For those who are musically minded like myself, Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd's program on Unity.FM called "Let's Talk About It" will host the topic Make a Joyful Noise: Music as Worship, Theology, and Celebration.
This is an excellent topic for theological discussion within and outside of the Unity community. Indeed, music has been a central part of religious life in Christianity and other world religions. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors danced around fires and sang about the success of the hunt and to the Sacred for future successes. Hindu Vedic priests chanted the intricately prescribed Sanskrit words in elaborate rituals believed to appease the gods and bring about favor in human life. In the early Christian churches Christians gathered before dawn and sang hymns with each other to Christ, the Son of God and Savior of humanity.
In medieval Christendom, the Mass as a musical composition became a central component in worship, which not only set the time and organization for the service but also served as an aesthetic masterpiece of expression offered to the God of all creation.
However, music has sometimes become a "going-through-the-motions" with no gusto or spiritual fervor. This malady has been noticed and addressed in recent years with new musical movements that re-capture and re-conceive of music as an elemental part of spiritual expression, worship, and theological discourse. We can see this renaissance occurring not just in New Thought churches (in which it has had a profound impact) but also mainline and evangelical Protestant churches as well as Catholic and Eastern Orthodox congregations.
Check out this week's edition of "Let's Talk About It" on Friday Nov. 6 at 4pm CST at Unity.FM.
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