Overview

This unique volume brings together wide-ranging research that could only be written by someone singularly expert in the full range of Christian worship and music from ancient to modern. These essays by Wendy Porter span eras and areas of study from the New Testament to the present and encompass an expansive view of worship, music, and liturgy. Some focus on what is known (or not) about early Christian worship, including the early creeds and hymns in the New Testament and whether music originated in Jewish or Greco-Roman contexts. Some introduce firsthand work on ancient liturgical manuscripts, such as a sixth-century manuscript by hymnwriter and preacher Romanos Melodus or a tenth-century ekphonetic liturgical manuscript. Extending her research on sixteenth-century English composers as musical interpreters, Porter includes several papers on how musicians have functioned as theological interpreters in worship and music. One chapter engages theological comparisons between well-known compositions by Bach, Beethoven, and Stravinsky, another creatively explores what contemporary worship leaders can learn from sixteenth-century songwriter and worship leader William Byrd, while others invite thoughtful reflection on what we can all learn if we stop to consider how Christians have functioned and fared in their worship through the centuries.

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Reviews

""Wendy J. Porter has offered the church an unusual perspective of the interchange between worship, music and interpretation in the life of Christian worship over time. Porter is successful in interweaving her findings into an insightful contribution to help alleviate the common tendency to bifurcate areas of study. Porter's scholarly and mature work should be read by every serious practitioner of musical worship."" --Constance Cherry, professor emeritus, Indiana Wesleyan University ""Wendy Porter's essays are a wonderful gift to the church. Deeply rooted in biblical text and the history of worship through music, she offers a series of important probes that remind us of the importance and challenges of music in worship. All who are engaged in leading and planning worship need to read and reflect on these important papers."" --David Firth, tutor in Old Testament, Trinity College Bristol ""Understanding contemporary worship is difficult for contemporary people because you can't read the label from inside the bottle. In this collection, Dr. Wendy Porter uses her skills as a musicologist and liturgical historian to lead readers outside the bottle, deftly exploring how music has interpreted and expressed the Christian faith. Page after page shines fresh light that will help scholars, students, and practitioners of Christian worship."" --Dr. Matthew Westerholm, professor of church music & worship, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary ""Porter's Worship, Music, and Interpretation brings together thirty years of scholarship. Her essays--which address music and texts set to music from Old Testament times to the twenty-first century--draw attention to the complex diversity of Christian musical expression while highlighting continuous functions of ""contemporary"" composers of every generation. Highly recommended!"" --Joshua A. Waggener, professor of church music and worship, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Author Information

Wendy J. Porter is professor of music and worship at McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, where she teaches on worship, phenomenology, liturgy, and the life of the ministering person and leads MDC chapels. Porter has written numerous worship songs and recorded three highly acclaimed albums. She has authored New Testament Greek Papyri and Parchments (with Stanley E. Porter, 2008) and Early English Composers and the Credo (2022) and co-edited The Arts and the Bible (Pickwick 2024) and Secularism and the Pursuit of Transcendence (Pickwick forthcoming).

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