Page - 91 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/02

DOI: 10.25364/05.6:2020.2.8 “And God Is Never Far Away” | 91www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/2, 91–102 Natalie Fritz and Anna-Katharina Höpflinger “And God Is Never Far Away” Or the Sum of this Issue Abstract The postlude offers a summarising reflection on music and popular culture. Keywords Madonna, Like a Prayer, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Religious Expectations, Meaning Making, New Spirituality, The Mercy Seat In this Issue we have journeyed through popular music genres and scholar- ly approaches and now, in this postlude, we can look back to some of the most revealing discoveries. As the authors have demonstrated, popular music carries a wide range of religious symbols and motifs. In many cases, artists not only pick up religious symbols and motifs and place them in new con- texts, but also create a new whole out of different religious narratives (see Eva Meienberg and Katharina Luise Merkert), which can lead to a genre-spe- cific religious-visual language (see Lavinia Pflugfelder). But popular music can also be a means of expression for more traditional religious communities or world-views. More established religious ideas can be communicated through popular music in new and innovative ways (see Reinhard Kopanski). Popular music tells us much about the values and expectations of a specific culture and can therefore enter into fruitful dialogue with religion and pressing con- temporary issues (see Angela Sue Sawyers and Yannick Schlote). In the following we will highlight some aspects of the interrelation of religion and popular music with two examples from the 1980s: Madonna’s famous song “Like a Prayer” with the video clip from 19891 and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “The Mercy Seat”, from the album Tender Prey (1988) and focus thereby on the 1 Like a Prayer (Madonna, Mary Lambert, US 1989), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= 79fzeNUqQbQ [accessed 2 June 2020].