Popular Music in Evangelical Youth Culture
Macquarie University (Australia)
Popular Music in Evangelical Youth Culture is part of the Routledge Studies in Religion series, and in it, author Stella Sai-Chun Lau sets out to “study the relationship between popular music and evangelical Christianity” (1). More specifically she is interested in how “electronic dance music is assimilated into Christian practices and how the use of such music is justified and legitimized by discourses and individuals’ beliefs” (2). This is an important topic and certainly little attention has been paid to the use of EDM within Christian, especially evangelical, liturgies. Moreover, even the role of “secular” music within Christian liturgy remains sadly neglected, and here Lau has succeeded in broadening the scope of academic inquiry in this area. That said, the volume is uneven in approach and tends to open up dialogue more than it contributes solid, verifiable arguments.
One of the biggest issues with the book, coming as it does from Lau’s doctoral studies, is that it still presents largely as a doctoral thesis. The early pages are bogged down in brief definitional work that, while important, could have been rephrased and worked through the flow of the argument. Perhaps it has been stripped back for publication, but it also leads to short, often cursory definitions that needed to be fleshed out more fully. Definitions lead to research context leads to literature review material in a predictable template. Some of the latter sections work better than others: “Christianity and Popular Music” begins with a small list from the available literature, but then finds its straps in mapping out relevant writings on Contemporary Christian Music, while “The Emerging Church” is quite sparse and tends to merely direct the reader to later chapters—a good indication that the material could have waited until then. Other sections like “Inter-Disciplinarity” could have been deleted all together.
Perhaps the biggest issue underpinning the book is the methodology that was used to develop the research. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with the approaches chosen, merely the scope of the research itself. Lau is most forthcoming in this: “the data about this Christian group was mainly collected over a period of a few days . . . . Therefore, the research data that is used . . . could have been more thorough if I had been able to spend a longer time with the Christian groups” (24). Other chapters/sections are based on one night of research, while the bulk of the book is built on a more substantial two-week stint in Ibiza. The problem with the latter, as honestly laid out by the author, is that she was part of a short-term ministry team there to evangelise to people in the EDM scene. As Lau notes, her dual purpose “created a certain level of tension” (108) that she clearly tried to resolve, but when Lau states that she “was not treated differently as a result of my research agenda based on my observations within the team” (108), it remains hard to see how that was the case. Lau clearly feels she has walked this tightrope, though to the objective reader, especially in light of some of the subjective (Christian) language that creeps in, it is difficult to believe.
The volume clearly needed a stronger edit in terms of structure and language. Phrases such as “I had some good conversations with four different people outside the team” (115)”, “I could sense that they were having a somewhat blissful time” (117) and “The rise of importance of personal relationships” (132) do little to help the cause of studies in contemporary Christian music and its various incarnations, which are already marginalized by the academy. I am a little surprised that Routledge did not pick up on these (easily fixable) problems, or that they didn’t resolve to improve the resolution of what could have been most useful fieldwork photographs.
As noted at the outset, this is an uneven volume with some sections padded with details well-known already, while others contribute useful, innovate insights to the discipline. Chapter One discusses the historical uses of popular music in Christian contexts with Lau choosing to start her conversation with the Jesus People Movement. This is a perfectly apt place to begin, despite there being many historical instances she could have claimed prior. Yet this section is too long relative to the rest of the volume and doesn’t provide any new material, and merely brings together the story once more from limited sources. Likewise, the discussion of “Alterative Worship” in Chapter Two brings together some useful ideas on how alternative worship is being constructed in a musical sense (including a great section on the Nine O’Clock Service—one of the pioneering alternative worship spaces in the world) before moving into a web-based survey of alterative worship groups around the world. I know from the Australian examples cited that little (or no) EDM is part of them, and nor is the information particularly up-to-date (even allowing for publishing lags). Chapter Three is by far the strongest of the volume, providing a compelling discussion of the Christian music ministry organization New Generation Ministries (NGM) in Bristol. Despite the methodological concerns raised above, here Lau usefully makes the connection between the use of popular (and we might add secular) music and the emerging church. Chapter Four, the Ibiza chapter, needed to focus more on the sonic qualities of the music and include deeper analysis of particular tracks in order to deepen the reader’s understanding. The author is clearly capable of this and future research would certainly benefit from strengthening this area. More analytical depth would have helped negate the small, subjective nature of the fieldwork. Much of Chapter Five, which considers various encounters of alternative worship and EDM in New York, presents standard material that is well-removed from popular music studies. When Lau finally arrives at the study of New York church Tribe, however, there are important points made, particularly in light of DeNora’s (2000) work. Lau provides excellent examples to prove that contemporary Christian worship “has prized music experience over the content in music” (157). Her conclusions about predominantly wordless EDM being important in alternative worship settings (162) needs to be followed up by other researchers.
What Lau manages to achieve in this volume is to open up the discussion on the intersection of popular music and contemporary Christian music (and liturgy). Based on her research she suggests that “the ideologies about certain genres of music being more ‘religious’ than others also affect the ways in which the academic debate on popular music and religion are formed” (170). This is an important point, and well-made through her study of EDM in alternative worship settings. She goes on to conclude that “Whether a genre is ‘authorised’ or not, it hinges on the openness of those in mainstream Christian leadership to new music genres that are of interest to young people” (170), and so too, the academic discipline of contemporary Christian music is bettered by those willing to pursue music at the margins of the field.
DeNora, Tia. 2000. Music in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.