One of the first musical acts that got me thinking about the complex relationship of “rock” and “theology” — beyond the world of “Christian rock” anyway — was the Indigo Girls. Recently the online multimedia journal of practical theology Practical Matters featured a video interview/conversation with Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls and her father Don Saliers who teaches liturgical theology at Candler School of Theology.

The interview, titled “A Song to Sing, A Life to Live: A Conversation about Musical and Liturgical Imagination with Don and Emily Saliers,” includes discussion of music and the theological and moral imagination, the relationship between “sacred” and “secular” music, the role of music in movements for social change, music’s place in the “liturgy wars,” the relationship of musical analysis and musical practice, and much more. And they even play a little music together.

The interview also gives a good introduction to themes apparently taken up in their co-authored book A Song to Sing, A Life to Live: Reflections on Music as Spiritual Practice (Jossey-Bass, 2006) which has now made its way to my “wish list.”

Michael Iafrate
Parkersburg, West Virginia