By Julian Reid
We need to give more comprehensive support for the arts and not take them for granted. And since I am a Christian artist, I am calling on the Church to help lead the way in supporting the arts in the political sphere. Ultimately I am calling for a new Department of the Cabinet: the Department of the Arts. For Christians, a theological case – rooted in Scripture and on our corporate practices of Christian worship – can be made for such a department, one that can be a source of vibrant life to the arts beyond the limits of Christian institutions.
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A unique feature of music is the way one sustained sound can sit underneath other harmonies layered on top of it. This concept is prevalent across genres: American jazz standards, Celtic bagpipe music, Bach’s Preludes and Fugues. In musical terms, this steady sound that sits underneath others is called a “pedal tone” (or “pedal point,” but we’ll stick to pedal tone in this article.) It might be such a common musical device because it has such symbolic value for the world that we live in. This way of sounds interacting illustrates how humans interact with each other, the rest of God’s creation, and God too. The pedal tone is an apt metaphor to describe what is going on today – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – in a country contending with its foundational racism. The pedal tone can remind us of God’s intentions for this gift of a world we inhabit.
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