ABSTRACT
This chapter explores further complexities of multiracial middle-class Christian life in South Africa, by focusing on congregational worship music, an important activity for expressing individual and collective beliefs and values. This chapter utilizes Christopher Small's concept of “musicking” to understand congregational music as an activity that reveals deeply held ethics. This chapter analyzes the approach of a Pentecostal megachurch that reproduces the recorded sound of complex contemporary worship music very precisely, seeking to create unifying effervescent experiences through music. This approach is contrasted with a progressive church, which changes the words to popular worship songs to reflect its gender-inclusive, non-violent theology. A tension is recognized between the desire to realize social unity through congregational music, and anxiety over the institutional power of churches, which may unintentionally alienate individuals in a diverse society.
