You are here

Pop Goes the Worship: The Influence of Popular Music on Contemporary Christian Music in the Evangelical Church

Download pdf | Full Screen View

Date Issued:
2007
Summary:
Worship music has always existed in church liturgy. The early Roman Catholic Church reserved music for an exclusive group of composers and performers. In rebellion, the common people worshipped privately with prayers in their own vernacular, to secular tunes. Martin Luther's Reformation during the Renaissance solidified worship as a congregational experience and marked the beginning of the Protestant Church. As Europeans and Africans migrated to colonial America, two different streams of music culture developed with interplay between sacred and secular influences. These two streams converged in the 1970s at the point of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), which imitated the music of pop culture in an effort to be culturally relevant and to evangelize unbelievers. The fundamental evangelical church uses CCM to worship and evangelize by adopting popular music styles and adapting them lyrically to reflect an acceptable spiritual viewpoint to the church and as a magnet to attract unbelievers.
Title: Pop Goes the Worship: The Influence of Popular Music on Contemporary Christian Music in the Evangelical Church.
322 views
110 downloads
Name(s): Risi, Patrice
Cunningham, James E., Thesis advisor
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Date Created: 2007
Date Issued: 2007
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 117 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: Worship music has always existed in church liturgy. The early Roman Catholic Church reserved music for an exclusive group of composers and performers. In rebellion, the common people worshipped privately with prayers in their own vernacular, to secular tunes. Martin Luther's Reformation during the Renaissance solidified worship as a congregational experience and marked the beginning of the Protestant Church. As Europeans and Africans migrated to colonial America, two different streams of music culture developed with interplay between sacred and secular influences. These two streams converged in the 1970s at the point of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), which imitated the music of pop culture in an effort to be culturally relevant and to evangelize unbelievers. The fundamental evangelical church uses CCM to worship and evangelize by adopting popular music styles and adapting them lyrically to reflect an acceptable spiritual viewpoint to the church and as a magnet to attract unbelievers.
Identifier: FA00000957 (IID)
Degree granted: Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2007.
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Subject(s): Popular music--History and criticism
Evangelicalism--United States
Christianity and culture--United States
Christian rock music--Criticism and interpretation
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Sublocation: Digital Library
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000957
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.