About the Forum on Music and Christian Scholarship
Christian musicologists talked in the late '90s about forming an association focused on bringing their faith and their academic research together. In March 2002 a steering committee consisting of Thomas Connolly, Robert M. Copeland, Stephen Crist, William Edgar, Robert Judd, and Timothy Steele, met in Philadelphia and formed the loose organization with its name and subject, and planned for a general meeting the following year. In the fall of 2002 a reception was held at the meeting of the American Musicological Society at which about seventy interested visitors were present.
The first conference of the FMCS (Philadelphia, March 2003) drew about fifty attendees. Attendance at conferences has ranged from forty-five to a hundred over the past four years. In March 2007 the steering committee formally approved a constitution and bylaws, and disbanded itself in favor of more formal structure. The current board of directors is a caretaker organization awaiting the first formal elections (fall 2007).