{"id":595,"date":"2005-09-05T20:16:00","date_gmt":"2005-09-05T20:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2005\/09\/jazz-theology-i.html"},"modified":"2005-09-05T20:16:00","modified_gmt":"2005-09-05T20:16:00","slug":"jazz-theology-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2005\/09\/jazz-theology-i.html","title":{"rendered":"Jazz Theology in Black and White"},"content":{"rendered":"
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To talk about jazz is to talk about race<\/em><\/strong> and race relations in America.<\/strong><\/em> Jazz initially arose out of the pain of America’s original sin of slavery. Inspite of its’ emergence<\/em><\/strong> from such conditions, it proved to be convergent<\/em><\/strong>. Even as the KKK was on the rise and lynchings were commonplace, blacks and whites would find themselves in the same rooms because of jazz.<\/p>\n

There was a problem<\/strong><\/em>, the big band jazz being performed by African-American’s was more about how jazz could be more classical than European classical music. In short, jazz emerged a second<\/em><\/strong> time in 1959 (more on this in later postings), breaking away from the constraints of classical methods, into the art of a skilled set of musicians so in tune with each other that they can play the same song night after night while never sounding the same. Jazz became all about the moment when musical standards, the audience and musicians converge into something that has never existed before. And even today, one can go to a jazz club and experience this emergence and convergence<\/em><\/strong> of sounds, styles, and people.<\/p>\n

Jazz theology<\/em><\/strong> is richly soaked with race as well. It understands that classical theology is good and needed but also recognizes that when one takes a theology textbook off the shelf it almost always has a European bent. Once a jazz theologian has conformed to classical theology, the yearning to improvise becomes unbearable and an emergence takes place…the result is not a rejection of the old but a convergence of moments–What I’m calling Theomoments<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

What about your theology? From whom does it come? Why is race not discussed along with our theology? Have you ever noticed that the people who tell you about God all look the same? Are you ready for an emergence? For a convergence<\/em><\/strong>?<\/p>\n

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To talk about jazz is to talk about race and race relations in America. Jazz initially arose out of the pain of America’s original sin of slavery. Inspite of its’ emergence from such conditions, it proved to be convergent. Even as the KKK was on the rise and lynchings were commonplace, blacks and whites would…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"yoast_head":"\nJazz Theology in Black and White - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2005\/09\/jazz-theology-i.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jazz Theology in Black and White - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"To talk about jazz is to talk about race and race relations in America. 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Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys & 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}