Using the concept of Song making and Multi-Track Sermon

John S. McClure is a popular music artist and composer. He uses familiar tools such as popular music and then hopes to get, as a preacher, closer to the congregation for sermon preparation. McClure expresses himself through singing and playing his instrument on his “YouTube” channel. Moreover, McClure often revealed his homiletic opinions or thoughts on his internet blog. He is indeed a very experimental homiletician in this generation. His preaching methodology is extremely modern and progressive.

One of the challengeable books, Mashup Religion, figuratively describes the

methodology of homiletics as song making, like a kind of pop music recording system.

McClure reflects on how popular music is created and reflects on it as an analogy for what it might mean both to express theology today, and to have theology heard by people shaped by popular culture. McClure has been active in song writing for popular audiences as well as those interested in the technologies of sound recording, editing, mixing, and mastering. He (2011:7) argues for the purpose of this homiletic theory thus:

Although there are similar technologies and practices at work within other forms of cultural production (filmmaking, graphic arts, amateur video production, etc.), I find that song-making offers the clearest and most widely known model. This book, therefore, uses popular song-making in a heuristic and analogical way. I will be concerned to show that popular song-makers have a lot to teach theologians about inventing artifacts that will both keep traditions alive (through sampling) and foster new ideas through creative juxtapositions across religious traditions, cultures, and traditional disciplinary lines. I believe that theologians within all arenas of theological invention, whether academic, journalistic, ministerial, artistic, or activist, have much to learn about invention from the technologies and practices of popular song-making.

I will argue that these practices directly reflect cultural and social shifts.

Religious pluralism, multiculturalism, and postmodernity have led us into a situation in which more pragmatic and post-semiotic forms of communication are now necessary. My argument, therefore, is set against culturally and linguistically bound models of communication in which culture, language,

grammar, and the correct appropriation of the internal structure of religious narratives are the keys to religious communication and knowledge. Instead, I believe that theologians must, like the musical DJ, learn pragmatic skills of identifying the key "breaks" and "beats" within a vast range of religiously attenuated ideas in order to effectively place them into a religious and ethical conversation ruled by the desire to mutually survive and flourish on this planet.

This theory is furthermore detailed as an analogy for process of sermon preparation, as follows:

1) The Songwriter: Invention In and Out of a Theological Tradition

At this stage, McClure focused his attention on the ways in which musical invention is a matter of learning to write in and out of a specific tradition of music. This encourages a set of similar tradition-bound practices as an initial stage of theological invention (2011:8).

2) Multi-track Composition and Loop Browsing: Style and Theological Invention

A popular song is recorded by multi-track composition and loop-browsing. Thus, audio is layered within the context of the multi-track studio. McClure (2011:9) explained that,

"Tracking" (recording tracks for) a popular song involves certain defined codes or conventions of production, including "melody," "rhythm," "backing,"

and "fills." I revisit and revise my former work The Four Codes of Preaching:

Rhetorical Strategies, which was based on multitrack sequencing. I argue that

theological invention is a matter of stylistically layering four central authorities (tracks): Scripture, culture, theology, and reason. I create a theological "loop browser" that organizes the range of current styles used to track these four authorities, showing how each style of tracking contributes to the invention of a particular form of memory (Scripture tracking), experience (culture tracking), worldview (theology tracking), and truth (reason/message tracking). Illustrated graphically, it looks like the depiction above.

These concepts could be further illustrated by the figure underneath.

Figure 1 Multi-track Recoder

Figure 2 Form of the multi-track sermon

This is the appearance of a multi-track recorder program. Most popular musicians normally use this tool these days. McClure has self-assessed that these are “hybrid configurations that respond pragmatically to different communicative needs and aspirations in our religious situation today.” Thus, McClure contends that at this stage, each layer (Theology track, Reason/Message track, Culture/Experience track and Scripture track) would be that chart. These layers/tracks should mix and harmonize with each other and are the main points of this stage.

3) Sampling, Remixing, and Mashup: Inventing the Theologically Possible (2011:9)

McClure explained this stage of song-making as the tradition-centered hermeneutic model undergirding the habitus of the songwriter, and that the modest forms of hybridity involved in studio tracking and "loop browsing," morph into a more open-ended intertextual model of invention that thrives on the seemingly random juxtaposition of artistic elements. The writer, who worked hard developing good judgment within a tradition of writing, steps into a process of cut-and-paste sampling and random trial-and-error juxtaposition of sampled bits of sound in a broadly collaborative context. He argues that this collaborative artistic process suggests a form

of kairotic (opportune, timely) theological invention focused on articulating the theologically possible within a highly pragmatic and post-semiotic model of theological communication.

4) The Grain of the Voice: Inventing the Soundscape of Religious Desire (2011:10)

This stage would modulate sound to all the tracks for harmonization. McClure urges for a deeper form of theological listening by theologians, listening attuned to the larger ethical and theological soundscape. Within this theology of listening the theologian seeks a tone or form of resonance, which becomes the shape that belief takes on in theological invention.

5) Fan Cultures: Getting Theological Inventions into the DJ's Crate (2011:10)

McClure examined issues posed by these configurations of community that are at once strongly individualist and yet increasingly democratic, participatory, and negotiative.

He argues that theologians can play a key role in these communities, helping to invent the value of particular theological ideas, while adding depth, complexity, and steerage into the mix.

6) Lyrics: Inventing Theology in Response to Popular Music (2011:11)

Theologians need an understanding of the reception of popular songs and have to theologically analyze the song lyrics because the congregation’s life is affected by secular culture. Thus, McClure argued that,

I further explore random for theological meaning through textual analysis. I outline a simple narrative form of analysis that can help theologians determine the theological worldviews around them within culture and religious community. I postulate that by learning to read the pop-cultural genres of religious communication, theologians will learn to invent messages that engage the textuality of cultural life more deeply. Theologically, in this chapter I take a more missiological turn, bringing confessional Christian theology into direct dialogue with song lyrics.

We are surrounded by a range of fan cultures—musical pilgrimages through which people seek to interpret and transcend their ordinary experiences. That is possible for theologians to host these fans and consider how their places of life and work (whether geographic or online) can function as a home for many fan pilgrimages. At the same time, I invited theologians to consider how they can invent messages that add depth and complexity to the pilgrimages of these fans and provide steerage. With this in mind, in this final chapter I have provided a method for analyzing the lyrics listened to within musical fan cultures, and used the method to analyze lyrics I hear often in and around Nashville.

The term “mashup” likely does not sound as a too friendly image in certain ecclesial circles. However, the average pop music fan would define the term

“mashup” as such: a new song that combines material from two different songs, often from different genres, with the purpose re-introducing those original

songs to the listener by providing fresh energy in an inventive context.