Island Gospel
Pentecostal Music and Identity in Jamaica and the United States
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20007918 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Melvin L Butler (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Pages | 224 |
| Publication date | 2019-10-15 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | BOOK |
| Venue | Island Gospel (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | University of Illinois Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.5622/illinois/9780252042904.001.0001 |
| OpenAlex | W4253125127 |
| Open Library | OL28729534M |
| ISBN | 9780252042904 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
For Jamaican Pentecostal Christians, music is a form of worship that opens pathways to the Spirit and brings about deliverance from sin. It is also a way of drawing and transcending boundaries, as practitioners sing about what they believe and identify where they stand in relation to cultural and religious outsiders. This book explores these ritual functions as they are fulfilled within Jamaican church services and concerts. It highlights the ways in which Pentecostals cultivate feelings of collective distinctiveness by rendering gospel music with an island flavor and by patrolling stylistic boundaries between a holy “home” and a profane “world.” This dichotomy is destabilized through the transnational flow and appropriation of popular culture and “American” media. What emerges are the strategies of musical worship through which Pentecostals embody their religion and seek spiritual transcendence while navigating the crossroads of local and global practice. Pentecostals describe themselves as “in the world, but not of the world,” meaning that while they live and work in the broader society, they strive to be “sanctified” from it by upholding a distinct moral code. This narrative of worldly renunciation prompts believers to abandon prior habits of conduct while embracing newer, localized identities as children of God. This book uncovers how gospel music, as a dynamic cultural practice, complicates these theological affirmations and reveals the shifting foundations of Pentecostal identity in Jamaica and its diaspora
Aesthetics · Appropriation · Art · Epistemology · Gospel · Literature · Narrative · Sociology · Spiritual practice · Spirituality · Theology · Worship · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Philosophy · Church music · Church music, protestant churches · Jamaica · Pentecostal churches · Social conditions · united states
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,5 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |