Each of Us (Online)

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.


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.


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.


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.


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).


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.

Documents

Each of Us (Online)