Music and Faith in a Post-Secular Age with Jonathan Arnold

Music and faith, music and belief - what's the difference, and how can music illuminate our lived experiences of faith? This is the first of five episodes featuring conversations I recorded this summer with the plenary speakers of the Christian Congregational Music Conference. It was a joy to talk with them, and I'm so glad I get to share these conversations with you! (Scroll down if you'd like to read the transcript of this episode.) About Jonathan Arnold: Rev. Dr. Jonathan Arnold is the Dean of Divinity at Magdalen College, Oxford. Before ordination, he was a professional vocalist, including with St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir and The Sixteen. He is the author of several books, including Music and Faith: Conversations in a Post-Secular Age and Sacred Music in Secular Society. Click here to find other Music and the Church episodes, or subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Transcription of Music and the Church Ep. 41: Music and Faith in a Post-Secular Age with Jonathan Arnold Sarah Bereza: Let's start out by talking about your relationship to music and your own faith background. Jonathan Arnold: I have always had a love of music and particularly of singing. So I've been in choirs ever since I was a young child at a primary school, secondary school. And then towards the end of my secondary education, I discovered the wealth of Cathedral music, which I didn't really know at all. But when I was about 18, I joined the cathedral choir and had a very steep learning curve of learning to sight read, learning Anglican choir repertoire, which I didn't know, learning how to sing with lay clerks and choristers. And after a year of that very steep learning curve, I went to university in Oxford where I fell in love with the whole world of choral singing and joined as many choirs as I could possibly join. And at the end of that first year, I then was offered a sort of permanent position at one of what's known as the foundations in Oxford, which is one of the big five choir foundations in Oxford and Cambridge. Jonathan Arnold: So at Magdalen College Oxford, I became a choral scholar, which meant that I was singing seven or eight services every single week, different repertoire for each one. So by that time I could sight read. And by that time, even though I was studying theology at the university officially and had a vocation towards that, I discovered this other vocation, which was music and singing. And I was absolutely determined to to follow that. So at the end of university, I packed up my bags, moved to London without a penny or a job, started teaching music wherever I could, joining choirs wherever I could, making a crust, paying the rent, and then applying to music college. And I went to the Royal Academy of Music, studied singing, and became a professional singer. So I sang for eight years with St. Paul's Cathedral Choir and for 14 years in total with a choir called The Sixteen, who are a professional English choir and many other choirs as well as well as doing solo things. Jonathan Arnold: But the theology was always there. So whilst I was doing that, I then registered at King's College London to do a doctorate in church history as it happens and completed the doctorate. And then the two vocations of music and theology led me down this path where ordination sort of came at the end of that road. And I went forward for selection and became a priest. So after a few years of training and curacy, I basically gave up the singing and started work as a full time college chaplain in Oxford at Worcester College. And I did that for eight years. And then I've transferred to Magdalen college where I've been Dean of Divinity. And in both of those environments in Oxford, there's a lot of music. There's wonderful college choirs, music within the liturgy as well as pastoral ministry, academic work and so on. Jonathan Arnold: So that's where I've,