Popular Music Videos and Reflecting (Ir)Religiously: What do Videos Such as ‘Sirens’ Have to say to the Church Today?

Abstract

The singer Caroline Polachek has co-written a song with DJ Flume. The accompanying promotional video asks us to consider what transcendence may mean in a post-pandemic world. We theologically reflect on the song and video to consider what this may show about Western society’s understandings of transcendence, suffering and resurrection, where the dominate narrative has been the ‘turn to the self’. We also consider how the Church may respond to this poetically driven grass-root need for theological reflection where the most usual form of response is didactic and doctrinal in nature resulting in a disconnect in how the message is received.

Keywords

Mission theological reflection popular music culture poetics cultural studies

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