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Keith Watkins
Each of Us in Our Own Native Language
Connecting Classic Worship and Popular Culture
s it was on the church’s first Pentecost, so it should always be,
that all of the people in the multitudes hear the gospel—and re-
spond in prayer—“each of us, in our own native language” (Acts 2:8).
Inevitably, this principle requires Christians to face issues related to
worship and culture. While affirming that Jesus Christ, the eternal
Word of God, is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews
13:8), we proclaim that Word in human languages that differ from one
another and continually change. We express our thankful praise to God
in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Colossians 3:16), but struggle
to find melodies and rhythms that touch the hearts and satisfy the
minds of people whose musical cultures are rooted in contrasting and
often conflicting ethnic and generational communities.
Our challenge is always the same: to worship God so that “the
faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 1:3) takes
bodily form in the many cultures of humankind.
Among the churches of English-speaking North America, in earlier
generations, this challenge was characterized by the need to translate
the language of public worship from Old World languages to American
English, with Lutheran churches an especially important example. The
_________________
Keith Watkins writes on history, theology, and bicycling.
He lives in Vancouver, Washington, just north of the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. [email protected]
Copyright © 2006 Keith Watkins
A
2 Each of Us in Our Own Native Language new ethnic communities retained their former languages and cultures
as long as they could in their homes and churches. By the second gen-
eration, however, congregations and denominations experienced grow-
ing stress in their relations with the dominant culture. The people who
had worshiped in German, Norwegian, or Finnish (as my mother did in
her childhood), gradually changed their practice so that they cele-
brated the familiar liturgy in an English mode.
Even when the language did not change, as was the case with
Roman Catholics who maintained their worldwide Latin liturgy, and
Anglicans who already used English, other aspects of liturgical practice
and parish culture had to be adapted to fit life in America. Catholics
found themselves modifying the folk customs and popular liturgies
brought from their former homes, while Anglicans had to replace
prayers for the king with prayers for the president.
Today, this challenge is taking on greater urgency. New waves of
immigrants keep alive the need to make peace between the language,
music, and culture of their homelands and the prevailing modes of ec-
clesial life in the United States. On the surface, the challenge is with
language, helping people whose first language is Korean or Spanish
learn to worship in the English that dominates the land that they and
their children now inhabit.
At a deeper level, the challenge is with other cultural patterns,
such as music and ceremonial style. Even deeper are issues develop-
ing out of the struggles over identity. Korean Americans, says Sang
Hyun Lee, “are not in Korea anymore, nor do they feel that they really
belong to mainstream America.” This condition of being between the
two cultures, not at home in either, he says, is especially evident in
worship. The question that Lee poses can be affirmed by people from
other immigrant cultures: “How can Korean and Caucasian American
joint services be more meaningful for the participants than they usu-
ally appear to be? In other words, what is the essential requirement for ‘successful’ cross- and multicultural worship?”1
1 Sang Hyun Lee, “Worship on the Edge,” in Making Room at the
Table: An Invitation to Multicultural Worship, edited by Brian K. Blount and Leonora Tubbs Tisdale (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 96ff.
Each of Us in Our Own Native Language 3
The challenge of finding an adequate cultural form for worship in
contemporary America takes a second form: the conflict between
modes of worship in heritage churches and the aesthetics and patterns
of popular culture. Heritage churches, often referred to as mainline
Protestantism, are derived from the classic Catholic Christianity that
was shaped to live in European cultures and then reshaped by the
American experience. For most of our history, these churches have
been controlled by middle and upper class cultural values. For two
decades following World War II, heritage churches flourished, but then
came the cultural revolution propelled by Vietnam and the Civil Rights
Movement. Severely shaken by this experience, the heritage churches
sought to preserve their traditional ways, while the society as a whole
moved on. As often is the case, young people led the way, especially
with their music. This cultural divide has continued for half a century.
Although one youth generation is quickly replaced by another,
these successive cultural waves have much in common. Kenda Creasy
Dean characterizes this quality as a hunger for immediacy, and she
observes that “today…youth culture and popular culture in the United
States have become virtually synonymous.” Everyone, she notes, “from toddlers to middle-aged adults, wants to be a teenager.”2 Re-
placing lyrics by Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, or Fanny Crosby, and
their musical settings, with texts and tunes in the mode of Elvis
Presley or Bono is something that many churchgoers find difficult to
accept, even if that course of action could open the door to winning a
new generation to Christ.
Catholic ecumenist J.-M. R. Tillard tells of a eucharist he attended
when the archbishop celebrating the mass entered “with a green-
haired punk as acolyte, a ring in his nose and another in his left ear,
not to speak of multicolored shorts, while guitars played music that
scarcely resembled Bach or Handel.” Tillard notes that youth are often
bored at our eucharists when we sing music by Lucien Deiss or classi-
cal chant. “Now it’s our turn to accept having our ears irritated by a
new music, our eyes shocked by an esthetic with a taste surprising for
2 Kenda Creasy Dean, “Moshing for Jesus,” in Making Room at the
Table, 134, 5.
4 Each of Us in Our Own Native Language us, but with the hope that an authentic faith is encountered there and that good taste will triumph.”3
The challenge of embodying worship in a cultural form for our time
is experienced in a third way, perhaps the most challenging of all for
people in heritage churches: the often unrecognized shift in cultural
patterns that is taking place among people of the dominant culture
who have long experience in the church. The liturgical situation in heri-
tage churches closely parallels the challenges facing arts organizations
such as the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Oregon Shake-
speare Festival in Ashland.
According to reports in The New York Times, the Met’s “average
demographic” is 63 years of age, college educated, and financially
comfortable. While the organization has a solid financial base, some
people see it as a stodgy institution and others as moribund; it faces
an ever-greater challenge to attract an audience. As Peter Gelb pre-
pared to begin his work as general manager (August 1, 2006), he an-
nounced plans that he hoped would remake the Met. While many peo-
ple responded positively to his ideas, others were skeptical, fearing
that he would dumb it down in order to sell its programs to the public.
One writer complained that his ideas sounded too much like the “Euro-trash” that was making European opera “so flaky these days.”4
With a budget of $22.5 million dollars a year, the Shakespeare
Festival in Ashland is one of the largest arts organizations in the na-
tion. While its commitment to Shakespeare continues, the company
produces works by many other writers, including Ibsen, Strindberg,
and O’Neill. Yet in 2006 this highly successful theater was facing chal-
lenges: “costs are up, the audience is getting older,” and the artistic
leader is preparing to retire. The central question facing the festival,
says one writer, is this: “How will the country’s largest repertory thea-
3 J.-M. R. Tillard, I Believe, Despite Everything: Reflections of an
Ecumenist, translated by William G. Rusch (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2003), 41,42.
4 My references to the Metropolian Opera are drawn from columns by Anthony Tommasini and Daniel J. Wakin in The New York Times, April 13 and 14, 2006.
Each of Us in Our Own Native Language 5
ter company reshape itself to remain vital to a culture that cares less and less about the things a classical theater does?”5
Is not this the same question we face in the heritage churches?
How can we remain faithful to our central values while reshaping our
worship so that it remains vital in a culture that finds our music boring,
our ceremonies stodgy, and our rhetoric abstract and disconnected
from real life?
The answer to this question that I am proposing in the following
pages is that pastors, musicians, and other worship leaders do two
things: first, reclaim the basic characteristics of the classic pattern
of Christian worship, and second, recast that liturgical core in
strong and suitable forms that are derived from living cultures—
ethnic, popular, classical—of our time.
The Inculturation of Christian Worship
My efforts to think about this challenge have been guided by the
writings of Filipino theologian Anscar J. Chupungco. The Vatican Coun-
cil’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy was two decades old and the
Catholic Church was far advanced in its efforts to transform its Latin
Rite into vernacular forms when Chupungco published the book that first caught my attention.6 He had already spent many years in re-
search and scholarly activity, with special focus upon developing a Fili-
pino liturgy. Even though his church had already translated its liturgi-
cal books and created regional variations of its major liturgies, Chu-
pungco knew that the process would necessarily continue, and he pub-
lished this book in order to encourage and shape that process.
As the foundation for his proposals, Chupungco offered a succinct
history of Christian worship. Beginning with the blending of Jewish
5 Bob Hicks, “Ashland’s Next Act,” The Oregonian, February 19,
2006, O 1,8ff. 6 Anscar F. Chupungco, Cultural Adaptation of the Liturgy (New
York: Paulist Press, 1982). In 1982 when he published the book, Chu-pungco was president of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in Rome and professor of liturgical history and liturgical adaptation. Later, he be-came director of the Paul VI Institute of Liturgy in the Philippines.
6 Each of Us in Our Own Native Language Christianity with Gentile culture, and continuing through major trans-
formations such as the Franco-Germanic adaptation of the Roman Rite
in the eighth century, he shows that at every historical stage two prin-
ciples were at play: unity in essentials and diversity in cultural forms.
With Vatican II, his church entered a new phase in its liturgical life: to
adapt the worship of his church, which existed in elaborated European
variations, so that it would become incarnate in the many cultures of
the modern world, including his own Filipino variant of Asian culture.
In his 1986 book, Chupungco refers to the process with the word
adaptation, which at that time was the preferred term in Catholic
documents. As writers from the fields of liturgy and missiology entered
the discussion, other terms—such as indigenization, contextualization,
and interculturalization—were used to describe what happens when
Christian worship takes root in cultures where it has not previously
been established. Quite early in the process, however, Chupungco be-
gan using what was then a new word, inculturation, which he de-
scribes as “the process whereby the texts and rites used in worship by
the local church are so inserted in the framework of culture, that they
absorb its thought, language, and ritual patterns.”
Although Chupungco later indicated a strong interest in what he
calls interculturalization, creative assimilation, and organic progres-
sion, he most frequently uses inculturation to describe the process that
allows people to “experience in liturgical celebrations a ‘cultural event’
whose language and ritual forms they are able to identify as elements of their culture.”7
Chupungco’s first principle of inculturation, the theological, has as
its central element the Incarnation—Jesus’ coming into the world as a
person, a Jew, a member of the chosen people. The incarnation, he
says, “is an historical event, but its mystery lives on whenever the
Church assumes the social and cultural conditions of the people among
whom she dwells….The Church must incarnate herself in every race, as Christ incarnated himself in the Jewish race.”8 In a later book, Chu-
7 Anscar J. Chupungco, Liturgies of the Future: The Process and
Methods of Inculturation (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), 29. 8 Chupungco, Cultural Adaptation, 59.
Each of Us in Our Own Native Language 7
pungco indicates that the word incarnation should be reserved for use
only for Jesus’ coming into the world, but this theological idea is the pattern and foundation for everything else that we do.9 When we are
changing the cultural forms of our worship, we have to make sure that
what we are translating into another culture is the gospel, the central
affirmation of the Christian faith. The New Testament bristles with
brief declarations of Christian faith, but one of the most succinct is
Paul’s declaration: “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,
not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the mes-
sage of reconciliation to us” (2 Corinthians 5:19).
Chupungco notes the importance of making two distinctions: be-
tween the theological content of a rite and its liturgical form, and be-
tween those factors that are immutable and those that are subject to change.10 His unyielding position is that any aspect of worship that is
“of divine institution…may not be replaced with another content or
form that will modify the meaning originally intended by Christ.” He
insists that “the washing with water and the Trinitarian formula are the
irreplaceable liturgical form of baptism, and food and drink in memory of Christ’s sacrifice are the irreplaceable elements of the Eucharist.11
Chupungco’s second principle, the liturgical, consists of three ele-
ments that are derived from the nature of worship itself. The author’s
stance as a Christian theologian rather than historian of religion is
clear. Worship is oriented toward God, our “personal encounter with
God in faith, hope and love through Christ in the community of the
Church….A liturgy which does not offer the possibility of a personal en-
counter with God lacks a basic quality. Indeed one can ask whether there is liturgy here at all.”12
Furthermore, the Word of God is primary, both as readings and as
the inspiration of sermons and prayers. Through the Word, God speaks to the people and Christ proclaims his gospel.13 This same Word also
9 Chupungco, Anscar J. Liturgical Inculturation: Sacramentals, Re-
ligiosity, and Catechesis (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1992), 17. 10 Chupungco, Liturgies of the Future, 37–40. 11 Ibid., 42. 12 Chupungco, Cultural Adaptation, 63. 13 Chupungco, Cultural Adaptation, 67.
8 Each of Us in Our Own Native Language provides lyrics for the songs and cadences for the prayers which we
use to respond to the God whom we meet in Jesus Christ. Although we
use our own words in every part of a service, worship is more authen-
tic to worshipers when we hear echoes of the scriptural text through-
out the service. We even refer to sermons, despite their human speak-
ers, as the word of God.
The liturgical principle also requires the active participation of the
people, which means that worship has to be intelligible to the people,
adapted to their patterns of public life, and fully expressed in their lan-
guage, art, and ceremonial actions. Factors such as these enable the
people to be engaged in worship in a conscious, active, and intelligent
manner. While some aspects of worship can be followed instinctively
by people who are deeply rooted in a specific culture, other aspects
have to be learned, which means that a well-ordered church maintains
a process by which people are taught what worship is and how they
can participate well.
Chupungco refers to his third principle as cultural, and it moves us
into a deeper aspect of the challenge. Worship must take living form in
each culture, in “the sum total of human values, of social and religious
traditions and rituals, and of the modes of expression through lan-
guage and the arts, all of which are rooted in the particular genius of the people.”14 Taking a long view of human culture, Chupungco says
that it includes the “firmly established values and traditions” that over
many generations have shaped “the religious, family, social and na-
tional life of the people.” In developing this idea, he recommends a
term taken from the technical language of translation, dynamic
equivalence, and illustrates it with language drawn from the Mass of
the Filipino People of 1976. The Greek word anamnesis, for example,
is translated with a phrase which in English reads “how clearly we re-
member.” This phrase, he says,
indicates collective memory and is used to begin the narration of a historical event. It is the narrators’ way of claiming that they were present when the event happened, that they witnessed it in per-son. That is why they can recount it vividly and to the last detail. Is this not perhaps what the Church wishes to say at the narration
14 Chupungco, Cultural Adaptation, 75.
Each of Us in Our Own Native Language 9
of the Last Supper? The Church was there, remembers clearly what took place that evening as Jesus sat at table with his disci-ples, and now faithfully transmits the experience from generation to generation.”15
Although it is clear in his writings that Chupungco sometimes ap-
peared to move further than his church was willing to go, in a book
published in 1992 he affirms a definition of inculturation given by a
synod of bishops in 1985—“the process of reciprocal assimilation be-
tween Christianity and culture and the resulting interior transformation
of culture on the one hand and the rooting of Christianity in culture on the other.”16 It is a process of interaction that leads to reciprocal as-
similation.
Throughout his entire career, Chupungco has dealt primarily with
the inculturation of Roman Catholic worship, but his understanding of
the interplay between worship and culture has implications for all
churches. He served with an international body of Lutheran theologi-
ans, liturgists, musicians, and pastors who met from 1993 through
1996 in order “to study the influence worship and culture have on each
other and to set the conditions or parameters for the inculturation of Christian worship.”17 Although we might prefer a more colloquial phra-
seology, Chupungco’s statement of the challenge that Lutherans face
is our challenge, too:
On the one hand, how to protect the doctrinal integrity of
Christian worship and, on the other, how best to utilize whatever is good, noble, and beautiful in culture.18
15 Chupungco, Liturgical Inculturation, 39. 16 Ibid., 40. 17 Chupungco’s discussion of his involvement in this consultation
appears in two addresses that he delivered at Valparaiso University in Indiana: “Inculturation of Worship: Forty Years of Progress and Tradi-tion,” http://www.valpo.edu/ils/chupungco1.pdf; “Liturgical Incultura-tion: The Future That Awaits Us,” http://www.valpo.edu/ils/chupungco2.pdf. The consultation published its findings in two volumes: Worship and Culture in Dialogue (Lutheran World Federation Studies, 1994) and Christian Worship: Unity in Cul-tural Diversity (Lutheran World Federation Studies 1996).
18 Chupungco, “Inculturation of Worship,” 3.
10 Each of Us in Our Own Native Language
This understanding of inculturation can help identify reasons why
some attempts at worship renewal are ineffective. Instead of doing the
deep work of inculturation, some churches do the relatively superficial
work of adorning an existing liturgical system with a contrasting,
sometimes conflicting, expressive mode. A congregation that uses the
standard denominational hymnal adds scripture songs and ethnic mu-
sic, hoping that its blended worship will provide something for every-
one. Usually, however, no one is happy with the result because the
character of the old liturgy remains dominant and the new music—
both in its theological content and its musical character—seems alien
to the spirit of the existing liturgy. Rather than penetrating to the
depth of the culture the congregation wants to reach and expressing
the core of the gospel in that culture’s forms, this method uses a few
elements from the new culture as a costume to dress up an existing, culturally conditioned liturgy.19
The problem is compounded when the existing liturgy is itself a
previously thinned out version of classic Christian worship. In many
heritage churches, as Ronald P. Byars, points out, worship has little
connection with the patterns developed during apostolic times and
continued through the ages in churches around the world. Rather,
what is described as “traditional worship” means “what we’re used to,”
and usually represents a shrunken version of classic Christian wor-ship.20
A second implication for North American churches is that incul-
turation offers a method of reform that does justice to both sides of
the process: we are to translate the essential core of the liturgy, which
is theologically true and necessary, into the spirit, ethos, instinct, aes-
thetic, and mind that is the common possession of people in the re-
ceiving culture.
19 Chupungco’s native land, The Philippines, is an example of this
limited translation of worship into the national culture. A graphic de-scription appears in Philippine Liturgical Music,” by Manuel P. Maramba, OSB (http://www.ncca.gov.ph/culture&arts/cularts/ music/music-litmusic.htm.
20 Ronald P. Byars, The Future of Protestant Worship: Beyond the Worship Wars (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 36, ff.
Each of Us in Our Own Native Language 11
A Process of Inculturation for Heritage Churches
The process of liturgical inculturation begins by determining the
essential and authentic form of that which is to be translated or moved
from one culture to another. The problem is similar to one that Bible
translators encounter. When translating scripture into languages in
which it has never been published, they begin not with an existing
modern language translation but with the most reliable Hebrew and
Greek texts available to scholars. Similarly, liturgical inculturation be-
gins with a foundational pattern of words and actions, authenticated
by Scripture and shaped in the formative period of the church’s life. To
borrow computer terminology, we begin with a pattern of worship in
the default mode.
For Catholics, according to Chupungco’s analysis, the basic form of
the eucharist is not the Europeanized rite that developed in the eighth
century and existed for a thousand years but the classic Roman Rite as
it developed in Patristic, perhaps even Apostolic, times. The Catholic
default is the ancient liturgy that had “absorbed the Roman cultural
traits of simplicity, sobriety, and practicality,” using language that was “sober and direct, and appeals primarily to the intellect.”21
For Protestants, as Chupungco counseled his Lutheran colleagues,
the challenge is to find a liturgical default of our own, “a standard li-
turgical rite that contains the essential elements of Christian worship
as handed down by tradition and [is] accepted as such by the church.”22 In North America, the choice for Protestants is between two
liturgical forms that have been widely present in American church life.
The first model, which comes in several post-Reformation variants, is
based on the apostolic and patristic liturgy that unites Word and Table.
In its full form, this liturgy consists of praise, proclamation of the Word
of God, prayers for the church and world, and the praise-filled remem-
brance of Jesus with bread and wine at the communion table. Protes-
21 Chupungco, Liturgies of the Future, 3,4. See Edmund Bishop’s
essay “The Genius of the Roman Rite,” published in his book Liturgica Historica: Papers on the Liturgy and Religious Life of the Western Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1918).
22 Chupungco, “Inculturation of Worship,” 3.
12 Each of Us in Our Own Native Language tant worship organized according to this model has nurtured Christians
for 2,000 years. It continues to keep alive in the church the mystery of
our salvation, the continuous reappropriation of Christ’s living pres-
ence. The service of Word and Table carries evangelical power to con-
vert sinners and strengthen the faithful. The most dramatic examples
of this latent power of the Word/Table model come from the sacra-
mental seasons as practiced in Scotland and the United States in the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with the Cane Ridge Revival of 1801 as its climax.23
The second pattern is based on the service of the Word, which be-
came the order of worship for most Sundays of the year in the heri-
tage churches of Europe and North America. In its origins, this order
was a truncated version of the classic eucharistic liturgy and carried
the harmonics of the table even on the Sundays when the ceremonies
and prayers with bread and wine were absent. This pattern was
abridged even further and given a distinctively American character in
revival meetings, in which it consisted primarily of music, message,
and altar call. In this form, it prevailed in the awakenings that swept
through the Eastern Seaboard and the South in early generations and
throughout urban America in more recent times. Today, its most suc-
cessful incarnations are the seeker services and celebrations in new
paradigm churches that have become prominent since the late 1900s.
In its modern form, this pattern for worship, with its emphasis
upon music and message, has lost its connection with the classic serv-
ice of word and table. Indeed, many would say that the two forms of
worship—Word/Table and Music/Message—have significantly different
purposes, the one serving long-established Christians, especially peo-
ple in the later decades of life, the other serving the unchurched and
unevangelized—especially younger adults—who need to be brought to
Christ. According to this point of view, the choice pastors and congre-
gations face is between the classic model of Word/Table that leads to
23 The most extended discussion of this eucharistic tradition is
Leigh Eric Schmidt’s Holy Fairs: Scottish Communions and American Revivals in the Early Modern Period (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).
Each of Us in Our Own Native Language 13
decline and the evangelical model of Music/Message that offers the
possibility of growth.
Both patterns of Christian assembly, however, can be effective in
conveying the gospel to people of our time who have not yet heard it.
The apparent evangelistic advantage of the Music/Message pattern
may lie in the fact that it is easily accommodated to popular culture.
The sequence of parts is brief and simple, quickly translated from one
popular medium to another. In contrast, the Word/Table pattern is
theologically and culturally complex. Heavily freighted with theology
and tradition, deeply set with words, music, and ceremony, it resists
translation. Once translated, however, this classic pattern of praise,
Word, prayer, offering of self, thankful praise at the table, and sacra-
mental union with Christ has strong capabilities to transmit the gospel.
Even after choosing this pattern, however, we still need to deter-
mine its default mode, the basic liturgy that constitutes the inner core
of the Americanized versions of Lutheran, Anglican, or Reformed eu-
charistic rites.
Our goal is to begin the work of inculturation with the liturgy of
word and table expressed in its simplest and most direct form.
Simple means free from elaboration and adornment, which are the
features most highly impacted by culture. While elaboration and
adornment add emotional warmth and communicative power, they can
obscure and suppress the theological structure that is the basic carrier
of theological meaning. Directness refers to the straightforwardness of
the action—starting at the beginning, moving logically from one step to
the next, and stopping when the denouement of the action has taken
place.
Classic Christian worship, in default mode, simple and direct, pro-
vides the liturgical substance that is to be translated into a specific
culture.
As though anticipating the need to return to the default, worship
books published since the 1970s provide short outlines for the stan-
14 Each of Us in Our Own Native Language dard service of word and table. Closely parallel are the accounts given
in Presbyterian and United Methodist books. The service has four
parts: Gathering (the Methodists say Entrance); the Word (Proclama-
tion and Response); the Eucharist (Thanksgiving and Communion);
and Sending (Sending Forth). Each book includes a few lines of expla-nation under each of these headings.24 This default liturgy is broken
out in a slightly different way in the Episcopal Church’s Book of Com-mon Prayer, again with brief explanations:25
The People and Priest
Gather in the Lord’s Name
Proclaim and Respond to the Word of God
Pray for the World and the Church
Exchange the Peace
Prepare the Table
Make Eucharist
Break the Bread
Share the Gifts of God
One of these parts, the prayer at the communion table, expresses
the meaning of the entire order of worship in words addressed to God.
A concise description of this prayer is given in The United Methodist
Book of Worship. The book notes that as “Jesus gave thanks over
(blessed) the bread and cup, so do the pastor and people.” It then
summarizes the prayer:
After an introductory dialogue between pastor and people, the
pastor gives thanks appropriate to the occasion, remembering
God’s acts of salvation and the institution of the Lord’s Sup-
per, and invokes the present work of the Holy Spirit, conclud-ing with praise to the Trinity.26
24 Book of Common Worship (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox
Press, 1993), 33; The United Methodist Book of Worship (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1992),15.
25 The Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1979), 400, 401.
26 The United Methodist Book of Worship, 28.
Each of Us in Our Own Native Language 15
As stated here, the theological center of gravity in the Word/Table lit-
urgy is remarkably similar to Chupungco’s statement that every litur-
gical celebration ís an anamnesis of the paschal mystery and an epi-cletic prayer for the bestowal of the Holy Spirit.27
After establishing the liturgical default, it is necessary to select the
metaphors, language, music, art, and ceremonial actions from the re-
ceiving culture that are strong, authentic expressions of the people.
The elements of the receiving culture are used to affirm the gospel of
God’s action in Christ, orient people toward God in a fully participatory
way, and infuse the receiving culture with the spirit of the living Christ.
The purpose of this step, in any culture where it is taken, is parallel to
the one stated in the preface to A New Zealand Prayer Book: He
Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa: “to enable us to worship God in our own
authentic voice, and to affirm our identity as the people of God in Aotearoa – New Zealand.”28
The only people who can do this, of course, are people who al-
ready are fully part of that culture and can constructively represent it
in the process of inculturation. Since many pastors and musicians in
the heritage churches (I am an example) have little understanding of
the popular cultures we hope to serve, we need to search out good
colleagues in the process.
The most obvious illustration of the challenge is the selection of
music. The youth and ethnic cultures of our time are awash with music
that expresses the experiences, questions, and convictions of the mul-
titudes. Fortunately, there are musicians who are at least bilingual and
perhaps multilingual in these musical idioms. An example is the music
team I experienced leading a Music/Message liturgy in a new paradigm
church in a southern city a decade ago. The music director had a per-
27 Chupungco, Liturgies of the Future, 37. These Greek terms are
often translated as remembrance and invocation (calling upon). In the eucharist, the church remembers God’s action in Jesus Christ for our salvation and calls upon the Holy Spirit to be present and active in this sacrament.
28 A New Zealand Prayer Book: He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa (Aukland: Collins, 1989).
16 Each of Us in Our Own Native Language formance degree in piano from the school of music at Indiana Univer-
sity and additional study with Leonard Bernstein, while the leader of
the praise ensemble served as associate music director of the sym-
phony orchestra in their city. Yet on Sundays, they led a congregation of 2,000 people in hard-driving, soulful Christian music.29
A contrasting example is the Mass for teens celebrated in another
major city. The music was popular rather than classical Catholic music,
drawn from the culture of the young people who were the primary par-
ticipants in the liturgy. The liturgical form, however, was the full, un-
abridged Word/Table service that always takes place in Catholic churches.30
The musical challenge is greater than simply selecting one kind of
song rather than another. The way that music functions in public
ceremonies varies widely. In one musical culture, participation means
that congregants sing with full voice, perhaps even in four-part har-
mony. In another culture, however, the musical form consists of an
ensemble doing most of the singing and playing while the congregation
performs a spontaneous counterpoint of movement, rhythmic excla-
mations, and clapping. While congregants may not sing many of the
texts, they are deeply and emotional involved.
At least as important as the choice of music and modes of per-
formance is the role of generational differences with respect to group
identity and individualism, a factor that Gil Rendle refers to as value
systems. Drawing upon the research of Jackson Carroll, Rendle distin-
guishes two systems, one held by people born prior to 1946 and an-
other held by people born afterwards. The older culture is committed
to multigenerational congregations, believes that there should be one
large worship service “where we can all be together and get to know
one another,” differentiates sharply between roles, holds to long-
standing patterns, and uses a “fairly narrow range of music.” People in
29 Keith Watkins, “Vision-Driven Ministry: Reflections on Atlanta’s
Perimeter Church and Perimeter Ministries International,” in Encounter 56 (1995), 289ff.
30 This liturgy (which I have attended several times) is described by Sally Morgenthaler, Worship Evangelism: Inviting Unbelievers into the Presence of God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995), 260ff.
Each of Us in Our Own Native Language 17
the younger generations, however, see worship “through the eyes of
the ‘consumer’ individual value system where differences of preference
are expected.” They want multiple choices in the time and format of
worship, choices based on how worship influences personal spiritual
needs, informal roles, and a wide range of music. While the older gen-
erations want children to be seen and not heard, the younger genera-
tions expect to accommodate children in ways that are “similar to the role given children in current culture.”31
If the choice of music, and perhaps even the appropriation of sys-
tems of values, are easily recognizable aspects of the receiving culture
that must be honored, the choice of metaphorical figures and philoso-
phical ideas may be a more important but, at the same time, more dif-
ficult aspect of inculturation. An illustration is a eucharistic prayer de-
veloped for experimental use (but not approved by the Vatican) by the
Catholic bishops of India in the 1970s. The prayer combined Biblical
and non-Christian language in order to express the idea of the Trinity
in a way that Indians would understand.
In the Oneness of the Supreme Spirit through Christ who unites all
things in his fullness, we and the whole creation give to you, God
of all, honour and glory, thanks and praise, worship and adoration,
now and in every age, for ever and ever. Amen. You are the full-
ness of Reality, One without a second, Being, Knowledge, Bliss. Om, tat, sat.32
This same prayer included other Indian concepts. The fall of humanity
is described as “dharma declined,” and “ignorance” is substituted for
sin. “The work of the prophets and of Jesus Christ…is to re-establish
dharma, to bring about order in the lives of people and thus create a
just world which bespeaks the kingdom of God.” In his discussion of
this liturgy, Stephen M. Beall suggests that this prayer may represent
31 Gil Rendle,Generational Worship in a Multigenerational World,”
Alban Weekly, July 25, 2005, 2–4. 32 Beall, Stephen M. “Translation and Inculturation in the Catholic
Church,” Adoremus Bulletin, Online Edition, Vol. II, No. 6 (October 1996), p. 6.
18 Each of Us in Our Own Native Language a questionable degree of syncretism and concludes that some of the
terms, especially dharma “have historically conditioned associations
(e.g., the caste-system) and are likely to resist assimilation by foreign ideologies of any kind. It is better to leave them alone.”33
According to Chupungco’s understanding of inculturation, we must
give attention to that culture’s standards for what is strong, authentic,
and enduring. While agreeing with Chupuncgo’s insistence that we use
only those aspects of a culture that are “good, noble, and beautiful,”
we have to remember that the standards used to determine those
qualities must come from the receiving culture rather than from the
transmitting culture. How can I, for example, with my interest in a
narrow range of classical western music, determine what is of enduring
value in Arabic music? Or in any aspect of the popular music that of-
fends my sensibilities but fills massive arenas with vast numbers of
people the ages of my children and grand children (and also quite a number of people my age)?34
Clearly, inculturation is a collaborative process, requiring people
from the transmitting culture who fully understand the liturgy and the
core of Christian faith which it expresses and people from the receiving
culture who understand their own culture with equal fullness. The hope
is that early in the process people from both sides will become adept in
their understanding of the other culture.
As churches of the dominant culture reach out to translate worship
into popular modes, they may receive unexpected benefits from the
receiving cultures. Some people in mainline Protestant churches have
found themselves saying that while they don’t like youth-oriented mu-
33 Ibid., 7. Beall was identified as an assistant professor of Foreign Languages at Marquette University, Milwaukee, where he taught mostly Latin and Greek.
34 Anecdotal evidence of popular taste in music appears all sum-mer long in Esther Short Park (the oldest public space in the Pacific Northwest) across the street from the condominium where I live. The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra plays one free concert in the summer in contrast to the twice-weekly concerts of popular music sponsored by the city of Vancouver throughout the summer. In addition, two or more commercial weekend festivals, one featuring “classic rock,” take place, jammed with patrons at $20 admission charges.
Each of Us in Our Own Native Language 19
sic, they do like what it does to the service—which is to bring energy
and excitement. One African-American pastor contrasts the functions
of choirs in white churches and black churches: to sing beautiful music
versus “driving the congregation to do its part.” Thus, a strong contact
with the way music functions in ethnic and youth cultures may help
people in heritage churches choose music that leads to congregational
participation in worship rather than music that is mostly serviceable as
a sacred concert. The purpose of the liturgy, including its music, is to
provide the means for people to offer themselves to God as a living
sacrifice, which is their spiritual worship (Romans 12:1, 2).
Often services done in ceremonial modes drawn from ethnic and
youth cultures are informal compared to the stiff patterns in many
mainline congregations. Or, to use the terms employed by researchers
from the Alban Institute, “much of the tension over worship has to do
with the contrast between irony/playfulness and what congregations
actually are doing. In the dominant churches, there is a heaviness and
insistence that things must be done ‘properly.’ What often is lacking is creativity.”35 The same team of researchers suggest that many youth
may believe that some of their own music—the example being “Buffy
the Vampire Slayer”—is not what they are looking for in worship; in-
stead, “they are looking for stated historical depth and a deeper sense
of tradition, but not in a pious fashion.”
Confirmation of this analysis can be seen in a report on religion in
Great Britain. Speaking to representatives of the news media at a con-
ference sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Grace
Davie reported that “some styles of churches are doing well and some
are not.” One successful model is an evangelical church with “a char-
ismatic element” in its worship. The best known example is Holy Trin-
ity Brompton in London, the home base for the Alpha program, but,
says Davie, “you’ll find a little Holy Trinity Brompton in most towns
and cities in Britain.”
Davie’s second model is “the cathedral or city center church,”
which offers predictable worship with “world-class music, sublime ar-
chitecture and very good preaching.” What churches in these two
35 “Changing Styles of Worship,” Alban Weekly (May 16, 2005).
http://www.alban.org/weekly/PF/IP05_0516_ChangingStyles.html.
20 Each of Us in Our Own Native Language models have in common, she suggests, is that they are experiential.
“It’s not so much what you learn when you get there; it’s the taking
part that is important. It’s the fact that you’re lifted out of yourself
that counts.” What doesn’t work, she says is worship that is “purely
cerebral.” She notes that “old-fashioned Biblicism” and “liberal Protes-tantism” are losing out.36
One conclusion that could be drawn from this discussion is that in
North American churches, the older and younger cultures are still so
much alike that a revised order of worship in the heritage mode could
be effective for both segments of society. A theologically profound lit-
urgy, celebrated in an energy-filled, experiential style would do much
for worship in mainline Protestant services. Not only would such a style
make these services more interesting to younger people, but it would
also make them more appealing to older members.
In a book discussing growth and change in the Protestant main-
stream, C. Kirk Hadaway and David A. Roozen conclude that the heri-
tage churches cannot recover strength by emulating conservative
churches or popular evangelicalism. Instead, they point to congrega-
tions that “are unapologetically liberal and heavily involved in commu-
nity ministry, with a clear focus on social justice.” In these churches,
“the social and moral agenda…is anchored in a deep, meaningful wor-
ship experience…that welcomes the transcendent God in all God’s mystery—without giving up reason or tradition.”37
Many heritage churches have been standing still for a long time,
with the result that their liturgies are little changed from what they
were half a century ago. They need to update even to continue being
what they once were. In many cases, they have tried to update, but
have done so in ways that were insufficiently based on liturgical or cul-
tural principles. The result is an order of worship that has replaced re-
ligious depth with therapeutic advice or cultural commentary. If these
congregations were to strip their service back to the default mode and
36 Grace Davie, “Believing Without Belonging: Just How Secular Is
Europe?” December 5, 2005. http://pewforum.org.events/ print.php?EventID=97.
37 C. Kirk Hadaway and David A. Roozen, Rerouting the Protestant Mainstream: Sources of Growth and Opportunities for Change (Nash-ville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 88ff.
Each of Us in Our Own Native Language 21
then refit it with the most expressive elements of their own culture,
they would in many cases find their services becoming intellectually
more persuasive and emotionally more compelling.
One thing is clear: since human culture is constantly changing, the
task of translating the gospel, which began in Jerusalem and quickly
spread throughout the Hellenistic world of the Apostles, is always with
us. Every generation and every culture has the same need and the
same right: that the churches worship God in ways that make Christ
incarnate in the living forms of contemporary human life.
Note: This paper began as a presentation to a work session of the Association for Reformed and Liturgical Worship meeting at Seattle University. The version as prepared for that occasion was subse-quently published in Seattle Theology and Ministry Review.