Jeremy Begbie consistently strives for more than most contemporary authors I'm familiar with in theology. Reading him brings to mind Aslan's cry from the end of Narnia: "Come further up, come further in!" And that is always a thrill to try to hang on and see where Begbie is going in each of the chapters of Music, Modernity, and God.

It's also a challenge, especially with my limited background in theology. Though I sometimes feel that I disagree with what Begbie is averring, I'm rarely able to articulate just why I think that--at least, not in a way that would be good for discussion with him.

The biggest example of this is Begbie's insistence on "integrities of the sonic order," to which music, if it is to be good and worthy, must be faithful. I've read several of Begbie's books now, and I'm still not quite sure what he means by the "integrities of the sonic order." Sometimes I think he yearns a bit for a "music of the spheres" concept (though I know it's most certain that he doesn't advocate for an actual return to that!), and often I think he wants to find more meaning in acoustics and the physics of sound than I personally believe in. Whenever he begins talking about acoustics, I can't help thinking about the spectrograms I've seen, comparing just intonation and equal temperament. The just intonation has a somewhat odd sound to my ear, but the equal temperament spectrogram is a distorted mess, showing its "unnaturalness." How can acoustics be a precise indication of the sonic order of the cosmos if most of us in the West have grown quite used to a distorted acoustic structure?

As Begbie says, “But it is quite a distinct matter to suggest that the pre-eminent role of the artist is to construct order out of an essentially and fundamentally disordered world, to assume that nature’s order is at its deepest levels basically unreliable, or (even stronger) to suppose that nature has no order than the order we bring to it or forge from it” (46). I struggle to understand the "sweet spot" between "fundamentally disordered world" (which I don't believe) and "fundamental order of nature" (which I believe, but I don't know how that actually informs human creativity).

Throughout this book, the topic of "music and language" appears repeatedly. Begbie is at pains to understand what it is that music brings to theology, and, more basically, what is the difference (if any) between music and language, and how do they best interact or relate with one another. These discussions, for me, ranged from fascinating to very hard to follow. But my main question is why it's so important to set up music and language as two different, separate things. I tend to see everything all mushed together anyway, but certainly music and language could be viewed as the tangible expressions of a common human impulse. Having had some experience in both musicology/ethnomusicology and linguistics, I know that language is very musical (in editing, I often make choices that aren't so much right-or-wrong as they are what sounds best in a given context; it has to do with rhythm, melody, variation, and so forth) and music genres follow a kind of grammar or logic that is somewhat languagey. But Begbie wrestles with music and language as very separate entities in a lot of different ways in these chapters. It's not a struggle that I feel very deeply, though it's sometimes interesting to read.

My other criticism, which is true of most of what I've read by Begbie, is his near-constant Western-centric perspective. There is surely much to learn from non-Western traditions, and when Begbie focuses in on Reformed theological traditions or the music of J. S. Bach, I feel suffocated, like the walls are closing in. What he focuses on is certainly one interesting historical tradition, but it's hardly the ultimate tradition that trumps all others. I was, however, very happy with his short discussion of entrainment:

For example, in some contemporary "alternative worship" experiments in the United Kingdom and the United States, wordless yet highly rhythmic music from various dance cultures are extensively used, and can engender an intense sense of solidarity, while at the same time allowing for widely diverse responses and stances among participants—something that would seem appropriate for those wary of being enlisted prematurely to adhere to specific beliefs, doctrines, or goals. Of course, one would want at some stage a higher degree of specificity in worship; nonetheless, music of this sort in this context may be witnessing to and perhaps serving to embody something of the differentiated and liberating unity promised in Christ and granted through his Body, the Church, by the Spirit. (98)

That's pretty good, and I very much agree. But that kind of worship experience is not just in a European subculture; it describes quite a few traditions in the world. We should be spending some more time with them.

I see Begbie's primary concern being that we “fruitfully indwell the world in which we are embedded”--but I'm rarely sure what exactly that means. I agree with this desire, but I feel that Begbie's realization or idealization of it is more restricted than my own perspective. I wish I could explain my position better, but for now I'll just leave it at these initial, just-finished-the-book thoughts. Perhaps I'll write more on it later.