes imagined religious communities. Quoting Meyer, Ingalls states that \u201csensational forms are religious media and associated practices that are \u2018attributed with a sense of immediacy through which the distance between believers and the transcendental is transcended\u2019 and thus are used to \u2018invoke and organize . . . access to the transcendental\u2019 among religious practitioners.\u201d[32]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 The clearest application of these ideas to CWM might be from a social media post I saw a few years ago, where an image of a highly produced and choreographed CWM performance was accompanied by a caption that indicated this experience was a taste of heaven. The popular music concert arrangement seems to reinforce the centrality of music, but in CWM the value of music is to enable the corporate singing through which the transcendental is accessed. It seems that predictability and standardization are part of what allows this transcendence to take place.<\/p>\n Standardized musical form, instrumentation, and predictable melodic contour allows a congregation to learn a song faster. It also establishes scripted expectations of standardized emotional and embodied responses from the congregation. For example, the rise in musical intensity in the anticipation of the chorus is easily perceptible by the congregation, and the release of the chorus is often responded to with louder singing and\/or a bodily response. Interestingly, as the \u201cpraise and worship\u201d predecessor to CWM spread outwards from charismatic congregations and \u201cevangelical churches adopted praise and worship music, they frequently also adopted accompanying charismatic practices (such as raising hands and more expressive bodily worship) and its social organization of music-making.\u201d[33]<\/sup><\/a> In other words, the reception of musical forms, repeated and often modelled by song leaders, creates a perceived value of how to perform spirituality. The standardization of these practices has birthed a cottage industry of parodies aimed at insiders to these musical experiences, including \u201cSunday Morning,\u201d a video that parodies churches aiming to be \u201ccontemporvant\u201d (that is, contemporary and relevant), and the Babylon Bee\u2019s lament about the “Worship Leader Caught In Infinite Loop Between Bridge And Chorus.\u201d[34]<\/sup><\/a> Theodor Adorno, of course, was highly critical of the standardization in music form and response in popular music, claiming that such responses do not encourage critical engagement.[35]<\/sup><\/a> The implications of the current concentration of songwriters, distributors, and standardized musical forms in CWM should be considered carefully in light of the criticisms of Adorno and others, especially when this standardization is often either masked or valued in local church performances and individual devotional acts.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most pervasive script in CWM is singing with others. This means that despite the leader\/follower dynamic, corporate singing is perhaps the most central feature of CWM. Even the sonic elements of many CWM recordings reflect singing together (typically through techniques including: live recordings, studio recordings with background vocals similar to a congregation, and\/or recordings highly saturated in reverb to reference an imaginary live space). CWM thus takes sides in a long debate about the role of church music that, while too long to trace here, can be captured in a pair of quotations from C.S. Lewis. On one hand, Lewis claims that musical excellence is most important for its own sake, regardless of the performer: \u201cAn excellently performed piece of music, as a natural operation which reveals in a very high degree the peculiar powers given to man, will thus always glorify God whatever the intention of the performers may be.\u201d[36]<\/sup><\/a> Lewis seems to argue that the sonic elements of music are what endows it with value to God. Elsewhere, however, Lewis identifies the importance of the attitude of the performer:<\/p>\n I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit.[37]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Lewis does not back down from his claim that aesthetic quality is good in itself, but in this case the attitude of the performer singing \u201cwith devotion\u201d makes up for the lack of aesthetic quality (at least with the proviso that this applies to someone Lewis identifies as lower class that might not have the educational capacity to agree with his aesthetic judgment). In both views, music is an important part of worship, but only in the latter view is congregational singing a value in itself. Performances of CWM extend the latter view, seeming to value above all else sung participation. The most valued singing is in line with the description of Lewis, that is, singing with devotion. These values\u2014which I\u2019ll return to in the final section\u2014are in line with those of \u201cauthenticity,\u201d the Romantic era conception that values musical creation as a \u201cnatural\u201d expression coherent with the rest of life. These values have lionized imagined compositional processes of Mozart and Beethoven,[38]<\/sup><\/a> folk musics around the world, and blues from the American south.[39]<\/sup><\/a> Taking these values into account, the script of singing CWM with devotion is a marker of a life of devotion.[40]<\/sup><\/a> Yet CWM holds ideals of authenticity in tension. It values personal devotion within a singing collective, rather than the Romantic ideal of the Beethoven-like lone genius. Collective singing is the site of performances of individual spirituality.<\/p>\n The form of corporate singing marks events where there is at least an assumption shared purpose or belief. It performs a relation of unity while regulating it at the same time. Collective singing establishes power through the creation or enactment of a unified voice, and with it a set of shared values and responsibilities. Singing together is not unique to Christianity. Most national anthems invite collective singing. Collective singing featured in social resistance movements including the American civil rights movement and the Estonian \u201csinging revolution.\u201d Yet even as collective singing performs togetherness, it also enforces it and in the process excludes those outside of the unified group. Singing together can also be interpreted as a loss of individuality and blending into a group. Singing together, one example of entrainment, has what Ian Cross calls \u201cshared intentionality,\u201d as participants have made the decision to sing with others.[41]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 At the same time as creating a shared ground for inter-relational experiences, entrainment with one group of people can result in ignoring responsibilities to other people. Corporate singing, marching, and chanting can be useful for entraining a group (of soldiers, athletes, fans at a sporting match, and so on) to work together to defeat another group of people who\u2014at least for a time\u2014are not considered other people that need to be responded to ethically. The tension of togetherness and individuality is evident in the analysis of several performative elements of CWM, including lyrical content.<\/p>\n In collective singing, lyrical content contributes to the performances of spirituality, the ways singers relate to the music and others, and perceived ethical responsibilities. Although lyrics need to be seen as more than texts set to music\u2014they would not hold similar prominence in congregational services if they were not set to music\u2014it is worthwhile investigating how the performances of these texts contribute to the performances of spiritual and ethical values in CWM. In addition, a textual approach seems important to consider in a religious tradition that relies upon and highly values text. Congregational song texts are often selected to reflect a theological belief, and this theological belief is considered from God, who in the end is arbiter of what is good. From the standpoint of ethical theory, the view that \u201cmorality is somehow dependent upon God\u201d or \u201cthat moral obligation consists in obedience to God\u2019s commands\u201d is termed divine command theory.[42]<\/sup><\/a> In Christianity, these obligations are to love God and love neighbour.[43]<\/sup><\/a> Just what these obligations mean, however, is a source of constant debate, especially at this historical moment in America with blurred lines between Evangelicalism and particular political views. In short, key here is that song texts play a role in identifying important values and responsibilities for the congregant, and these values are reinforced by regularized singing.<\/p>\n One way to begin discussing spiritual values within the performance of sung texts is to examine what can be called the \u201csubject position\u201d of the congregant, a term Eric Clarke borrows from film studies to describe the \u201cway in which characteristics of the musical material shape the general character of a listener\u2019s response or engagement.\u201d[44]<\/sup><\/a> One reason Clarke develops the concept of subject position is to avoid the common pitfalls of relativism and determinism. Both of these positions have been dominant within the history of Christian church music. Determinism\u2014that music\u2019s meaning is determined by something outside of human experience\u2014animates arguments from John Chrystostom\u2019s claims about \u201cinstruments of deceit\u201d[45]<\/sup><\/a> to worries that contemporary popular music genres ethically compromise listeners.[46]<\/sup><\/a> Relativism\u2014that music\u2019s meaning is whatever we make it\u2014animates arguments from Luther and CWM claims that church music should be set to the music of the surrounding culture.[47]<\/sup><\/a> In contrast, subject position provides one way to meaningfully discuss how being asked to identify themselves in relation to the music.[48]<\/sup><\/a> Clarke\u2019s work examines listeners of a completed piece of music, but this situation is a bit more complex, as the listener is also a singer and actively contributes to shaping the performance. Subject position is a useful approach for an analysis of congregational singing, and the following analysis models one way to expand the concept of subject position into musical performance more generally.<\/p>\n While a number of useful approaches could be taken to examine subject position and lyrics, one entry point is to aim to identify trends in lyrical content. As previously discussed, Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) is the copyright license body for most CWM publishers and copyright holders. Individual churches use CCLI for legal coverage to display or print lyrics and record church services, among other things.[49]<\/sup><\/a> Churches report their copying activity over a six month period every two and a half years. In any six month reporting period, 15,000-20,000 churches are reporting, and CCLI aims for diversity of denomination and other factors in each reporting period so that royalty distributions can be representative of what is performed in churches.[50]<\/sup><\/a> This data is used to determine songs most used in churches every year. The latest data by country is published on its website, providing a significant overview of trends in Christian congregational music.<\/p>\n In what follows, I draw upon the top 25 songs performed in the United States as of late 2015 (see Appendix 1 for the list of the songs). It must be noted, however, that this data has important limitations. First, it only includes information for churches that license music legally. Given the wide digital access to song charts and texts, some churches may knowingly or unknowingly be involved in illegal activity that is not captured in this data. Second, several assumptions are made in these calculations that may compromise the data. Relying upon self-reporting and sampling is more practical to administrate, but it does compromise the granularity of the data. This is not a major concern here, however, as I am looking at wider trends. Third, while this data provides an overview of evangelical congregational music, it does not help to illuminate the concerns of individual congregations or denominations. Further research could be done to examine practices of song selection in individual congregations. Despite these limitations, this data is useful to identify trends in the songs most performed in churches, and can be used in analyses of song texts, authorship, and musical form.<\/p>\n The majority of lyrics within the song set include some sort of declarative statements about God, including theological claims about the nature of God, God\u2019s relation to humanity, or biblical narrative. For example, the song \u201cThis I believe\u201d (Ben Fielding, Matt Crocker) modifies the text to the Apostles Creed, establishing \u201cI believe\u201d statements followed by foundational theological statements. Such sung statements cohere with texts in the rest of the service in that the texts aim to present theological claims that the faithful should believe. In most Evangelical services, the only texts that are performed by the congregants are sung worship. A congregant sits silently listening to a sermon, and may agree or disagree with the content of the sermon without outward sign. Even if singing a song does not guarantee agreement with the theological positions in the text, singing these declarative texts with others performs agreement and the corporate formation of theological identity.<\/p>\n Often these declarative statements about God are matched with pronouns that implicate the singers, which in this case includes both the song leader and the congregants. All songs in the top 25 from 2015 used either first person singular (\u201cme\u201d, \u201cI\u201d) or first person plural (\u201cwe,\u201d \u201cus\u201d).\u00a0 Roughly a third were congregational songs using \u201cus,\u201d \u201cour,\u201d and \u201cwe,\u201d suggest collective responsibility; that is, that values and actions in response to belief are shared with others. However, textual statements referencing responsibilities to others\u2014ethical or otherwise\u2014are largely absent from worship music. In other words, it is rare to find a statement about loving your neighbour either in the abstract or in other ways mentioned in scripture, such as the parable of the good Samaritan.<\/p>\n The lack of such statements could be explained in a couple of ways. One possibility is that evangelicalism\u2019s disagreements about what loving others means in act and in political view\u2014especially in an era where certain parts of evangelicalism align with particular political positions\u2014make statements about responding to others more of a distraction than a unifying point. The more likely possibility is the belief that worship is a time set apart to do the prescribed work of worshipping God. Performing these texts involves ethical response towards God, and even when dominated by the first person plural the lyrics take up a position that include both the individual and group responding to God.\u2060 For example, three songs in this set are dominated by the \u201cwe\u201d subject position but also include the individual in at least one section. One of the songs includes the subject position of the song leader. But even if love for fellow human beings is rarely included, it is common for worship songs to express love for God or make claims about God\u2019s love for people. An example of the latter is the song \u201cHow deep the Father\u2019s love for us\u201d (Stuart Townend). Several songs are dominated by declarative statements about God, and in the chorus or bridge turn to response statements. These texts not only perform theological belief, but also perform appropriate responses to theological belief.<\/p>\n The other two-thirds of these songs use the first person singular. The responsibilities inferred in these texts appear to be solely those of the singer to God, and seemingly function as personal devotion whether used alone or with others.[51]<\/sup><\/a> The digital distribution of recordings of these songs creates possibilities for individual listening in the background of personal devotional times, so these \u201cI\u201d songs seem to have additional flexibility in their usage. But even these first person singular texts, when sung together with others, perform a \u201cwe.\u201d The tension between performing together and making individual lyrical statements performs the tension between the ideas that spirituality is primarily an individual endeavour and the concept that spirituality is corporate. \u2060Perhaps parallel tensions can be found in Christianity between the idea of individual spirituality and the centrality of the church as a collective.<\/p>\n A final pronoun to consider is \u201cyou.\u201d The majority (84 percent) of songs in this set establish the \u201cyou\u201d in songs as God.[52]<\/sup><\/a> Common patterns in songs are to refer to God in a mix of pronouns, often referring to God in the third person before turning to God as \u201cyou.\u201d For example, the opening of \u201c10,000 Reasons (Bless The Lord)\u201d (Jonas Myrin\/Matt Redman) moves from \u201cHis\u201d to \u201cYour\u201d across the first verse: \u201cBless the Lord oh my soul Oh my soul \/ Worship His Holy name \/ Sing like never before \/ Oh my soul \/ I\u2019ll worship Your Holy name.\u201d Sometimes the shift from declarative or third person statements about God as \u201cyou\u201d occur in more intense musical sections such as the bridge. In \u201cThis I Believe (the Creed)\u201d (Ben Fielding\/Matt Crocker), for example, the most prominent use of \u201cyou\u201d occurs in the intensive bridge section that begins with \u201cI believe in You \/ I believe You rose again.\u201d Often\u2014as in this example\u2014\u201cyou\u201d is complemented by \u201cI,\u201d seemingly increasing the intimacy between the singer and God. This pairing is also evident in \u201cHere I am to Worship\u201d (Tim Hughes): \u201cHere I am to worship \/ Here I am to bow down \/ Here I am to say that You\u2019re my God.\u201d The use of \u201cI\u201d and \u201cYou\u201d together often represents the musical and spiritual climax of the song, wherein the congregation singing together becomes individual relation with God in the company of others.<\/p>\n Other songs mix the specific addressing of God with the other pronouns discussed earlier. This mixing is evident in the first verse and chorus of \u201cThis is Amazing Grace,\u201d (Jeremy Riddle\/Josh Farro\/Phil Wickham), one of the most performed songs in the period of the study:[53]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Who breaks the power of sin and darkness<\/p>\n Whose love is mighty and so much stronger<\/p>\n The King of Glory, the King above all kings<\/p>\n Who shakes the whole earth with holy thunder<\/p>\n And leaves us breathless in awe and wonder<\/p>\n The King of Glory, the King above all kings<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is amazing grace<\/p>\n This is unfailing love<\/p>\n That You would take my place<\/p>\n That You would bear my cross<\/p>\n You lay down Your life<\/p>\n That I would be set free<\/p>\n Oh, Jesus, I sing for<\/p>\n All that You’ve done for me<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In the verse, the questions of the congregation about God are answered with repeated declarative statements, seemingly indebted both to the historical church practice of responsive readings and to the call and response of blues forms wherein the call of a similar melody is repeated over the tonic and subdominant chords before moving to the response. The chorus begins with declarative statements about the significance of God\u2019s actions, and then is personalized, stating what God (you\/your) has done for me (my\/I). The final lines identify the singing that is taking place and the purpose of the singing. Taken together, this song and CWM as a whole could be considered as a technology of intimacy: once correct beliefs are established, intimacy can be had with others who share these beliefs, as well as direct intimacy between individual singer and God without intermediary.<\/p>\n This analysis of pronouns and subject position only scratches the surface in terms of the work that might be done. One further approach is to investigate and compare trends across historical times and religious denominations. To provide a brief comparison to past Protestant practices, a sampling of 20 hymns by Martin Luther reveals roughly an inversion of the lyrical content above in contemporary CWM: almost a fifth were completely declarative without an identified subject position, almost a fifth were personal, and two thirds collective.[54]<\/sup><\/a> Additionally, work could be done to examine the relation between lyrical content and a wider consideration of the perceived spiritual and ethical values of believers in particular socio-historical contexts. And, finally, the reception of musical genre and musical instruments might play a role in marking specific kinds of music making as individual or corporate.<\/p>\n An additional lyrical trend across this song set demonstratesa self-consciousness of singing. Approximately one third of the CCLI top 25 songs in late 2015 identify explicitly that the activity currently undertaken is singing, and sometimes identifies the function of singing. The act of musical performance is made explicit through the lyrics, and singing is often identified as an important element of spirituality. Such statements seem to play a pedagogical role, identifying what sort of work the singing is doing in the development of spirituality. In other words, the self-identification of the process of singing shows the congregant what sort of labour singing is and singing\u2019s ethical import. This is important to establish why singing is included as a central part of the church service.<\/p>\n To take an example, in \u201cHow Great is Our God,\u201d the lyrics invoke voice and singing in several different ways, from the voice of God (darkness \u201ctrembles at His voice\u201d), to the singing voice (\u201csing with me \/ How great is our God\u201d), to a singing heart (\u201cworthy of our praise \/ My heart will sing \/ How great is our God\u201d), to the entire world singing (\u201cthe whole world sings \/ How great is our God\u201d). The text establishes several connections with singing. Singing is declaration and attests to the greatness of God. Singing is something people do together, and declaration of the greatness of God is done with others. Singing is the spiritual and ethical response to a God who deserves worship. Other songs establish similar connections for singing. In the bridge of the song \u201cMighty to Save\u201d, the performance is contextualized by the lyrics \u201cWe’re singing \/ for the glory of the risen King Jesus.\u201d These lyrics, repeated several times, are set to a faster moving melody and a more intense accompaniment than the rest of the song. Returning to \u201cHow Great is Our God,\u201d singing is something that is not limited to human beings. Sung worship appears to be the natural response of the whole world. It is unclear whether the \u201cwhole world\u201d refers to all people or to everything in the world, but this text may be a reference to Luke 19:37-40, where Jesus states that even if his followers did not use their voices to praise God, the stone would cry out. These song texts make sung worship the natural response of believers.<\/p>\n \u201cHow Great is Our God\u201d reflects a long standing view that worshipping God is the end of the life of the faithful, and one way\u2014if not the primary way\u2014to achieve this end is through song.<\/a> An important movement here is equating congregational singing and worship, or what Monique Ingalls details as the \u201cevangelical \u2018sonicization of worship,\u2019\u201d:<\/p>\n Joshua Busman writes that, beginning in the 1970s as an outgrowth of practices within evangelical youth movements, \u2018worship became a category of experience that was increasingly indistinguishable from music. Even more specifically, worship became equivalent to singing along with pop-styled songs that featured acoustic guitar accompaniment.\u2019[56]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Put another way, worship is identified as a musical practice, but at the same time not all music is worship. Ingalls writes that \u201ccontemporary worship music enables evangelicals to erect and maintain boundaries between the activities of worship and entertainment as it makes audible the contours of their religious community in relationship to the broader society.\u201d[57]<\/sup><\/a> CWM might be considered to function as an \u201cearcon\u201d\u2014the aural equivalent to an icon\u2014that sonically marks the fulfillment of the ultimate ethical responsibility of the believer: worshipping God.<\/a> These sounds identify and perform communities that use music to respond to and access the transcendental.<\/p>\n Several Protestants have argued that since singing embodies community and is worship, it is more appropriate than music performed for an audience of listeners. Donald Hustad, for example, argues that \u201csince worship is the \u2018work of the people,\u2019 it is hardly debatable that the central\u2014and only indispensable\u2014music of the church is congregational song.\u201d[59]<\/sup><\/a> He even goes so far to say that evangelicals are \u201cpeople of two books, the Bible and the hymnal.\u201d[60]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Along the same lines, Charles Swindoll writes the following in a forward to a hymnal:<\/a><\/p>\n I can think of no more glorious sound than a body of people who love their Lord, singing and making melody in their hearts\u2026As my music minister has often said, \u2018If you don’t love to sing, then why in the world would you ever want to go to heaven?\u2019[61}<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The spiritual and ethical values of singing together\u2014values that required explicit argument in the past century\u2014have come to fulfillment in CWM, where worship and singing become one and the same.<\/p>\n At the start of this article I delineated the boundaries of CWM, but throughout I have used words surrounding spiritual and ethical values (including spirituality, ethics, and ethical responsibility) without specifically defining the terms. This has been an intentional move, as the aim here is not to begin with particular notions of ethics or spirituality and then look for them in the performances. Rather, I began with an exploration of how spiritual and ethical values are performed in CWM, in the process reproducing past values and constructing new values.[62]<\/sup><\/a> It is worth noting that these terms\u2014\u201cspirituality\u201d and \u201cethics\u201d\u2014have increased in frequency of use since the early 1980s, and what the terms refer to has undoubtably changed with the increased usage.[63]<\/sup><\/a> For example, the resurgence of the popularity of the \u201cethics,\u201d as I explore elsewhere, occurs in the wake of the social movements of the 1960s.[64]<\/sup><\/a> CWM, therefore, is positioned after the rise of the usage of these words but still within the contemporary period where public and academic discussions about ethics and spirituality continue. While I cannot fully delineate these values here, in this final section I raise a few lines of questioning from the above analysis, pointing to sites for future investigation for considering the role of CWM in musical, spiritual, and ethical values.<\/p>\n One prominent value in CWM is authenticity. CWM performances value performers who express their true beliefs through the music, sincerely worshipping God in the process. Yet ideals of authenticity are often conflicting, as authenticity can sometimes refer to attaining a past ideal, sometimes to absolute individuality uninfluenced by others, and sometimes to a sense of \u201cbeing true\u201d to oneself. The ideals of authenticity, which grew in the Romantic era and have been reformed in new ways along with the resurgence of ethics and spirituality, have important links to music.[65]<\/sup><\/a> In the demystification of religion in the 19th<\/sup> century, music rose to prominence as a vehicle for \u201cauthentic\u201d transcendent experience. forms, and remains a value in all musical experience as well as a link between music and spirituality.[66]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n CWM extends past ideals of musical authenticity through the idea that music is a \u201clanguage of the emotions,\u201d highly individual but also universal. Swindoll, directly after the quotation cited earlier from the foreword of a hymnal, writes that \u201cmusic has its own international language, breaking down cultural barriers, cutting across age differences, and erasing denominational lines.\u201d[67]<\/sup><\/a> Swindoll here repeats Romantic ideals, and these Romantic ideals remain foundational in CWM. It is important to note, however, that in each case claims about music\u2019s universality only apply to a musical genre that is familiar to the person making the claim. For example, worthwhile future study might explore the way notions of authenticity in CWM are wrapped up in the reception history of the acoustic guitar.[68]<\/sup><\/a> The contemporary shift to authenticity as an ethical value has been discussed and criticized in Charles Taylor\u2019s The Ethics of Authenticity <\/em>and more recently in Simon Feldman\u2019s Against Authenticity: Why You Shouldn\u2019t be Yourself<\/em>.[69]<\/sup><\/a> More work is necessary to consider the role of these ideas of authenticity within CWM, as well as how those involved in the practice might respond to the conflicting and problematic values that come along with notions of authenticity.<\/p>\n Indebted to the movements of the 1960s and popularized in the reception of Foucault, much contemporary discourse surrounding ethics involves ideas of power. Crudely put, the argument here is that ethical values can be seen as the values inflicted upon others by those who have power. While reducing ethics to exercises of power can be criticized as overly simple, it is worth carefully considering how ethical and spiritual values are affected by the increased power in the centralization of CWM production and distribution, paired with the standardization of musical forms and sounds in CWM. Ideals about how music enables access to God and relation to others are influenced through recordings, radio, social media, church mega-conferences, and powerful evangelical leaders. These ideals can then become expectations imposed by congregants upon the local church, creating a perceived responsibility on the church for instrumentation, sound quality, and relations between song leader, musicians and congregation. These centralized products also establish standard musical expressions of faith, creating for the congregant a perceived responsibility of how to relate and respond to others. In short, musical performances of spirituality are mediated by a Christian culture industry.[70]<\/sup><\/a> Might CWM standardization and centralization be a cause and\/or a symptom of wider evangelical centralizations of power, monetization of church products, and apparent authoritarian streaks evidenced in some church leaders[71]<\/sup><\/a>? Might the emphasis within such churches of submitting to church authority be also evident in the responsibilities and values established in musical performances?<\/p>\n Further questions might be asked about the performance of a fairly standard repertoire of songs across a wide spectrum of theological belief. A sympathetic view of contemporary worship music might celebrate its ability to bring together people of diverse social, political and theological positions through music. After a century that saw more divisions within church denominations than the rest of Christian history, perhaps the uniquely musical experience of singing together might perform inter-denominational relationships. Whereas the ecumenical movement of the 1990s was theological, perhaps the ecumenical movement of the early 21st century is musical.[72]<\/sup><\/a> Yet there may be unintended consequences should ecumenicism be formed through a standardized product. To take one example, Christian-run charities still remain prominent in areas including relief work, and it is unclear what the effect of a unified musical practice might have upon activities where spirituality is linked to ethical responsibilities to those beyond the bounds of the congregation. For example, might it be possible to ask about how CWM performs spiritual and ethical values relating to the needs of refugees, especially given such polar responses by Christians to the Syrian refugee crisis? What levels of conformity and divergence in politics are there in the 50 million who weekly sing Hillsong music?<\/p>\n In this article, I have only scratched the surface of the complexities of the performances of spiritual and ethical values in CWM. Additional performative elements could be raised (some of which I plan to raise elsewhere), and those that were raised could be discussed in additional depth. I have aimed, however, to show the value of examining performances of CWM, and provided examples of how this analysis is necessary to understand and reflect upon evangelical notions of spiritual and ethical values.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Appendix<\/strong> 1: CCLI top 25 in the USA, late 2015<\/strong><\/p>\nWhat is Contemporary Worship Music?<\/h2>\n
Performative roles<\/h2>\n
Lyrical values<\/h2>\n
Singing as the responsibility of the faithful<\/h2>\n
Spiritual and Ethical Values in CWM<\/h2>\n
\n
Bibliography<\/h3>\n