Abstract
This chapter explores Christian extreme metal as a window on the way different symbols are expressed in contemporary Western culture, drawing on continental theorists of the post-secular era. Unger’s argument in this chapter is that the religious symbols, expression, and even experience of this genre are constrained through the privileging of various aesthetic modes of extreme metal. Christian extreme metal lyrics, sonic and structural musical elements, and visual features are remarkably continuous with “secular” extreme metal, which positions itself in explicit opposition to Christianity and the “mainstream” world. But Christian extreme metal fans see Christian metal as qualitatively different from “secular” extreme metal. This apparent contradiction shows powerfully how religious symbols circulate in Western late modernity: religious symbols (e.g., biblical texts, stories, languages, and characters and their symbolic inversions as drawn on in “secular” extreme metal) have been divested of their truth-value and instead circulate as symbols, as meanings with experiential consequences. This elasticity of meaning allows for a surprising flow of symbols and meanings between secular and Christian extreme metal, and at the same time for unique experiences for each audience.
A version of this chapter appear as “Contingency and the symbolic experience of Christian Extreme metal” in the collection The Oxford Handbook of Musics and World Christianities. Dueck and Reiley, Eds. Oxford, 2016.
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Notes
- 1.
I am using the term secular extreme metal only to contrast it against Christian extreme metal as heuristic categories. It would be remiss to characterize all extreme metal as ‘secular’ because of the wide variety of ideologies, beliefs, symbols, and themes expressed within extreme metal, just as not all Christian extreme metal can characterized by the need to evangelize or express devotion. Moberg (2007) rightly suggests that people consider Christian extreme metal a genre in its own right. Yet, the distinction allows a productive tension that reveals interesting social dynamics.
- 2.
Sanctuary International was originally a church, which turned online to become a travelling ministry. Founded in LA in the late 1980s by Pastor Bob Beeman, Sanctuary International catered to people who felt ostracized from mainstream Christian congregations because of their lifestyle choices and affiliation with the metal culture.
- 3.
For the sake of anonymity, I have not used the screen names of the forum respondents and have created a pseudonym for the website in which this forum discussion occurred.
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Unger, M.P. (2016). The Symbolic Experience of Christian Extreme Metal. In: Sound, Symbol, Sociality. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-47835-1_6
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