Introduction

In the Introduction, the co-editors first identify the core challenge issued to this volume’s contributors: how would you, with your own area of expertise, your own research experience, and your own research methodologies, address or seek to demonstrate the commonly-perceived connection between music and spiritual realities? They then situate the various chapters within the three scholarly fields which, in responding to this challenge, the volume brings together for the first time: Christian theology and music; new musicology, ethnomusicology, and congregational music studies; as well as psychology and neuroscience. While the majority of contributors to this volume focus on Christian music in Western contexts, the editors also emphasise the scope for future studies focused on another religious tradition, or engaging with non-Western understandings of music. Finally, they provide an introductory outline of the volume’s three Parts, eighteen chapters, Foreword and Afterword.