Table of Contents

Introduction 1. Origins, Definition and Historical Development 2. Verbal, Visual, and Aesthetic Traits 3. The Sensory and Bodily Dimension 4. Ideological and Discursive Traits 5. Contemporary Transnational Scene 6. Christian Metal in Context Bibliography Index

Promotional Information

A comprehensive guide to the phenomenon of Christian metal music, its history, development, and main ideological traits, from its formative years in the early 1980s to the present day.

About the Author

Marcus Moberg is a senior researcher and formerly held the position of Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher in Comparative Religion at Abo Akademi University in Turku, Finland. His research interests include the sociology of religion, religion and consumer culture, and religion, media and culture studies. He has published widely on Christian metal and contemporary intersections of religion, media and popular culture.

Reviews

Christian Metal provides a welcome new treatment of a music culture understudied by scholars in the fields of ethnomusicology, media studies, and popular music ... and an important entry point for further scholarship.
*Sociology of Religion*

Metal, a genre suffused with Christian imagery albeit with a blasphemous twist, spawned its own renegade, Christian metal. Metalhead religious scholar Marcus Moberg presents a detailed and analytically elegant definitive account of this counter-movement, a worthy addition to metal studies.
*Deena Weinstein, Professor, Department of Sociology, DePaul University, USA*

An invaluable guide to a thriving yet frequently misunderstood subgenre, Moberg's authoritative, insightful work on Christian metal is essential reading for metal scholars.
*Jeremy Wallach, Associate Professor, Bowling Green State University, USA*

For his text Christian Metal: History, Ideology, Scene, Marcus Moberg has a hard row to hoe, because of the obscurity of Christian metal, and the minimal respect the genre receives, but it’s to his credit that he scours the world and the internet in search of this disrespected, neglected musical style. … Christian Metal is an interesting and necessary look into a musical scene that has been ignored, misunderstood, and misaligned. Kudos to Moberg for undertaking what surely was a daunting task, resulting in a fascinating document about the history and culture of Christian Metal.
*The Recoup*

…Marcus Moberg’s Christian Metal provides a valuable and helpful starting point for scholarship on the phenomenon of Christian metal music specifically, and it furthers our understanding of evangelical popular culture more broadly.
*Reading Religion*