Contextualization versus Globalization:
A Glimpse of Sounds and Symbols in Asian Worship
I-TO LOH
Let me take this opportunity to thank your Institute of Sacred Music, formerly my alma mater at Union Theological Seminary. My studies there, nearly forty years ago, laid the foundation for my long journey toward contextualization of church music and liturgy in Asia. My intention in this talk is to explore some of the struggles between contextualization and globalization, and to give you a glimpse of how some Asians are dealing with sounds, and to a lesser extent symbols, in worship. I will describe a framework that presents some of the relevant dimensions. In order to really understand and feel the musical issues I am talking about, we will look at some examples together
The General Asian Scene
Over fifteen years ago I gave a lecture in Hong Kong for the World Association of Chinese Church Music in which I pointed out the awkward situation of Chinese-speaking churches around the world. I said that Chinese churches:
• were banana churches, because they looked yellow in their skin, but deep in their heart and mind they wanted to be as white as Caucasians;
• translated and borrowed theologies, having no theologies of their own;
• copied music—they copied Western styles of composition, and also illegally copied Western published anthems;
• used liturgies that were all secondhand liturgies introduced and used by missionaries over a century ago.1
I challenged these Chinese musicians and pastors: "Where is the rice?" Where is the staple food, the substance of their Chinese Christian expression? Unfortunately those observations and comments still to some extent reflect the general situation and attitude of most of the churches in Asia today, with the exception of a few seminaries and institutions in India, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia.
The central theme of my life's work has been this struggle between contextualization and Westernization or globalization. You may ask, what is wrong with globalization? Globalization is not inherently bad. But globalization, like Westernization, is problematic when it promotes the wholesale supplanting of local cultures by Western ideas. I frequently tell my Asian students and colleagues that modernization does not equal Westernization. If you copy others all the time, then you lose yourself. In regard to Christianity, this has occurred primarily in two ways: the initial wholesale transplantation of the Gospel by early missionaries without any regard for local context, and rapid globalization. As a result, local people have come to see their own culture as without value. Local culture is being thrown out in favor of Western ideas.
Let me give you some examples of the impact of globalization on local culture in Taiwan and Asia.
• The wholesale importation of Western praise choruses and pop style hymns is causing a host of problems. First, music is no longer placed in its liturgical context; it is only used as a warm-up for half-an-hour or longer without consideration for its relevance in the liturgy. Second, the people's musical ability has declined. Fewer people are interested in other types of music. Native traditions and newly composed songs in ethnic styles have little chance of survival. Third, the church is losing her historical and ecumenical links. The overall result is that Christians are becoming narrow-minded, and Christian doctrines of God and the Church are distorted.
• Entertainment-oriented worship services and success-theology, formulated after globalization, have become the primary mode of preaching and evangelism.
• Some Western editors/compilers have made recordings of songs from the Third World which they then published under their own names as arrangers, when in fact they had only transcribed, or at most changed a few notes, and then claimed ownership.
• Some Western composers have arranged simple Third World songs into larger Western-style choral works, altering the original styles so much that their uniqueness was lost. Even worse, the Western arrangers then copyrighted the songs for themselves, forcing the original developers to pay money for their own diluted music.
Ethical issues also emerge from this aspect of globalization. The rich West has the know-how and power to take over the works of the poor Third World. "Learned composers" randomly superimpose Western harmony in order to "globalize" Third World songs for Western consumption. Forcing these songs into Western style is like forcing people from hot climates to put on formal suits and ties before being allowed to worship God.
This is not a new problem. D. T. Niles, the cofounder of the Christian Conference of Asia and its first General Secretary, recognized this problem decades ago. In his writings he suggested an elegant metaphor for explaining the problem of transplanting the Gospel. Although he did not live long enough to experience the phenomenon of globalization, his observations and suggestions for solutions are still valid. He said:
The Gospel is like a seed and you have to sow it. When you sow
the seed of the Gospel in Palestine, a plant that can be called
Palestinian Christianity grows....The seed of the Gospel is later
brought to America and a plant grows of American Christianity.
Now when missionaries came to our lands they brought not only
the seed of the Gospel, but their own plant of Christianity, flower
pot included! So, what we have to do is to break the flower pot,
take out the seed of the Gospel, sow it in our own cultural soil,
and let our own version of Christianity grow.2
Here Niles pinpoints the heart of the problem, not only of the Gospel but also of our music and worship. The major part of our effort in Asia today is still focused on translating, imitating, and copying Western ways of singing and worship, believing them to be the only authentic Christian expression. Instead, our efforts today should be focused not only on breaking the Western flowerpot, but also on taking out the seed of the Gospel and figuring out how to plant this new seed. We need to cultivate a version of Christianity that is appropriate to our own cultural soil.
Contextualization of Christian Musical Expression
Our basic challenge is this: How can we encourage an expression of Christian faith that is Asian in nature, and not merely a transplantation of Western Christianity? In my view, contextualization is the approach we need to take in order to plant this new seed of the Gospel. In my first attempt, in 1984, to define the meaning of contextualization, I concluded that contextualization is, above all, the manifestation of the Imago Dei in human kind. It is the revelation of the mystery of God's creative power as shown in his creation, including human minds that formulate various art forms. And it is our participation in God's continuous creation, letting God transform our culture and arts into dynamic media that will effectively communicate and express the meanings of the Gospel to our people.3
Today I would add that the ultimate goal of contextualization is the realization of incarnation in any given context, that is, God in Christ taking native forms and speaking native languages. The Gospel is no longer confined in any flowerpot, or in need of translation.
In the rest of this presentation I will give you examples of Asian music at different degrees of contextualization. I hope that you will appreciate both the challenge that we face in promoting contextualization, as well as the enormous potential for creative contextualization and insight into faith that can be gained by drawing upon the rich cultural diversity of Asia. I am going to begin by characterizing the degrees of contextualization taking place in Asia, and providing a number of examples of these contextualizations. I will conclude with an example of my own work.
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