The Church and Music: A History

Starts September 14

This course will explore how the Church has confronted the music of the surrounding culture and how it has used music in its corporate worship from the time of Christ to the present. The weekly topics that we will cover include: Music and the Church, the first 400 years; Music and the Medieval Church; Music in the Reformation; Music in the English Reformation and the Wesleyan Revival; the Church and Music in American Society; the Church and Music today.

Each week, we will consider the changing ideas about culture and the function of the Church in society that shaped the Church's music in each stage of its development. We will also listen to and sing musical examples from each period of history. In our last session, we will consider the continuing debate within the American church over so-called traditional versus contemporary worship as we discover that many of the issues in this "new" debate have plagued the Church throughout history.

Group Leader: Stan Pelkey

Stan Pelkey is Director of Music and Organist at Old South United Methodist Church and a life long Methodist. He is also currently an Assistant Professor of Music at Gordon College. Trained as an organist, music historian, and scholar of European history, he brings an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the Church, its music, and its relationship with culture and the arts both in the past and in the present. He has published articles and presented many papers on the Wesleys, Handel, and other topics related to British music history