STALEY
LECTURER LINKS MODERNITY, JAZZ AND ROCK AND ROLL TO
THE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE
Dr. William Edgar, Professor of Apologetics at
Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia,
Penn., delivered this year's Staley Lectures at
Erskine.
Edgar's first lecture, delivered at Convocation
Feb. 9, was titled “The Great Reversal” and
dealt with modernity, which he likened to “the
greatest empire that has ever come to power,”
seducing us “not so much by content as by
form.” With its roots in the Enlightenment,
modernity locates the center of everything in
personal consciousness, holding that “Man is the
measure of all things.”
“Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Story of
Rock,” Edgar's second lecture, traced the
history of rock and roll and looked at the
connections and conflicts between rock music and the
church. The persistent agnosticism of rock asks
questions and seeks the authentic in the experiences
of life. “Much of rock is close to the Christian
message,” but misses the target. Using clips
from rock songs from the fifties through the
nineties, he pointed to the theme of religious hope
that runs through much of rock music, even when it
has exchanged a religious vocabulary for a secular
one.
Edgar's final lecture, punctuated with musical
samples he played on the piano, was “Heaven in a
Nightclub: The Spiritual Background of Jazz
Music.” Citing the importance of ragtime music
with its syncopated beat as well as the spiritual and
the music of the marching band, Edgar linked jazz
with the persecution experienced by the black
community both during and following the days of
slavery. He called jazz a “happy marriage”
of musical elements from Europe and West Africa.
A native of Wilmington, N.C., Edgar holds degrees
from Harvard University (B.A. in Music), Westminster
Theological Seminary (M. Div.) and the University of
Geneva (D. Th.). He is married to Barbara Smyth Edgar
and they are the parents of two children.
Edgar is the author of a number of books,
including Taking Note of Music (London: SPCK,
1986), Reasons of the Heart (Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1996) and La carte protestante (Geneva:
Labor et Fides, 1997). He contributed to the recent
volume Finding God at Harvard: Spiritual Journeys
of Christian Thinkers, edited by Kelly Monroe
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996). He has written
numerous articles on such subjects as cultural
apologetics, the city of Geneva, and African-American
music.
An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in
America, Edgar is a member of the American
Musicological Society, the Evangelical Theological
Society, the American Historical Association, and the
Society for Ethnomusicology. He regularly
participates as a co-moderator at the Trinity Forum
Seminars and currently serves on the Medical Ethics
Committee of the Chestnut Hill Hospital in
Philadelphia. He is also an accomplished jazz pianist
and plays part-time with a professional jazz band.
