Why do Lutherans Sing? Lutherans, Music, and the Gospel in the First Century of the Reformation

Bibliographic Data

ID3243045
AuthorsJ Andreas Loewe, Andreas Loewe (0000-0003-4338-3147, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume82
Issue1
Pages69-89
Publication date2013-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueChurch History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0009-6407 • E-ISSN: 1755-2613
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0009640712002521
OpenAlexW2143739788
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited15

Martin Luther regarded music as a crucial instrument to communicate the Gospel and the Reformation message. From the outset of his Reformation, a distinctive Lutheran musical tradition was fostered in electoral Saxony, its dependent territories and neighboring principalities. A review of contemporary records from the second decade of the sixteenth century to the turn of the seventeenth century enables the assessment of the role music played as an educational and theological tool in the life of Lutheran communities: the School Ordinances of electoral Saxony and neighboring principalities show the incorporation of music as a key curricular requirement in Lutheran education, while the Statutes of Lutheran choirs[Kantoreien]illustrate how theologians, educators and musicians closely worked together to shape Lutheran communities centred on music-making, in order to reform worship, further the Reformation message and to create community cohesion

Art · Gospel · Literature · Music education · Musical · Political science · Sacred music · Sociology · Statute · Theology · Visual arts · Worship · Classics · Historical Influence and Diplomacy · Historical Legal Studies and Society · History · Law · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity