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Heaney traces the hidden history of music's presence in Christian thought, including its often unrecognized influence on key figures such as von Balthasar, Barth and Bonhoeffer. She uses Lonergan's theological framework to explore musical composition as a theological act, showing why, when and how music is a useful symbolic form.
The book introduces eleven ground-breaking theologians, and each chapter offers an entry point into the thought of the theologian being presented through an original piece of music, which can be found on the companion website: https://bloomsbury.pub/suspended-god.
Heaney argues that music is a universally important means of making sense of life with which theology needs to engage as a means of expression and of development. Musical composition is presented as an appropriate and even necessary form of doing theology in its quest to engage with the past, mediate truth to the present and tradition it into the future.
List of contents
Introduction: An Apologetics of Theological Thinking
Part I: The Theological Dimension of Christian Song WritingChapter 1:Truth Matters: Intellectual Honesty and Incomplete Certitude
Chapter 2:The Hidden History of Music in Theology
Chapter 3:Unsung Sources: Theology in the Public Square of Music-Making
Chapter 4: From Theory to Interiority: When is Music-Making Theological?
Part II: Musicking theology: A Theopoetical Weaving of Christian ThinkersChapter 5: Can the Arts Contribute to our Knowledge of Truth?
Chapter 6: Is Scripture a World for Women?
Chapter 7: Is Beauty Superfluous to Human Life and Christian Faith?
Chapter 8: How to Believe in God in such an Unjust World?
Chapter 9: Is Original Sin an Outdated Doctrine?
Chapter 10: Who's Going to Go to Heaven?
Chapter 11: What is it with Christianity and Martyrdom?
Chapter 12: Is Celibacy Ever a Good Idea?
Chapter 13: Where on Earth is God?
Chapter 14: Is How we Name God Important?
Chapter 15: How can we Know if God is Trustworthy?
Chapter 16: What Role does Sexuality have in Christian faith?
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Maeve Louise Heaney VDMF is a consecrated member of the Verbum Dei Community and Director of the Xavier Centre for Theological Formation at Australian Catholic University, Australia.
Summary
Heaney traces the hidden history of music's presence in Christian thought, including its often unrecognized influence on key figures such as von Balthasar, Barth and Bonhoeffer. She uses Lonergan's theological framework to explore musical composition as a theological act, showing why, when and how music is a useful symbolic form.
The book introduces eleven ground-breaking theologians, and each chapter offers an entry point into the thought of the theologian being presented through an original piece of music, which can be found on the companion website: https://bloomsbury.pub/suspended-god.
Heaney argues that music is a universally important means of making sense of life with which theology needs to engage as a means of expression and of development. Musical composition is presented as an appropriate and even necessary form of doing theology in its quest to engage with the past, mediate truth to the present and tradition it into the future.
Additional text
Suspended God speaks to the contemporary need for theological language that has room for experiences – both joy and doubt – that are hard to put into words. She tells the story of the pressing need to encourage theology more fully toward flourishing and the ways in which this orientation can be supported by engagement with music as a site of theological reflection. I am grateful for Heaney's work and I am certain it will become reading for my courses on theopoetics.
