For as long as people have worshipped together, music has played a key role in church life. With O Sing unto the Lord, Andrew Gant offers a fascinating history of English church music, from the Latin chant of late antiquity to the great proliferation of styles seen in contemporary repertoires. The ornate complexity of pre-Reformation Catholic liturgies revealed the exclusive nature of this form of worship. By contrast, simple English psalms, set to well-known folk songs, summed up the aims of the Reformation with its music for everyone. The Enlightenment brought hymns, the Methodists and Victorians a new delight in the beauty and emotion of worship. Today, church music mirrors our multifaceted worldview, embracing the sounds of pop and jazz along with the more traditional music of choir and organ. And reflecting its truly global reach, the influence of English church music can be found in everything from masses sung in Korean to American Sacred Harp singing. From medieval chorales to “Amazing Grace,” West Gallery music to Christmas carols, English church music has broken through the boundaries of time, place, and denomination to remain familiar and cherished everywhere. Expansive and sure to appeal to all music lovers, O Sing unto the Lord is the biography of a tradition, a book about people, and a celebration of one of the most important sides to our cultural heritage.

Singing the same song is a central part of the worship practice for members for the Cherubim and Seraphim Christian Church in Lagos, Nigeria. Vicki L. Brennan reveals that by singing together, church members create one spiritual mind and become unified around a shared set of values. She follows parishioners as they attend choir rehearsals, use musical media—hymn books and cassette tapes—and perform the music and rituals that connect them through religious experience. Brennan asserts that church members believe that singing together makes them part of a larger imagined social collective, one that allows them to achieve health, joy, happiness, wealth, and success in an ethical way. Brennan discovers how this particular Yoruba church articulates and embodies the moral attitudes necessary to be a good Christian in Nigeria today.

Christianity is a "singing church," with biblical foundations and centuries of examples in the Psalms and canticles, favorite hymns, and gospel songs. And this singing church has a history. Through engaging tales of the stories behind this music and its authors, Rorem makes church history come alive. Singing Church History journeys through an ecumenical history of church music from early and medieval times through the Reformation and the early modern world, into American and World Christianity. Throughout, Rorem shows us how these familiar hymn texts have us "singing church history" on Sunday mornings without even knowing it. Rorem's analysis of well-known hymns from diverse strains of Christianity makes Singing Church History a useful resource for students, congregations, and curious readers. Placing familiar music from Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Pietist, Methodist, American evangelical, historically Black, and Christian communities around the world into historical context helps us appreciate the ecumenical nature of our musical traditions. Singing Church History includes hymn texts for easy reference.

Christianity is a "singing church" with biblical foundations and centuries of examples in Psalms and canticles, hymns, and gospel songs. Rorem brings history to life through engaging tales of the stories behind hymn texts. This volume is an ecumenical history of the music that has us "singing church history" each Sunday.

The historical development of the use of music in the Christian liturgy, with an introductory chapter on the use of music in pre-Christian religions.