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The Jazz Theologian

It’s 3:54 a.m. and I can’t sleep.  There is a longing in my soul for you and me to be one.  For the Body of Christ to be a body.  For us to be an answer to Jesus’ prayer in John 17.  I yearn for Baptist, Presbyterians and Pentacostals to genuinely see each other as…

I’m trying to learn how to understand the pain of those around me.  John Howard Griffin became "Black Like Me," choosing to live a pain that was foreign to him. There is a reason why jazz musicians will choose to learn to play other instruments, it allows them to better support them and respond to…

I’m re-reading Black Like Me.  Years have passed since I first followed John Howard Griffin’s amazing journey of a white man living as a black man in the Deep South in the late 1950’s.  If you don’t know the story, Griffin, decided to discover for himself what it was actually like to live as a…

Ensemble Community has a variety of assumptions. When somebody shows up at a jam session it is assumed that they have an instrument and that they have spent a lot of alone time honing their chops.  There are Jazz Standards that any good jazz musician knows by heart.  In summary, the basic assumption of Ensemble…

What is Christian community?  Normally we only define it in terms of the present–who are the people that we know, worship and pray with.  If we get radical, we also realize that community is not just about who we know and have relationship with but that it includes all Christians who are alive at the…

Jazz and Christianity are communities of the past, present and future. Not to long ago I went and heard my favorite horn player, Hugh Ragin–he’s an amazing person and artist.  He’s been rehearsing his current band a lot and they have finally found their groove.  They all took the stage for the second set as…

Ann Pederson, Associate Professor of Religion at Augustana College makes the following observations about jazz and community as she draws upon the work of Paul F. Berliner: "Paul F. Berliner’s Rich Study of the jazz community includes a chapter entitled ‘Hangin’ Out and Jammin’:  The Jazz Community as an Educational System."  With great detail, he…

Community is essential to being a Christian…but what is it?  Is it being in a small group at your church?  Is it having significant relationship with others?  Is it the people who live in your same geographic space? How we define community determines how we follow Jesus.  As it has been said, "A person become…

I just added a list of "Jazz Links."  Just scroll down and you can find them at the bottom of the right hand column.

“Let’s talk about Jazz…There is no such thing as jazz improvisation without a jazz musician who knows already what the score is, who understands the bass line, who knows the melody, and who has spent lots of time and energy mastering the scales, the basics and how the instrument is played.  Improvisation comes out of…
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