How important is music to you? Does it have a sacred quality in your life? From contemporary Catholic theology to the goth icon Nick Cave, music speaks to the soul in ways other media does not.

Dr Lyn McCredden is emeritus professor of literary studies at Deakin university in Melbourne. Read her essay about Nick Cave’s book Faith, Hope and Carnage in The Conversation.

Dr Greg Clarke is a former CEO of the Australian Institute of Music, and before that, of the Bible Society of Australia.

Dr Maeve Heaney is a consecrated missionary of the Verbum Dei community and director of the Xavier Centre of Theology at the Australian Catholic University in Brisbane. She’s also a singer songwriter and the author of a new book called Suspended God: Music and a Theology of Doubt.