“This Is No Performance”: Exploring the Complicated Relationship between the Church and Contemporary Congregational Songs

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

This article seeks to contribute to the discussion of 'performance' in Christian contemporary worship music. The topic is timely and of great interest to CCS scholars and practitioners alike. The submission is clearly written and well structured.

 

The submission can be improved in the following ways:

 

Theoretical Grounding:

 

The author situates the article in two fields: congregational music studies and performance studies. While it is true that there are not a lot of explicit treatments of the subject in congregational music studies, there are several journal articles (e.g., Abraham 2018) that deal with this and many works that touch on it. For example, distinguishing ‘performance’ from ‘entertainment’ has been one of the central concerns identified in the literature on Christian Contemporary Music from at least Howard and Streck 1999.

 

The assertion that ‘Performance Studies… is still quite young’ is puzzling: It has existed as a field of study at least since Richard Schechner’s book Performance Theory in 1988. It started primarily as a Theatre Studies subdiscipline, so music was a little late to the party, but it is not ‘young’. Furthermore, although the author claims to be grounding the analysis in performance studies, no explanation or outline of the history, tenets, or methods of performance studies is given. This in turn weakens the analysis, which could be quite rich if performance studies is properly engaged with. I note there is no reference to a performance studies text in the bibliography. This needs to be improved if the author is to claim the analysis is ‘informed by performance studies’.

 

Methodology:

 

The author is clearly knowledgeable of the subject, likely from an emic perspective. The reason not to use ethnography is explained. However, without practitioner voices in the text, the author is simply ‘reading’ the lyrics and videos from his/her own perspective. This is the approach that characterised the first wave of popular music studies literature in the 1980s/90s, which has since largely been abandoned in favour of ethnography. While the author’s overall reasoning for his/her methodology is fine, if he/she is not going to do ethnography than he/she needs to acknowledge his/her own position and that any analysis that doesn’t include practitioner voices is heavily biased towards a single perspective. This is all the more important because of the multiple viewpoints, perspectives, and indeed theologies within the global CCS community, and there are no debates presented here. Short of ethnography, one way to include voices would be to include sources written by practitioners, of which many discuss the ‘problems’ with performance.

 

Analysis:

 

The lyrical and media analysis provides a detailed picture of the content of the top 25 CCLI songs. While the list may represent songs that are widely sung, 25 is not a statistically significant sample (100 is the generally recognized minimum). So, any conclusions drawn from this sample will need to be taken with a grain of salt, and this should be acknowledged in the text. Furthermore, it would be helpful if the author nuances what the ‘western’ church is. For example, is Australia part of the ‘west’ or the ‘Global South’? Is the ‘west’ defined culturally, economically, or geographically? This is important because, with the lack of diverse voices, it is impossible to know what ‘performance’ means to the global audiences that consume this music. It should be acknowledged that, although many of the CCS bands are grounded in a local church, the lyrics only indicate (through the lens of the author) the producers’ views.

 

The analysis itself spends a lot of word count detailing things like word frequency. This is interesting in and of itself, but it needs to be improved by putting that data into conversation with the theories of ccs and performance studies. Indeed, the primary weakness of what could be a promising article is that there is little-to-no engagement with theory of any kind. This in turn means that the contribution to knowledge is limited. Gere the weighting is flipped: there should be much more engagement with the theory, ideally integrated throughout the analysis. The ‘synthesis’ should happen throughout, not only in the conclusion.

 

In conclusion, the article’s topic is timely and there is good potential for an important academic contribution. However, in its current form is lacks the appropriate level of grounding in relevant literature, critical engagement with different perspectives, and critical engagement with the relevant literature necessary to realise its potential.

 

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

I sincerely appreciated the reviewer’s comments and perspective, and have integrated many of their recommendations into the revised manuscript which I believe has strengthened the paper considerably.

I’ve removed the comment about performance studies being a young discipline. I have added four key performance studies texts into both the literature review and into the later analysis section.

While the reviewer states that “25 is not a statistically significant sample”, that really depends on the size and nature of the whole that is being studied.  I’ve made a case elsewhere for the significance of this sample size when it comes to contemporary congregational songs, and I believe that the conclusions are generalizable across the genre (at least at its core).   

The reviewer states that “It should be acknowledged that, although many of the CCS bands are grounded in a local church, the lyrics only indicate (through the lens of the author) the producers’ views.”  I either don't understand, or don't fully agree.  CCS producers often have a variety of theological and institutional gatekeepers who vet CCS lyrics, so they are ultimately reflective of not only the writers, and performers, but of leadership, of the churches, and often of the movements with which they are aligned.

I have added more engagement with the literature throughout the analysis.

L57      added Abraham (2018) reference

L92-98  I’ve added a recognition of my own perspective and presuppositions that feed into my analysis.

Reviewer 2 Report

I enjoyed and learned a lot from this article draft. The author is very thorough in explaining and justifying their methodology, which is far removed from the kind of work I do. Nevertheless, it made good sense to me, which is a good sign for the ability of the article to inform readers from a variety of disciplines. The approach is quite ingenious, really, identifying and analyzing action verb from the top 25 CCS songs while attending to the performance styles of those songs as captured in Youtube videos that constitute the best known renditions of those songs.

It wouldn't hurt for the author to reflect a bit more in the conclusion on the "so-what?" question. Stepping back from the small world of scholars who study contemporary evangelical worship and popular worship music, what is the larger significance of these findings? What can they tell us about contemporary evangelical piety in this very contemporary moment? Do these findings underscore or challenge something that is generally believed about these practices? Is there a noticeable or significant change from what might have been discovered about this spiritual milieu ten or twenty years ago?

I need to emphasize that the author has missed one important work highly relevant to this study: Ari Kelman's Shout to the Lord: Making Music Worship in Evangelical America, from 2018. The book deals at length with the very issue of how worship leaders thread the need between their need to perform and their need to be spiritually authentic. Now, I can't say exactly how that study would change this paper's findings--it's been a while since I read the manuscript--but it seems remiss to be unaware of an important study published by NYU Press.

The author occasionally inserts unnecessary commas, as in line 82 or 115.

Author Response

I have conducted a significant revision to this manuscript.

I’ve removed unnecessary commas and corrected grammar.
I’ve added a reference to Kelman’s study, as well as some other key literature.
I’ve added more in the conclusion that answers the “so-what?” question.

Reviewer 3 Report

For authors, editors, and/or anybody who wants to see it.

There are a few minor problems as in line 414 where the first "the" should be omitted, line 452 where it should say "each of the vocalists is" rather than "each of the vocalists are," and line 512 where "worshiper" is singular and "they" is plural. 

This article is dense, but does what it says it will do. However, it does not address--and maybe should not address--the problem that lies behind it which hangs in the shadows of our period, namely, whether CCS and the worship associated with it have made the church into a product to be sold. Does CCS turn the church's community at worship into worship leaders as advertisers who manipulate the community's singing around Word, Font, and Table into sales gimmicks to get as many buyers as possible? Will a new leader like Luther arise who will proclaim the grace of the Gospel rather than our works? 

Author Response

I have made a significant revision to this manuscript, which has included correcting the grammatical errors identified.

The reviewer's broader question is certainly appreciated although outside the scope of this article.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank your for taking onboard the comments, which I hope you've found useful. I'm still not sold on the methodology, but we can agree to disagree here:-)

Author Response

Some of the line numbers were different from the reviewer's version to the version edited, but all points have been addressed.  The article has definitely benefited from attending to the points raised.  Thank you.
L18 – the word “language” is used as a verb here to describe how words are chosen and employed to articulate performance.  It’s not an uncontested English idiom, but best describes the practice.
L156 – the limitation to only analyse action verbs within CCS lyrics is a restriction that limits the results.  However, a project of this size must have limitations for it to be manageable and meaningful.  I have added in an acknowledgement that this is a limitation.
L159 – a distinction has been made been performance and performativity which is further clarified in l259 and throughout the paper.
L259 – an extra sentence has been added to further define the use of the adjective “performative”
L311 – I’ve added the word “potentially” to the sentence to indicate that the words are not necessarily embodied, but rather the intention and invitation is to embody those words.
L325 – The concluding sentence has been adjusted as per the reviewer’s recommendation.
L415-16 – This sentence has been removed as recommended by the reviewer
L467 – Date added to Osborn reference
L506 – This sentence has been further clarified
L508 – Sentence adjusted and “free worship” reference is included to better support and clarify this sentence.