In the United States, Partners for Sacred Places, a nonsectarian organization, works with historic sacred places to find funding solutions which often include the pairing of church congregations with arts organizations. Some organizations are able to provide funding opportunities for certain organ-related activities and projects, while others simply promote the organ. Some of these are large organizations like the Organ Historical Trust of Australia, which tasks itself with the preservation of Australia’s organ culture, while others are smaller in scope and are dedicated to the support of a single instrument. In addition to governmental structures for the funding of the arts and the preservation of cultural heritage, many countries have their own independent organizations and funding mechanisms. Local governments fund organ festivals which garner significant attention from the public, such as the annual festival Toulouse les orgues. Historic religious edifices in France built before 1905 are owned by the government, and more than 1,400 historic organs are protected under a division of the Ministère de la Culture, the Monuments Historiques. In the United States, for instance, the preservation of most organs is out of reach of government spending because of its policies related to the “separation of church and state.” Another secular government, that of France, has a decidedly more involved hand when it comes to the preservation of religious heritage. Secular governments, on the other hand, may provide no funding for the upkeep of religious edifices. On one hand, a Christian government may dedicate tax money to the upkeep of churches and other religious artifacts. Governments can either actively or passively implement policies that impact the organ. These structures seriously impact the sustainment, growth, or decline of organ culture. The study of political secularism as it relates to the organ looks at how governmental and societal structures support or do not support the organ. This short essay is intended to serve as a summary of four areas of research related to secularism and the organ: (1) political secularism, the study of the relationships between the organ and governmental or other organizational structures (2) secularization, the study of declining religious demographics and the affects this has on the organ (3) individual and community secularity, the study of the appreciation or lack thereof of the organ in secular individuals and society and (4) historical reevaluation, the critical reassessment of the organ’s history using secularism as a lens. 2 As churches close, especially in North America, organs are frequently left homeless or in complete disuse. While studying the organ from this perspective would be enlightening at any time, this research is especially urgent because secularization in Europe and North America poses one of the most serious problems the organ has ever faced. To address the future of the organ in a more secular society, my research critically reevaluates the organ through the lens of secularism and secular studies. Despite clear precedent for the secular use of the organ, in most regions of the world, the organ is deeply rooted in its Christian identity because it is churches that provide organists with jobs, it is primarily churches that encourage organists to learn the organ, and it is frequently churches that are the biggest patrons of the organ.ĭespite a wealth of historical and present-day examples of the organ used outside of Christian liturgies, almost no research related to the organ has engaged secularism. The organ has occasionally even found itself right in the spotlight of popular culture such as its use in the early-twentieth century for the accompaniment of silent film. The organ was used as an instrument for entertainment in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European courts, the adornment of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Town Halls, demonstrating grandeur at world’s fairs, entertaining the rich and famous in the twentieth century 1 and even at singular but nonetheless important and influential places such as the Wanamaker department stores in Philadelphia and New York, Balboa Park in San Diego, or the City Museum in St. From being an instrument for outdoor use in Western antiquity and the middle ages to its place in concert halls and theaters today, the idea that the organ is an instrument of Christian origin or somehow an instrument with a solely sacred identity is demonstrably untrue. The organ’s ability to adapt to both sacred and secular contexts have allowed it to thrive for more than two thousand years. The 1890 William Hill and Son organ at the Town Hall in Sydney, Australia. An Introduction to Secularism and the Organ