Music of Theology

<p>This book reconceives theology as a musical endeavour in critical tension with language space and silence. An Overture first moves us from music to religion and then from theology back to music – a circularity that drawing upon history sociology phenomenology and philosophy disclaims any theology of music and instead pursues the music <i>in </i>theology. The chapters that follow explore the three central themes by way of theory music and myth: Adorno Benjamin and Deleuze (language) Derrida Rosa and Nancy (space) Schelling/Hegel Homer and Cage (silence). In overdubbing each other these chapters work towards theology as a sonorous rhythm between loss and freedom. A Coda provides three brief musical examples – Thomas Tallis György Ligeti and Evan Parker – as manifestations of this rhythm to show in summary how music becomes the very pulse of theology and theology the very intuition of music. The authors offer an interdisciplinary engagement addressing fundamental questions of the self and the other of humanity and the divine in a deconstruction of modern culture and of its bias towards the eye over the ear. The book harmonizes three scholarly voices who attempt to find where the resonance of our Western conceptions and practice musically and theologically might resound anew as a more expansive music of theology.</p>