In Search for Asian Sounds and Symbols in Worship

In Search for aSIan SoundS and SymbolS In WorShIp

CSCA ChriStiAnity in SoutheASt ASiA SerieS no. 5

In Search for aSIan SoundS and SymbolS

In WorShIp

Trinity Theological College Singapore

By

Loh I-to

Edited and Introduced by

Michael Nai-Chiu Poon

Copyright © Trinity Theological College 2012

Published by Trinity Theological College490 Upper Bukit Timah RoadSingapore 678093Tel: (65) 6767 6677Email: [email protected]: www.ttc.edu.sg

All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright owner.

Printed in Singapore

ISBN 13: 978-981-07-1069-9

national library board, Singapore cataloguing-in-publication data

Loh, I-to, 1936-In search for Asian sounds and symbols in worship / by Loh I-to ;

edited and introduced by Michael Poon. – Singapore : Trinity Theological College, 2012.

p. cm. – (CSCA Christianity in Southeast Asia series ; no. 5)Includes bibliographical references.ISBN : 978-981-07-1069-9 (pbk.)

1. Church music – Asia. 2. Hymns – Asia. 3. Loh, I-to, 1936- I. Poon, Michael Nai-Chiu. II. Trinity Theological College (Singapore) III. Title.

IV. Series: CSCA Christianity in Southeast Asia series ; no. 5.

ML2951782.22095 — dc22 OCN774816251

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Contents

CSCA Christianity in Southeast Asia Series vii

Dedication viii

Foreword by Lo Lung Kwong 1

Introduction Loh I-to as Bridge-Builder: Communication and Communion in the Asia Pacific – Michael Poon 4

Preface 17

pilgrimage in contextualisation

Chapter 1 Toward Contextualisation of Church Music in Asia 27

Chapter 2 Revisiting Ways of Contextualisation of Church Music in Asia 42

Chapter 3 Contextualisation of Asian Liturgy and Music: From AILM to Global Contexts. A Personal Recollection, Reflection and Vision 61

Chapter 4 Approaches to Contextualisation of Church Music: With Special Reference to “Welcoming Another Year with The Spring Breezes” 78

Quest for asian Sounds and Symbols in Worship

Chapter 5 Worshipping through Incarnational Music: My Mission 109

Chapter 6 Contemporary Issues in Inculturation 136

Chapter 7 Asian Symbols and Symbolic Acts 148

Chapter 8 A Glimpse at Multipart Practices in Traditional Asian Music 157

Sign posts

Chapter 9 Contributions of ‘Asian’ Traditions to The Presbyterian New Hymnal, USA (1990) 177

Chapter 10 A Survey of Texts and Musical Styles in Sound The Bamboo (2000) 182

Chapter 11 The Significance of Seng-Si 2009: The New Hymnal of The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan 204

loh I-to and his Work

Chapter 12 I-to Loh: Life and Influences – Lim Swee Hong 234

Published Works of Loh I-to 243

Bibliography 253

About the Author and Contributors 256

About the Cover Art 258

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CsCA ChristiAnity in southeAst AsiA series

Series editor: Michael Nai-Chiu Poon

The CSCA Christianity in Southeast Asia Series consists of commissioned studies on present-day Christianity in Southeast

Asia, specifically in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. This Series aims to build up Southeast Asian Christian

scholarship in Asia, and to encourage much-needed theological reflection and critical inquiry on Christian life in Asia. The past few decades have witnessed two significant shifts that have impacted how world Christianity is interpreted. First, social sciences now provide the fundamental categories for understanding religious worlds. Philosophical and theological disciplines are often dismissed as ideologically motivated and so no longer occupy the central role they once assumed. Secondly, world Christianity is now studied in post-liberal settings in the West by academics who may have little interest in church life or Christian conviction. This represents a significant change from the time when career missionaries were the chief exponents of world Christianity. Stephen Neill, John V. Taylor, Max Warren and Andrew Walls were perhaps among the last missionaries in the post-1945 generation from the old school. Christian studies so run the risk of becoming increasingly abstract, with little attention to Christian life and witness. World Christianity is often described and explained in concepts that may be alien to the Christian community. Theological colleges, especially those outside the West, are often left without viable alternative but to accept such accounts.

This Series hopes to meet the intellectual needs of Christian communities in Asia and beyond: to produce academic books for teaching Christianity to the faithful, and to introduce what Southeast Asian Christians think to the wider audience, in the hope this will advance Christian mission in the third millennium.

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Affectionately dedicated to my wife

Hui-chin

a woman of wisdom and perseverance

my best supporter, adviser, colleague and critic

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Foreword

I first met Loh I-to personally in a CCA (Christian Conference of Asia) Mission Conference in Cipanas, Indonesia, 21-27 September

1989. I was amazed by his wide knowledge of hymns from various Asian countries. It was my first experience of the richness of Asian hymns. I did not have much chance to talk to I-to on that occasion: it was a mission conference; hymns singing and liturgy played only a small part in the programme. Nevertheless, I was so impressed by I-to’s gifts in music, and his humble attitude in teaching and leading us to worship in Asian hymns and liturgy.

Our close friendship began in 1996 when we both became members of Executive Committee of ATESEA (Association for Theological Education in South East Asia). During various ATESEA meetings, we held long conversations on theological education, church music, politics, Taiwan churches and so on. I learned from him much about Asian hymns, as well as his life experiences in contextualising church music and hymns in traditional and modern Asian cultures and situations. In 1997, though he was busy at that time with his responsibilities as president of Tainan Theological College and Seminary, he accepted my invitation to conduct a church music workshop in our School at Chung Chi College. We had a rich programme. Many came, including various Hong Kong church musicians who had different understanding of music contextualisation. It was surely the first time that such church music workshop took place in Hong Kong. I was struck by I-to’s openness toward the different views expressed, and the respect he received from Hong Kong church musicians.

I-to told me that in 1968, soon after he received his Master of Sacred Music degree at Union Theological Seminary New York, he

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had turned down an invitation to teach in the Music Department of our University. So when I invited him to teach in our School as a visiting professor after he retired from Tainan, he readily agreed. He saw this as a good opportunity for him to pay the ‘debt.’ I-to’s promise was realised in autumn 2006, four years after he retired. Since then he has been teaching one semester every two years in our School. He was with us in 2008-09 and 2010-11; we look forward to him coming again in 2012-13, and in the many more years ahead. Our students and churches in Hong Kong benefit from his presence. He loves our school and students so much that he paid his own airfares to take part in the Consecration and Thanksgiving Service of our new chapel on 5 November 2011. He sent us a Taiwanese gong as a gift to our new chapel to remind us to use traditional Asian musical instruments in our worship.

For me, I-to is not only a musician, a theologian and a theological educator. He is above all a faithful friend and companion whom I can count on to take up responsibilities and discuss issues with honesty and heartfelt warmth. He honours his promises and is always willing to help at all times. His contribution to Asian church music and liturgy is tremendous. The Sound the Bamboo (2000) and the Hymnal Companion to Sound the Bamboo (2011) represent his invaluable contributions to Asian churches and to churches worldwide.

I-to is our pride. He helps churches in Asia to see the richness of our own Asian cultural resources, and to apply them in liturgy and church music. He introduces Asian hymns, sounds and worship to churches worldwide, and so helps the global church recognise Asian contributions to world Christianity today. Above all, he helps Asian Christians to be confident about our own identity.

I-to’s effort and contribution over the years are now put together in this book. This is a wonderful service to us, so we can have a fuller picture of I-to’s journey in contextualising Asian church music and liturgy. I-to’s rich resources and life work are now more readily accessible to church musicians and theological colleges through this book. I would like to thank Canon Michael Poon for his hard work and wisdom in conducting this project. I would also like to thank I-to for his devotion over the years. His labour is not in vain.

Foreword �

May our Lord bless I-to and his wife, Hui-chin. With his wife at his side, I-to has nurtured a whole generation of younger Asian Christian pastors and musicians through his teaching, composing and writing. May their exemplary life and ministry continue to inspire many in the years to come.

lo lung-kwongDirector, Divinity School of Chung Chi College,The Chinese University of Hong KongPresident, The Methodist Church, Hong KongChair, ATESEA (2001-2005)

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i n t r o d u C t i o n

loh i-to As bridge-builder: CommuniCAtion And Communion in the AsiA pACiFiC

Michael Poon

My research on spiritual movements in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia gives me a fresh impetus to fill the gaps in my

theological understanding. Professor Loh I-to, above all others, has helped me to bridge the gaps and expand my horizons. This publication of Loh’s collected essays, drawn from his papers and presentations from mid 1985 to the present, aims to share the intellectual and spiritual journey of this distinguished Asian theologian at the turn of the third millennium. This book serves as well to complement a recent CSCA publication on Shoki Coe, Christian Mission and the Test of Discipleship, introducing present-day readers to two Taiwan-born Asian theologians whose works are of huge significance to the study of world Christianity.

To contemporary Asian Christians, Loh I-to seems at first appearance to be remote, aloof, and irrelevant. Along such views, Taiwan has little to do with the rest of Asia. Loh’s ethno-musical interests immediately place him to be someone out of touch with pop-music cultures – and therefore with the younger generations. Further still, music may have little to do with theology proper. After all, Asian church music is not a core subject in seminaries, nor are professional composers commonly recognised in Asian churches.

Remarkably, Loh finds a more appreciative reception outside Asia. Dietrich Werner of the World Council of Churches gave a more judicious assessment in his tribute to Loh in June 2011:

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Your collections of hymns from Asia, including Sound the Bamboo (the CCA Hymnal 2000) and the new Presbyterian Hymnal in Taiwan have left a mark on the landscape of Christian worship in Asia for decades. Several noteworthy aspects have marked your theological passion and discernment on church music and its future over the past decades: respect for the cultural and spiritual authenticity; interest in the biographical background of composers and Christian witnesses behind certain hymns; a critical resistance over against hasty and insensitive adaptation and musical misappropriation of hymns into different, Western musical styles as well as a superficial selling out of authentic Asian music to the monotonous and shallow-brained praise song culture.1

Carlton Young, editor of The United Methodist Hymnal in the United States of America, added in the same occasion:

[Daniel T.] Niles’ passion for Asian hymnody and liturgy would have died with him in 1970 was it not for scholar-composer-hymnist I-to Loh and his distinctive, four-decade contributions to Asian hymnic pedagogy and bibliography. Dr Loh’s work culminates in Sound the Bamboo, 2000, and its recently published magisterial companion Sound the Bamboo: Asian Hymns in Their Cultural and Liturgical Context. The comprehensiveness of this latter volume places it in a class with other one-author, labor intensive, magisterial works such as Louis F. Benson’s The English Hymn, 1915, and Egon Wellesz’s A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography, 1949. However, Dr Loh’s volume is distinguished from these because the author is also the prime enabler of the hymnic repertories and liturgies he chronicles and discusses.2

Loh’s ministry is connected with a momentous time of transitions in Asian churches and peoples: rising from the ashes of the Pacific War in the mid-1940s, to the diverse experiences of nation-building and the increasing socio-economic polarisation among Asian peoples in the present-day. India and China have reasserted their dominating presence. Super-cities like Hong Kong, Singapore, and

1 “Professor Loh I-to: A Music Tribute,” Trinity Theological College, Singapore, accessed 2 December 2011, http://www.ttc.edu.sg/index.php?option= com_content&task=view&id=289.

2 Ibid.


Tokyo have emerged with living standards that have far exceeded their counterparts in the West. Amid breath-taking changes, the ‘Asian Revolution’ that began with Japanese military occupation in ‘Southeast Asia’ in 1942 is far from over. Suffering and dislocation, economic and social polarisation, and the expectancy of social change are still the experience of most Asians today.

For the sake of convenience, we take Loh’s active ministry to span the two decades from 1982 to 2002. This marks the start of his ministry in the Asian Institute for Music and Liturgy in 1982 to his retirement at Tainan Theological College and Seminary in 2002. These years spanned a transitional period in Asian theological development. Loh belongs to the second generation of Asian leaders that succeeded D. T. Niles, Shoki Coe and Kosuke Koyama in the post Pacific War years. The conditions in the 1950s and 1960s were more conducive to collaborative work. After all, the practical need to build a shared infrastructure from scratch pulled the churches in the newly independent countries together. From the 1950s to the 1970s, East Asia Christian Conference and the Association of Theological Schools in South East Asia (ATSSEA) were the two main vehicles for inter-church and Asia-wide collaborations. The results were impressive. By the early 1970s, accreditation and faculty development infrastructures were set in place. The founding of the South East Asian Graduate School of Theology and the ATSSEA Doctor of Theology programmes epitomised the exceptional accomplishments in that period.

Subtle changes already began in the 1960s with the introduction of United States of America Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965, which opened wide America to Asian immigrants, and with it, brain drain from Asia to North America. One Malaysian church leader spoke with an air of resignation: “There are more Malaysians with higher theological degrees and doctorates outside Malaysia than there are in Malaysia. … We have not been able to arrest this ‘brain drain’ and perhaps we never will.”3 From 1959 to 1983, the South East Asia Journal of Theology was arguably the authority on Asian theology in the post Western missionary times. New immigration policies and the ease of air travel allowed Asian theology to be pursued in the

3 Tan Kong Beng, “Leadership Formation and Training in Malaysia,” in Church Partnerships in Asia, ed. Michael Poon (Singapore: Trinity Theological College, 2011), 175.

introduCtion �

West, which after all, offers more conducive conditions for academic pursuits. As a case in point, C. S. Song wrote his Asian theology mainly from his base in California. Scott Sunquist’s The Dictionary of Asian Christianity (2008), Sebastian Kim’s Christian Theology in Asia (2001), and Peter Phan’s Christianities in Asia (2010) are more recent examples of substantial works that were executed in the West. John England’s three volume Asian Christian Theologies (2003) is a notable exception.

To be sure, Asian theologians continue to write and research on Asian theologies in Asia, at the same time, most merely focused on their own immediate situations. Churches and societies in Asia are developing in separate ways, with little intentional effort for Asia-wide and longer-term collaborative work. So far, no textbook on the history of present-day Asian Christianity has yet appeared. This means Asian Christians, most of whom are citizens of newly-independent countries, are ill-informed of one another’s history, and therefore cannot understand their own immediate past as well.4 Asians however can ill afford to live in fragmented and separate ways. To be sure, ethnic communities in the West can live separate lives and pursue separate goals in Western post-liberal societies. The questions “Which Asia? Which Christianity?” that Peter Phan raised in his recent book however are not merely of theoretical interest to churches and societies in Asia. They need to nurture common grounds and common goals in order to face common challenges under the same roof. To do this, they need to connect with one another in deeper ways than they have done so far.

More worryingly, from the mid 1970s, theological engagement began to take place mainly in what Ivy Chou of the Theological Education Fund described as “big and expensive” conferences. Shoki Coe was concerned that contextualisation was at risk of becoming “merely a slogan or a fad” for grant application purposes. This was the main contention behind a sharp exchange between Shoki

4 Michael Poon, “The History and Development of Theological Education in South East Asia,” in Handbook of Theological Education in World Christianity, ed. Dietrich Werner and others (Oxford: Regnum, 2010), 375-403; “The Association for Theological Education in South East Asia, 1959-2002: A Pilgrimage in Theological Education,” in Supporting Asian Christianity’s Transition from Mission to Church, ed. Samuel Pearson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 363-402, 417-431; “On Volatile Grounds: A History of Church Partnerships in Asia,” in Church Partnerships in Asia, 21-50.


Coe and ATSSEA executive director Emerito Nacpil in 1977.5 The Theological Seminary-Workshops ended by mid 1990s, near the time when FTESEA (Foundation for Theological Education in South East Asia) funding support could no longer be taken for granted.6

The sketch above puts Loh’s contribution in sharp relief. Loh offers a fresh theological approach towards understanding world Christianity in the present-day. C. S. Song once argued, “There will be no creative theology in Asia until we have mastered the grammar of cultures in Asia, deciphered its syntax, and penetrated its semantics.”7 Little progress has been made since Shoki Coe sketched out the vision for contextualising theology in the 1970s. Post-colonial considerations seem to provide a fruitful way to re-examine the types and grammar of theology. Such focus on the missionary and colonial legacy may in fact bind Christian theology even more to the Christendom legacy. Theology in the ‘global South’ is often still interpreted along conservative, Biblicist, or charismatic lines within the grids of Western forms of theology. Similarly, to demarcate realities in terms of dormant cultural and political forces may in fact restrict our ability to explore inner connections across seeming divides. For example, in his three-volume work on Asian Christian Theologies, John England mapped out Asian theologians and theologies according to countries in the three “South Asia and Austral Asia,” “Southeast Asia,” and “Northeast Asia” regions. While such classification may be convenient for information gathering purposes, it prevents readers from exploring the theological interplay that transcends ‘regional’ and political lines.

The year 1941 perhaps offers a fresh reference point to us to explore the character of present-day world Christianity. The Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbour in December 1941 and the conquest of Southeast Asia the following year announced a profound global shift from the trans-Atlantic to the trans-Pacific. It announced the emergence of America as the new global power. The Japanese

5 See Michael Poon, “The Association for Theological Education in South East Asia, 1959-2002: A Pilgrimage in Theological Education,” 386-387.

6 Ibid., 399.7 C. S. Song, “Dragon, Garuda and Christian Theology,” in Doing

Theology with Cultures of Asia, ed. Choo Lak Yeow (Singapore: ATESEA, 1988), 31.

introduCtion �

occupation of Southeast Asia unleashed nationalist sentiments, undermined the impression of omnipotence of Christendom powers and paved the way for America’s presence at the western seaboard of the Pacific Rim. Japan as an Asian power achieved what no European power before could accomplish, and for the first time gave Southeast Asia a regional identity. In this sense, ‘post 1941’ is a more significant turning point for Asia than ‘post 1945,’ which after all, refers to the ending of the war in Europe. 1941 draws our attention to the growing importance of the Pacific Rim in international affairs, which previously have been mainly dictated by the transatlantic for at least the past millennium.

The geological and geographical configurations of the Pacific Rim contrast sharply with that of the transatlantic world. Such structural configurations form the basis for discovering new theological grammar, syntax and semantics. In this sense, the trans-Pacific theology is vital to making Christian theology truly ecumenical. It opens up horizons that have so far been limited by Christendom experiences. The reasons for this are clear. Christendom was about applying the principles of the Gospel and of canon laws to all aspects of social life. Stable geological conditions in western Europe and the east coasts of North and ‘Latin’ America made this construction of a common cultural and linguistic world possible. The cathedrals that still stand today witness to a form of Christianity that rested on confessional statements, institutional uniformity and historical stability: one church, one bishop, one king, one realm.

This stands in sharp contrast with the experiences of disorientation and volatility in present-day human societies. Migrant workers, refugees of war and stateless peoples testify to the fragile and fluid conditions in human life that are punctuated by the eruptions of wars, tsunamis and earthquakes. Makeshift tents and huts replace cathedrals to be carriers of Christianity at the start of the third millennium. Peoples are on the move; and so too faith is on the move. There is no resting place in present life. For many, life is apocalyptic. They live under the constant threat of impending end.

The southeast corner of the Asia continent, or to change the perspective, the southwest Asia Pacific Rim, in which Loh I-to has devoted much of his life work, especially epitomises these deep shifts in human experience. This stretch of lands and seas consists of more or less twelve countries from Indonesia, to Malaysia, the Indochinese nations, the Philippines and Taiwan. Norton Ginsburg’s magisterial treatise The Pattern of Asia arguably gives the best characterisation

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of this variegated region.8 Historically, it was a passage rather than a focus of developmental concentration. It has been a maritime passage between continents, as well as a funnel for migration of peoples under the pressure of political events in South Asia and China. Southeast Asia is therefore multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural and multi-religious: it is a gathering and dispersing place for peoples. John Paul II’s encyclical Ecclesia in Asia depicted Asia as “the cradle of the world’s major religions – Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. It is the birthplace of many other spiritual traditions such as Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, Sikhism and Shintoism. Millions also espouse traditional or tribal religions, with varying degrees of structured ritual and formal religious teaching. … This ‘being Asian’ is best discovered and affirmed not in confrontation and opposition, but in the spirit of complementarity and harmony.”9 More so, southwest Asia Pacific Rim is the crucible in which these traditions interact with one another, and therefore, more than any other places, peoples who live there need to acquire the “capacity for accommodation and a natural openness to the mutual enrichment of peoples in the midst of a plurality of religions and cultures.”10

In similar ways, there is no clear single reference point in the southwest Asia Pacific Rim. Jakarta, Singapore, Yangon, Bangkok, Hanoi and Manila capitalise on their own historical ties and geographical locations to connect with Asia and the wider world in their unique ways. Within each country, there are sizeable minorities of different ethnic, linguistic and religious origins. Even the ethnic Chinese themselves cannot readily communicate with one another because they speak different Han-languages.

Equally significant, geologically, Southeast Asia rests on two stable continental platforms, and two major arcs of volcanic instability that stretch from the Indonesian to the Philippines islands. The region consists of a series of geographical conversations between lands and seas, highlands and lowlands, rivers and mountains. Social life depends mainly on maritime routes and air connections, even within the same country.

8 Norton Ginsburg and John E. Brush. The Pattern of Asia (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1958), 290-320.

9 Ecclesia in Asia, 6 November 1999, 6.10 Ibid.

introduCtion ��

Such are the settings in which Loh and his fellow editors of Sound the Bamboo hymnal traversed “all over the Asia region” with their cassette recorders to capture songs of the common people amid “the traffic noise of busy city streets, beside the village fire at night, in huts and homely settings.”11 These are instances of mastering the grammar of cultures in Asia, deciphering its syntax, and penetrating its semantics. No other way to contextualise theology is possible, when impatient generalisation and conventional approaches could deafen us to the nuanced keys of hope and suffering of God’s people. The ‘monophony,’ ‘scale and melodic characters,’ ‘non-lexical syllables,’ and the symbolic acts in worship that Loh identified in his music journeys do not merely refer to the nature of Asian music. They in fact offer a new theological vocabulary and grammar, through which Christians can emotionally tune in to the hearts and minds of the peoples in Asia, understand the grass roots realities, and therefore can more ably connect their life and witness to God’s saving purposes.

In this respect, more than any other, Loh advanced Shoki Coe’s contextualising concerns. To one extent, Coe drew heavily on Karl Barth. Loh I-to, his student and future successor at Tainan Theological College, belonged to the second generation of post 1941 Asian theologians. The Pacific Rim is formative to his intellectual and spiritual understanding. Loh’s own mental shift from Christendom to the Pacific Rim happened in his move from Union Theological Seminary to University of California for doctoral studies. This was geographical as well as spiritual relocation. Loh moved from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Western classical music traditions to the music in the Pacific Rim. It marked the beginning of a lifelong quest for Asian sounds and symbols. Music composition using the musical instruments and textures of the southwest Asia Pacific Rim opened him to a new way to do theology. Setting texts to music compositions are by nature holistic, communal and collaborative exercises. They cannot be merely intellectualist. Hearing, sensing, meditating, contemplating, imagining, and above all, connecting to the cultural symbols are indispensable to musical understanding. More recently, Loh began pan-Asian experiments, setting texts in local and

11 Preface, in Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 1990, Trial Ed. (Quezon City: Christian Conference of Asia/Asian Institute for Music and Liturgy, 1990), 11.

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English languages, and combining them with music languages from different Asian countries. The “Hunger Carol” (Sound the Bamboo, No. 144) and “God of the Bible, God in the Gospel” (Sound the Bamboo, No. 255) are instances of such work. Therefore, Sound the Bamboo (2000) and Seng-si (2009) arguably are theological work proper. They are prime examples of contextualising theology – the continuing attention to the interplay between text and context in concrete situations among the common people. Ironically, John England puts Loh I-to at the last in his list of Taiwan “key people,” behind younger and lesser-known theologians.12 This shows how an intellectualist approach to theology can numb spiritual sensitivities.

More important, Loh’s works underline the crucial role that hymnology plays in effecting reconciliation. Human history, on one level, is a story of stolen goods. In Oliver O’Donovan’s words: “The monstrous inequity of generational succession is that all our possession becomes a kind of robbery, something we have taken from those who shared it with us but with whom we cannot share in return.”13 The reticence that often greets discussions on nation building experiences underscore the secret guilt which still infect every Asian nation on their immediate forebears. Nation making in Asia was accompanied by a history of ethnic riots, border disputes, religious violence and regional rivalry. The nuanced spiritual worlds of peoples can as well be bulldozed in homogenising nation-building processes.

Music composition and hymn writing, however, reconnect Asian peoples with one another, and therefore restores communion and communal life. Revelation 7 discloses the vision of a restored and transformed community. All the tribes of Israel, including those that have lost their land, as well as a great multitude “from every nation, tribe, people and language” stand before the throne and before the Lamb. Would there be in that eschatological gathering the near extinct tribes and peoples in the Asia Pacific? This vision points to the day when the whole creation is fully in communion with one another and before God; and all human goods are affirmed and human community is truly empowered in the act of common

12 John England and others, Asian Christian Theologies. Volume 3: Northeast Asia (Delhi: ISPCK, 2004), 699-701.

13 Oliver O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 187-188.

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sharing. In what ways can Asian Christians give expression to this? Peoples in newly independent nations have largely channelled their energy to secure the future of their own nation. When can we embrace our neighbours’ welfare as well, so that they too would live in security, and in fact, they and we can share the same roof? Loh’s pan-Asian musical works and his mission to revitalise spiritual traditions that are near extinct are acts of love that point to this eschatological vision. Clearly, such work is against the stream. The two dominant powers of the Pacific Rim, namely, China and the United States of America, exercise huge influence on the ways that churches approach worship and music. Such can undermine the longer-term need for churches in the Asia Pacific to learn from and connect with their immediate neighbours. For example, Singapore churches may be singing the latest popular hymns from America and at the same time see little need to understand the music languages and styles in Indonesia. Loh’s work, therefore, is a labour of love that is undertaken in hope.

The inner unity between music and liturgy has been Loh’s lifelong concern. He prefers as well the term ‘church music’ to ‘Christian music.’ For him, music contextualisation is an ecclesial and liturgical undertaking, which would be meaningless apart from it. Here, Loh stands out to be a rare Asian composer from Protestant traditions whose work resonates with recent Roman Catholic concerns on music inculturation.

In his incisive 2000 book The Spirit of the Liturgy, written before Benedict XVI became Pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger underlined that liturgy as “the prayer of the Church, a prayer moved and guided by the Holy Spirit himself, a prayer in which Christ unceasingly becomes contemporary with us, enters into our lives.”14 Liturgical singing, he pointed out, arises out of the overwhelming experience of God’s saving power amid desperate situations. The ‘Song of Moses’ (Exod. 15) and the ‘Song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb’ (Rev. 15) form the interpretative framework for understanding the connection between music and liturgy.15 The Psalter especially gives expression to this theological reality. It is the prayer book of the

14 Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 7.

15 Ibid., 136-138.


early church, which, at the same time, has become a church “that sings her prayer.”16 Liturgical singing, therefore, is Trinitarian:

Singing, the surpassing of ordinary speech, is a “pneumatic” event. Church music comes into being as a “charism,” a gift of the Spirit. It is the true glossolalia, the new tongue that comes from the Holy Spirit, It is above all in Church music that the “sober inebriation” of faith takes place – an inebriation surpassing all the possibilities of mere rationality. But this intoxication remains sober, … because this drunken speech stays totally within the discipline of the Logos, in a new rationality that, beyond all words, serve the primordial Word, the ground of all reason.17

Ratzinger then traced the occasions in the historical development of music in which demand for artistic autonomy made music alienate liturgy from its true nature. The present-day crisis in music is of special concern. First, “there is the cultural universalization that the Church has to undertake if she wants to get beyond the boundaries of the European mind.” “What inculturation should look like in the realm of sacred music if, on the one hand, the identity of Christianity is to be preserved and, on the other, its universality is to be expressed in local forms?” But then there are two equally worrying developments:

Modern so-called “classical” music has maneuvered itself, with some exceptions, into an elitist ghetto, … The music of the masses has broken loose from this and treads a very different path. On the one hand, there is pop music, … It is aimed at the phenomenon of the masses is industrially produced, and ultimately has to be described as a cult of the banal. “Rock,” on other hand, is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd, and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defences torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe. The music of the Holy Spirit’s

16 Ibid., 139.17 Ibid., 140.

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sober inebriation seems to have little chance when self has become a prison.18

Pope Benedict XVI could well find in Loh an unexpected and welcomed ally from the Reformed traditions. Loh’s attention to the spirit of the common people in Asia is matched by an equal devotion to the true calling of music contextualisation. He refuses to compromise with the music of the masses, and insists at the same time the central place that the Incarnation occupies in church music. His lifelong work represents the crucial elements in “cultural universalization” the church needs to undertake. Indeed, church music arguably embodies the most creative form of theology today. It connects contextualisation to the “wordless groans” of the Holy Spirit for God’s holy people amid their intense suffering (Rom. 8), without which theology is nothing more than self-absorbing and technical exercises. In this sense, the hymnals that Loh edited represent some of the finest theological works in these times of huge transition in world Christianity.

Pontifex (bridge builder) is a term that is often applied to bishops, especially to the Bishop of Rome. We can take this to mean Rome is the seat of authority; after all, all roads lead to Rome. However, pontifex also carries a missiological meaning: all roads connect us to the world. The bridge builder embodies the vocation to connect, to communicate, and to bring about communion. It gives expression to the Incarnation of the Word. In this sense, Loh I-to is a pontifex. He shows Asian churches a new way to be a theologian. A theologian is a pontifex: to bridge the heart with the mind; to discover the organic unity amid the diversities and polarities in Asia; to underpin music with theological rigour; and to put worship at the heart of all theological pursuits. The following pages invite us to embark on this communicative journey with Loh I-to.

The essays in this book were written over a period of 25 years for different occasions. Some were written with workshop participants and conference audiences in mind. Some were for academic publication. Others first appeared in Chinese and were then translated into English for other purposes. The style of the essays in their original form, therefore, varies from one to another. I have kept Loh’s style of

18 Ibid., 147-148.


presentation, except to ensure that the text is readable and stylistically consistent. References are thoroughly checked for this publication. The following essays gather around three themes. Chapters 1 to 4 outline Loh’s “Pilgrimage in Contextualisation.” Chapters 5 to 8 consist of Loh’s “Quest for Asian Sounds and Symbols in Worship.” The third section, Chapters 9 to 11, is Loh’s commentary on his life work, as represented by three hymnals – from the churches in America, Asia and Taiwan. True to Shoki Coe’s vision, there is no end to contextualisation. Therefore, the three hymnals are “sign posts” to the continuing contextualising task. Dr Lim Swee Hong kindly provides an interpretative essay on Loh I-to. It provides a fitting conclusion to the book. Professor Lo Lung Kwong, director of the Divinity School of Chung Chi College, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, kindly writes a foreword.

A final note of explanation on the author’s name. Readers especially from the West are more used to refer to the author as ‘I-to Loh,’ or ‘Ito Loh,’ an Anglicised practice that puts the surname at the end. With the author's permission, I use the form ‘Loh I-to’ that Taiwanese use. Clearly, both are correct. In similar ways, Loh’s mentor Shoki Coe was also known as ‘Ng Chiong-hui’ and ‘C. H. Hwang’. Our names and identities are interpreted and reinterpreted in different contexts. As Shoki Coe put it in his lectures at Princeton, 1970, “Mission always takes places in the interaction between what I call the text and context. And in this interaction our self-identity and self-identification, our faithfulness and our relevance, are put into test.”

CSCA hopes the following collection of essays will kindle among Christians in Asia a fresh vision to connect church music with theology, and inspire a new confidence to continue the contextualising work that Shoki Coe began. The Asian Composer Forum, to be convened in Trinity Theological College in June 2012, is a practical step along this direction. We are immensely grateful to Professor Loh for gathering colleagues in Asia to work on publication projects, to support one another’s work, and to nurture the next generation of musicians for churches in Asia. We look expectantly for abundant fruits to come.

For God’s greater glory.

Easter, 2012

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For the past 40 years, I have been searching for expressions of faith that are different from what Christians from the West have

taught us over the last century and a half. Asians, especially those who are educated in Western educational systems, have always been fascinated by things Western, even if they have never been to the West. Indeed, many people at times feel “greener pastures” and imagine a “fuller moon” in North America and European countries. We are always attracted by what we do not own. And yet, unless we dig deep into our own cultural roots, we cannot discover our real selves and recognise the Imago Dei in us. Without this, we would not be able to accept God’s particular gifts for us, and come to terms with what we are. And so, we would be like nomads wandering in the wilderness looking for the promised land, but are never able to find it, even though we may already be near there already.

I have written about my own spiritual journey in my previous book Jiao Wo Song-zan (Teach Us to Praise, 1992; revised 2002), and in a series of four articles “Sing to the Lord a New Song (I – IV)” elsewhere. They are however all in Chinese, and so are of limited use to English-speaking readers. This book aims to meet this need. This collection of essays, written over many years and for different occasions, records my personal pilgrimage in finding my own identity as well as in searching for ways that God has been revealed to us as Asians since time unknown, and in ways that Asians have not been aware of nor understood. My years with the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music (AILM) from 1982 to 1994, and my ministry in various Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) and the World Council of Churches (WCC) conferences led me to appreciate the depth of Asian spirituality in its diversified art forms. Asian music, dance, paintings, other arts and symbols made deep impressions on me. These expressions of faith are like bolts of lightning: so sudden,


so short, so bright, so powerful and so exciting that one sees the sparkles, then hears the loud thunders and senses the message. They reveal the insight and deep spiritual experience that human words can hardly describe. Indeed “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed” (Isa. 40:5) through all God’s gifts of creativity.

To help readers to understand the process of my own search for identity and for ways to communicate the gospel, I shall from the outset share about my own life. This might help readers understand who, where, why and what I am today as a pilgrim to God’s kingdom.

I grew up in an amateur musician-pastor’s family. My mother was fond of singing and playing the reed organ. From her, I have learned to sing many Western hymns, songs and art songs. I still remember the Japanese songs that my second eldest sister used to sing then. Despite the hardships of life during World War II (like escaping from American B24 bombings), we frequently sang during family devotions, and even for fun. We of course also sang in worship services in the church. My father also taught us to sing a few tribal songs. In 1948, my father began his ministries as an itinerant preacher/evangelist among the Amis, Pinuyumayan, Paiwan, Rukai and Tao tribes. Therefore, our whole family moved to Taitong at Taiwan’s east coast. Tribal songs became part of our daily life at that time. For more than half a year, we lived in Ma-lan Village, a concentrated habitat of the Ami tribe. I heard them singing at dawn when they set out for work or fishing, at the field when they were planting, and at dusk during their procession homeward. Occasionally I stood at the door of their village centre, watching their dances, drinking and singing until midnight. Somehow, many melodies have entered deep into my memory. From age 11 to 19, I lived in Taitong, and during the last five years, I went to Nan-wang, a Pinuyumayan village, to teach Sunday Schools every Sunday evening. On many occasions, I accompanied my father to various Amis, Paiwan and Rukai villages for worship, evangelism, summer schools and other workshops. Tribal music thus became part of me, but it did not occur to me then that I could use them to worship God or to express my Christian faith.

I entered Tainan Theological College and Seminary in 1955. The beautiful four-part singing of hymns at morning and evening chapel services deeply moved me. I often closed my eyes to enjoy the beautiful harmony of the hymns as my spiritual nourishment. But

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gradually, I began to question why there were no Taiwanese hymns. Although we in fact had a few Taiwanese Ping-pu (acculturated tribes) melodies, they were all harmonised in Western ways, and therefore lost their distinct character.

On returning from the military service in 1960, I continued to serve as a secretary to my mentor Miss Isabel Taylor, a Canadian missionary, who taught me voice, piano, conducting, hymnology and history of church music. I also translated hymns, anthems, medieval dramas and passion plays for her. In 1960, while I was translating a Passion Play which was originally performed by African Americans in Harlem, New York, the idea of ‘contextualisation’ dawned on me – though the term was only coined nearly a decade later. When I translated the traditional ‘Negro spiritual’ “Jesus walked this lonesome valley,” I began to wonder why the text could not be set as a “yellow spiritual.” The text connects powerfully with yellow-skinned Asians as well as it has for African Americans. Our skins are yellow, and our music should also reflect our yellowish colour. So, I began to search for possible clues to compose the song. I suddenly thought of wailing songs, which were mostly sung by the oppressed women in the old feudal society in Taiwan. They had to suppress their agonies and deep hurt feelings by crying out their bitterness through such songs, and somehow they could overcome the trials and gained strength to cope with these difficult life situations. This gave me an insight to relate to the feelings of Jesus when he was walking alone heading toward the cruel cross. So, I borrowed the first phrase of the wailing song, and developed it into a new song to convey the lonesome feeling of Jesus. After completion, I sang it to my professor, who was surprised and could not understand why. But after my explanation, she was convinced that I was on the right track. I also showed it to George Todd, who was the pioneer in urging our churches to open the doors to care for the needs of the society, who was also the person to have introduced this passion play to us. He was pleased to hear what I had done. They encouraged me to compose all the songs of the passion play in Taiwanese folk styles. When it was time to teach my fellow students, they rejected it, for they had been educated to look down on our own music culture. It was the early missionaries’ teaching that to become a Christian, one should deny oneself, including all cultural forms; Taiwanese folk songs or folk singing styles were also discouraged. It took the two missionary professors’ insistence and persuasion to make the students


accept the songs. The performance on Maundy Thursday in 1961 at Tainan Theological College and Seminary caused two reactions. A friend admitted that she was touched by the familiar musical idioms that made her feel that Jesus was so close to her. The other reaction was from a theology professor, who asked me why I did not use the familiar Western musical style that most people enjoyed, but had chosen Taiwanese folk idioms that Christians disliked and despised. I did not argue with him then, but I knew that I had found the right way to communicate and spread the Gospel.

I continued to study theory and harmony with my professor until one day she and Professor Kathleen Moody, then head of the Department, suddenly called me to their house and told me: “Dr Coe wants you to go abroad to study church music and become a teaching faculty in the Department of Church Music.” Shoki Coe was then the principal of our Seminary and the one who later coined the important term ‘contextualisation’ in doing theology. I owed it to him for appointing me to pursue this lonesome, yet challenging path of contextualisation of music and liturgy, not only in Taiwan but also in a wider Asian and ecumenical contexts. I completed my MDiv degree (1963) with my thesis entitled “Praise from Jerusalem to Formosa: a Preliminary Study on the History and Development of Christian Hymns in Taiwan.” This was my first attempt to search for clues of the development and contextualisation of church music in my country.

After I graduated, I became a teaching assistant at my alma mater, as well as the music editor of the official hymnal of the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan (PCT) Seng-si, which was published in February 1964. Later that year, I entered Union Theological Seminary, New York, in the autumn to study composition under the tutelage of Professor Joseph Goodman, who was a Jew, Anglican and pupil of Professor Paul Hindemith. I expressed my desire to compose in Taiwanese styles that would be beyond the traditional Western theoretical boundary. After one year of search and experiments, I found my way. I composed choral pieces in Taiwanese with three basic principles:

1. The melodic line would coincide with the natural intonation of the Taiwanese language which has seven tones, so that people would be able to understand.

2. The exclusive use of anhemitonic penta scales (five-tone scales: do re mi sol la without a half-step progression),

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with frequent modulations to avoid monotony of five-tone songs.

3. No chords or chordal progression in my multipart treatment. I love the rich sonorous beauty of Western harmony, but there is no concept of harmony in Han Taiwanese music. Taiwanese concept of beauty lies in its melodic contour. So I chose to use contrapuntal techniques to make two, three or even four interwoven melodies to flow naturally in polyphonic texture. The principle is to let the words be heard clearly and that the part progressions would not constitute any traditional Western chords. Should a chord appear accidentally, it should leave immediately to other tones to avoid any chordal progressions.

Professor Goodman was delighted in my discovery and approved my new compositional technique, which is distinct from traditional Western styles. I have finally found my way toward contextualisation of church music in Taiwan. However, when my pieces were performed in Taiwan after my return, they were marked as “ugly and difficult to sing,” because I tried to speak in the Taiwanese musical language, rather than imitating the familiar Western harmony and aesthetics. I sensed that my contextualised work seemed too academic and therefore too foreign to the pseudo-Western context of our Taiwanese congregations!

On George Todd’s recommendation, Takenaka Masao (1925-2006) asked me to collect Christian songs in Asian cities in 1968 for the Urban and Rural Mission Committee of the East Asian Christian Council (EACC which was later renamed Christian Conference of Asia, CCA). Besides conducting my field researches in Taiwan among most of the Han and Tribal ethnic groups, I began my Asian journey of collecting songs in major Asian cities. They included Tokyo, Kyoto, Hong Kong, Manila, Dumaguete, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Sibu, Kuching, Jakarta, Jogjakarta, Denpassar, Medan, Bangkok, Christ Church, Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, Kolkata, New Delhi, Nagpur, Bangalore, Madras, Bombay, Tamilnadu, and so on. I began to call for songs that would reflect their respective cultural traits. I had found many lyrics in India, but they were too complicated for others to sing, and a great number of songs from other countries were already Westernised. New Songs of Asian Cities with 64 songs was eventually published in 1972, from which we could see some


texts and tunes that reflected Asian realities in their struggles for living and for witnessing. To show the importance of contextual musical elements in hymns, I began to compose short liturgical pieces utilising Taiwanese motifs. With the support of Church Music and the Ethnomusicology Study Center, Tunghai University, I published my first collection of liturgical music in 1972. By then, I realised the only way to develop contextualised music in Taiwan and Asia was to pursue ethnomusicological study: the study of music in their cultural contexts. That, to me, was also the key to understanding the role of music in their cultural and liturgical contexts.

This awareness took me to University of California (UCLA) to study with the distinguished guru Mantle Hood (1918-2005), the pioneer in the study of Indonesian music and the founder of the Institute of Ethnomusicology at UCLA. By taking courses in musical cultures of the world, especially those of Asia, and participating in various performing groups, especially in Japanese shakuhachi, Javanese, Sundanese and Balinese gamelans and some Indian and African music, my ears were opened to the whole wide world of sonorities. I was exposed to diversities of musical theories, philosophies, aesthetics and performance practices. Although my main area of concentration was in Taiwanese tribal music and Chinese music, Indonesian music was my second area of concentration. For nearly five years from 1974 to 1979, I did not ‘touch’ church music until Jonah Chang, Secretary of the National Federation of Asian American United Methodist approached me to head the project of producing an Asian American Hymnbook. I then resumed my work of collecting hymns from the Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese caucuses in the USA.

In December 1980, I was invited to attend the Asian Seminar on Liturgy and Music in Manila for the preparation of liturgy and music of the General Assembly of CCA in Kuala Lumpur the following year. These two events had inspired me to compose new hymns that were no longer limited to Taiwanese styles. I began to explore the possibilities of incorporating Japanese, Korean, Filipino and Indonesian elements. Eventually, Hymns from the Four Winds, an Asian American supplement of hymns was published in 1983.

God’s ways are not our ways. I was set to go back to Taiwan to contribute what I had learned in the USA. However, I became a stateless alien for political reasons, and so could not return to my homeland. A timely Macedonian call, at the same time, came from

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the Philippines, where Francisco Feliciano had founded AILM, with the aim to develop contextual Asian music and liturgy. Upon my graduation from UCLA, with Shoki Coe’s encouragement, I brought my family with me to Manila in November 1982. Hsiao Chingfen, the president of Tainan Theological Seminary at that time, kindly released me for service in Manila. My work at AILM took me to visit many Asian countries on many occasions: to recruit students, collect hymns and liturgies; run workshops; and attend many ecumenical conferences. I was also called to join the original team of animateurs (Pablo Sosa, Patrick Matsikenyiri, Fr Robert, Dietrich Trautwein, Len Lythgoe and myself) to assist in the worship services of the WCC 6th General Assembly in Vancouver, 1983. Patrick and I even continued to serve for the following two assemblies in Melbourne (1991) and Harare (1998). These assemblies gave us the platform to introduce Asian songs in their original languages and forms, and to perform them properly, unlike earlier days when Asian songs were sung in English translation and in Western harmony. I also served in the worship committees and directed the music at four CCA General Assemblies between 1985 and 2000. Through innumerable workshops in Asia and around the globe and conferences, I was finally able to collect, transcribe and edit Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 1990, with Francisco Feliciano and James Minchin as members of the editorial team. The revised and enlarged edition that includes 315 hymns in 44 languages from 22 countries was published in 2000.

Realising that I had carried out the task entrusted to me at AILM, I decided to return to Tainan, my alma mater in 1994, to promote contextual liturgy and music for the last phase of my career. However, I was invited to become the president of the Seminary the following year. It was probably providential that, in that position, I was able to establish a graduate programme in Church Music to train theologians as well as musicians in the fields of music and liturgy. We were able to secure the services of the best leaders in the world (Pablo Sosa, Terry MacArthur, Carlton Young, Mary Oyer, Michael Hawn, Thomas Thangaraj etc.) to offer their special skills to enrich our small body of international studentry. It was through this capacity that I could put all my theories and ideals into practice, and my vision to engage music, liturgy, theology and culture in dynamic dialogues became a reality. It was then that our students were able to put Taiwanese, Asian and global music in their cultural and liturgical contexts. It was then and after my retirement in 2002 that I was able


to reflect my thoughts and methods of contextualisation of music and liturgy as shown in Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 11 of this book. I am thankful to God that during this last phase of my career. With the support and assistance of my wife Hui-chin, we completed editing and publishing the new PCT hymnal Seng-si (2009). It contains about 50% of hymns from the West, 25% from the Third World, and 25% from Taiwan. Seng-si is a witness of the universality of the church, and a realisation of what makes up a good hymnal. It contains hymns from historical, contemporary, multicultural, cross-denominational, native, contextual and liturgical perspectives. This hymnal also reflects the PCT’s Confession of Faith (1985) that our church should witness to the unity in Christ: to be deeply rooted in our native land and culture, identify with our diversified ethnic groups, and is connected with global and ecumenical churches.

This book contains papers on the problems of contextualisation of music that I had written for international conferences and journals. Chapters 1, 5 and 6 were written between 1984 and 1989, representing my first effort in defining, searching for ways and issues of contextualising Church music. Chapters 9 and 10 were written after the trial edition of Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 1990 was published, with the aim to introduce to Asian churches the contents, features and main styles of Asian hymns. I wrote Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 11 between 2004 and 2011. They build on my previous work and methodologies of contextualisation, show how I use musical ideas to do theologies with my compositions (Chapters 2 and 4), and in the new PCT Hymnal (Chapter 11). This collection of essays is by no means a systematic study of the meaning and method of contextualisation. It rather shows how I had dealt with this topic in different occasions and at different stages of my own musical and spiritual development. The following brief introduction of each essay would provide a bird’s eye view of this book.

chapter 1 “Toward Contextualisation of Church Music in Asia” was my early attempt in 1984 to evaluate what had been done to Asian hymns in the EACC Hymnal 1963. Then I tried to define the meaning and process of contextualisation. chapter 2 “Revisiting Ways of Contextualisation of Church Music in Asia” was written at the request of Lim Swee Hong in 2005. It was a working paper to clarify my concept of contextualisation. I also included in it a few practical approaches to meet the needs of diverse groups in congregations. “Contextualisation of Asian Liturgy and Music: from AILM to

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Global Contexts: A Personal Recollection, Reflection and Vision” in chapter 3 is self-explanatory. It was given at AILM in 2008 at its Colloquium. chapter 4 “Approaches to Contextualisation of Church Music: with Special Reference to ‘Welcoming Another Year with the Spring Breezes’” was delivered at the Symposium of the Institute of Sacred Music, Yale University, in 2010. It is a case study on how I put my theories of contextualisation into practice. I adapted Taiwanese folk musical elements to contextualise two events of the time (the 921 earthquake in Taiwan and 911 terrorist attacks in the USA) and how I used musical ideas to do theology.

chapter 5 “Worshipping through Incarnational Music: My Mission” was a lecture delivered at the 1988 Conference of World Association of Chinese Church Music in Hong Kong. It stresses the importance of putting incarnational music in the proper liturgical context, and urging the participants to learn from their neighbours and widen their perspectives in music and liturgy. chapter 6 “Contemporary Issues in Inculturation, Arts and Liturgy: Music,” presented at the International Society of Liturgy (1989) in York, UK, discusses contemporary issues in inculturation of music. I stated a paradox that “the closer the Christian expression is to Western culture, the easier it is for traditional Christians to accept; the closer the Christian expression is to the native culture, the more resistance it causes.” This is opposite to the ideal of liturgy and the role that music occupies in liturgy. So it is my contention that the eventual goal of Christian musical expression is through the Incarnation – speaking in their own native musical languages. chapter 7 “Asian Symbols and Symbolic Acts” was partially written on Robert E. Webber’s request for his Complete Library of Christian Worship. chapter 8 “A Glimpse at Multipart Practices in Traditional Asian Music” was a lecture given at the 1987 Ecumenical Workshop in Manila, showing the existence of multipart practices among Asian countries to encourage Asian colleagues to dig into their own treasures to create new music.

chapter 9 “Contribution of ‘Asian’ Traditions in the New Hymnal” was a brief introduction of a few Asian hymns for the USA Presbyterian Hymnal Companion, 1990. chapter 10 “A Survey of Texts and Musical Styles in Sound the Bamboo” was a brief survey of prominent texts and typical Asian musical styles in the trial edition of Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 1990. It was first presented at the 1992 Ecumenical workshop at AILM.


chapter 11 “The Significance of Seng-si 2009: The New Hymnal of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan” was a brief study of the history and development of hymnals in Taiwan as well as an analysis of contextual expressions in texts and tunes. It was delivered in Mandarin at Fu-jen Catholic University, Taiwan, at their International Conference of Sacred Music, April 2011.

My appointment as an honorary fellow of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in Asia (CSCA), Trinity Theological College, Singapore, opens the opportunity for me to work more intentionally with Southeast Asian colleagues in developing church music. I am grateful to Michael Poon, CSCA Director, for his encouragement in the contextualisation of music and liturgy in Taiwan and Asia. I am thankful to his editing and publishing these essays. I appreciate Lim Swee Hong for his insights about my life and my work, and for translating an early version of Chapter 5 from its Chinese original into English. I thank too James Minchin. His paraphrasing of innumerable Asians hymns in Sound the Bamboo has played an important role for the success of that hymnal. I also thank David B. Alexander of Tainan Theological College and Seminary for translating an earlier version of Chapter 11. I am indebted to Lo Lung-kwong, Director of School of Theology, Chung Chi College, Chinese University of Hong Kong, for his support and encouragement in the development of contextualisation of theological education in Asia. He kindly wrote the foreword for this book. I thank my former student Vuluk Lai for his meaningful cover design. I am grateful to my son Tun-bin and daughter Tun-leng for their editorial help in past years. The last, but not the least, I am indebted to my wife Hui-chin, whose sacrifice, support, comments, criticisms, advice and suggestions in so many ways have been the major sources of my strength and inspiration. To her, I gratefully dedicate this book.

Loh I-toCSCA Honorary FellowTrinity Theological College, Singapore

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C h A p t e r o n e

towArd ContextuAlisAtion oF ChurCh musiC in AsiA

From the very start of Western mission enterprises in Asia, Asian Christians have not merely accepted uncritically the expressions

of Christian faith that the missionaries brought. They also tried to express their Christian faith in Asian forms. However, except in India, the use of Asian lyrics and melody in Asian church music was limited. These earlier musical efforts won little attention beyond local congregations. It was not until 1964, with the publication of the EACC (East Asia Christian Conference) Hymnal,1 that Asian hymnody as a distinct genre became recognised, both in Asia and in other parts of the world. Probably because the hymnal was in English, it received more wide spread use in the West than in Asia, where, if it was used at all, it was usually confined to international gatherings. Few Asian Christians realised that such an Asian hymnal exists. Of those that do, ironically, a majority enjoy singing Western hymns more than their own, not to mention those of neighbouring countries. Nevertheless, during the last two decades, there has been a growing local interest in Asian church music. More serious composers have begun to experiment ways in which they could create music that would both express their ethnic character and communicate effectively with modern people. Seen as a process, this can be called ‘contextualisation,’ an important issue today. Before considering this area in detail, it will be instructive to review how our Asian hymns have been presented over the past twenty years.

1 East Asia Christian Conference, E.A.C.C. Hymnal (Tokyo: AVACO, 1964).


Asian Hymns in EACC Hymnal

The EACC Hymnal was first published in 1963. It contains 200 hymns; 97 of them Asian. A landmark for Asian church music, its significance for church music as a whole cannot be over emphasised. Its value as an historical work is undisputed, yet as a product bound by time, its authors could not have anticipated significant trends important to Asian hymnody today. These mainly concern the faithful presentation of original texts and native musical traditions. We shall discuss these two issues in more detail below.

1. Substitution of Text and Ambiguous IdentityHymn translation presents one of the most difficult tasks for the creative writer. One must remain faithful to the original meaning of the text and the basic meter and rhyme of its poetic structure. On the other hand, the result must possess clarity of expression, poetic beauty and singability. Those with experience are well aware that it is almost impossible to observe all these guidelines; one usually has to sacrifice certain aspects in order to maintain clarity and singability. More than two decades ago, few poets living in Asia were able to undertake such a difficult task because their mother tongue was not English. During that critical period, Dr D. T. Niles filled a vacuum and contributed 10 original hymn texts to the EACC Hymnal. At that time it was acceptable practice to ‘improve’ hymn texts in the name of clarity. Therefore, he undertook the responsibility to rework 35 more hymns from 10 different countries. Had it not been for his mastery in poetry, most of these hymns probably would not have been published.

From another point of view, unless one has prior knowledge of those 35 hymns, one has no way of knowing whether their lyrics were translations, paraphrases, new additions, or Dr Niles’ own. After two decades, it is appropriate to take a critical view and ask what the original form of these hymns might have been. Comparison reveals that substitutions of new texts have changed their identity; new texts have also made them virtually unrecognisable to native Christians. For instance, “God Created Heaven and Earth” (EACC Hymnal No. 129), was originally a traditional hymn from Taiwan; its text was from Amoy and related to God’s creation. The EACC Hymnal retained only the first stanza. The remaining five stanzas are new additions, centring on the theme of the Ascension of Jesus Christ, quite a different theme. Admittedly, the new lyrics are theologically

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sound and aesthetically beautiful but they are no longer the words that Taiwanese Christians were proud to sing over the last century.

The tune of the hymn “Golden Hill” (EACC Hymnal No. 111) was not Japanese, but the melody’s close association with Sugao Nishimura’s text deeply caught the sentiments of Japanese Christians. This very popular hymn is spiritually so uplifting that it has been regarded as a ‘Japanese hymn.’ The new text “God Loves – He sets His Fire,” however well written and thought provoking, does not express the devotional character of the original. Thus, Japanese Christians could no longer identify with the hymn.

God loves – He sets His fireWithin the human soul.He burns away its dross entireAnd sanctifies the whole.

God loves – He sends His rainUpon the thirsty ground.In Him, for every numbing pain,Is healing solace found.

God loves – He wets with dewThe silence of the night;And flowers wake in every hue,To greet the dawning light.

God loves – His thunders rollAcross the spacious skies.Their echoes sound within the soulWith tidings of surprise.

God loves – His lightning fallsUpon the boasts of men;And them, from proud defiance, callsTo turn to Him again.

God loves – His winds sweep downAnd blow dead leaves away.Each tree must stand by grace aloneTo face God’s judgement day.


In the history of the hymnody, editors matched many texts to tunes that had no specific connection. Many different texts were sung to the same tune and many tunes were sung to the same text. But in all these cases, if the mood and imagery did not match, life went out of the hymn. The uniqueness of a hymn often lies in an ideal union between text and tune. Any discrepancy will greatly impair the integrity of that hymn. Although one of the major objectives of the EACC Hymnal was to introduce hymns from different countries, the editorial policy had obscured the ethnic identities of many hymns.

2. Alternation and Harmonisation of Asian MelodiesIt is an undisputed fact that almost every country or culture has their own music and different scale systems. Most traditional music does not have or need harmony. Some of the hymns submitted for publication in the EACC Hymnal were in traditional so called ‘simple’ forms. Many, however, were altered with added pitches foreign to the scale of a particular culture. The results violated the grammar and destroyed the idiom of the traditional music. For example, careless editorialising has ruined the two cadences essential to the beautiful melody of “God Created Heaven and Earth” (EACC Hymnal No. 129):


Unfortunately this ethnocentric approach has been repeated in the editing of the World Council of Churches Hymnal – the Cantate Domino, 1980.2 Some of these hymns are already popular with Western congregations. Singers regrettably have become used to tampered versions and have been denied the experience of the Asian original. Moreover, since many of the hymns in the EACC Hymnal have also been rendered in Western styles or harmonised in Western ways, the Hymnal actually has a weak Asian representation. This deficiency is largely due to a low regard for non-Western cultures as a whole, a lack of respect for Eastern ways, and an improper understanding of Asian music by those empowered to make editorial decisions. These problems are also linked with the questions of interpretation and contextualisation.

The Meaning of Contextualisation

Interpretations and approaches to contextualisation vary from culture to culture. No one group can claim to have all the answers; one’s own solution may not be applicable to others. The following are my personal views on contextualisation of church music, which I sincerely hope will stimulate a dialogue within the Asian community.

2 Erik Routley and World Council of Churches, Cantate Domino: An Ecumenical Hymn Book, New ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980).


Contextualisation is an emphasis on contemporaneity. It is not revivalism, trying to bring us back thousand-year old traditions that many today might despise or would like to be free from. By contextualisation, we are not attempting to force others to appreciate or accept the old traditions per se. Rather, we are emphasising the contemporaneity, or better, utilising the elements of modern native culture which are relevant to our time, our place, and our peoples so that new messages in the text and music can be communicated more effectively.

Contextualisation is a broadening of Christian expressions. It does not exclude or denounce all theological thoughts, expressions of faith, music, worship, and liturgical forms of non-Asian countries. It is rather an effort to widen the views and expand the knowledge and interest of Asians, so that Asians can be more objective in appreciating and accepting different manners of Christian expression, including their own.

Contextualisation is a genuine expression of faith and art forms. It is by no means a self expressionism, a flaunting of one’s ‘exotic’ skills. It is, on the contrary, a rediscovery of the essence and values of one’s own culture, a cultivation of self esteem, a search for truth, goodness, and beauty in the Christian arts. It is also an affirmation that God is not partial to a particular (especially Western) art form and its Christian expressions, but that all sincere and genuine expressions of art are acceptable and pleasing to God. Like the old seed, sprouted by Asian waters, deeply rooted in native soil, that bears sweeter fruits, the gift of faith nurtured in sympathetic surroundings leads to a new maturity.

Contextualisation is above all, the manifestation of the Imago Dei (image of God) in humankind and our participation in God’s continuous creation. It is the revelation of the mystery of God’s creative power as shown in His creation, including the human minds that formulate various art forms. And it is our active participation in God’s continuous creation, letting God transform our culture and arts into dynamic media that will effectively communicate what the Gospel means to our people today.

Process of Contextualisation

In our search for ways to contextualise church music in Asia during the last few decades, we have identified a series of approaches that mark various stages and degrees. Although one stage does not


necessarily lead to the next, there seems to be a natural growth of interest in utilising more indigenous material, and improving skills in handling musical materials. Here, I would like to suggest a progression of five stages.

1. Imitation of Western Gospel Hymn StyleBeginners of composition often imitate the style with which they are familiar. Therefore, prevalent in most Asian churches except for India, Western gospel hymn style dictates the way in which many Asian musicians have learned to express their faith. Even though some of the results may be far from satisfactory according to the Western standards of quality, these are the first steps towards the development of creativity. There is, however, a danger in lingering at this stage, lest creativity in producing something truly new becomes lost (EACC Hymnal No. 142, Japanese).

Composers trapped at this stage either totally ignore their native culture or fail to incorporate certain ornaments or glides that echo native singing style. In text translations, some native idioms and phrases are added to enrich the local flavour. Cleverly inserted cultural expressions, in spite of their superficiality, usually touch the hearts of native peoples.

2. Awareness of One’s Own CultureIncreased awareness of culture enables the integration of native elements and idioms more naturally into compositions. Nevertheless, the texture of the Western style prevails. Hymns in this popular style, decorated with some nostalgic native elements, seem to have immediate appeal, and are easily accepted by the general congregation.

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Although far from an ideal solution, this certainly paves the road to contextualisation (EACC Hymnal No. 133, Chinese).

3. Rediscovery of IdentityThe actual adaptation of folk or native melodies, with or without alteration, marks a third and important stage in the development of contextualised church music. Such melodies may reflect the ‘real’ identity of the culture and may be easily identified by the native church circle, and even by those outside. Some of the adaptations may include native instrumentation, thus emphasising the original tradition. Others may provide harmony that stresses a more Western style. Available resources indicate that most countries have reached this third stage.

Once a group has reached this point, their problems with association may sometimes put contextualisation on trial. Some cultures have no difficulty singing Christian texts set to secular folk melodies, while others may find the juxtaposition hard to digest. Precedents have been set by the renowned reformer, Martin Luther, and the greatest church music composer, Johann Sebastian Bach. Both adapted well known folk tunes as congregational hymns. A judicious approach would be to observe the following two principles. Melodies in which today’s congregations closely associate with non-Christian events or functions and those which invite ridicule might jeopardise the progress of contextualisation and might be better left for later use. On the other hand, the Gospel principle is clear: the blood of Jesus Christ can purify our sins to become acceptable to God. If we are sincere in adapting ‘secular’ tunes of good quality to communicate Christian messages, Christ will sanctify our intention and effort and transform our fruits into sacred songs pleasing to God (EACC Hymnal No. 139, Japanese).


infused with poetic beauty, reflecting the needs and concerns of the culture. The composition, though born of native ways, is melodically and harmonically (if used) innovative. The hymn expresses the highest level of creativity: unique and contemporary; its style is neither native nor Western, yet both at once. A new tradition rises out of the old, speaking meaningfully with today’s language to today’s people. Beauty in sound is the best we can offer to God and His people. Though such works are still rare, we have already seen some promise.

The Prospect of Contextualisation

The prospect of contextualisation lies upon the shoulders of everyone: producers, performers, church leaders and congregations.

The Producers: Poets and ComposersPoets and composers with the following attitudes are more likely to produce contextualised work:

Respect for Native Culture: Respect for native culture is the most fundamental attitude necessary for the producers; without this, the concept of contextualisation is meaningless. Most Asian Christians have been negatively influenced to suspect or even despise their own culture. This has led to near alienation from their own people. Rediscovering and reaffirming the values of their own culture is the first step towards understanding.

From this interest a degree of respect may grow and intensify. In order to be valid, such a sentiment must grow from deep within, not by superficially paying lip service. Natural expression of native culture occurs only after its elements are digested and integrated within oneself.

Keen Insight to Sense the Needs of the Time: Western domination in Asia is far from over. All aspects of our life – ideas, technologies, politics, theological thinking, music, hymns – almost everything related to our life and daily needs are still coloured by Western values. Over the last decades we have experienced an increase in Asian self-esteem, self-reliance, nationalism and national pride. In addition, churches have shown active concern in the areas of social justice, human rights, and economic exploitation. With this increased awareness, poets and theologians surely have an endless potential for


creativity. Composers with keen insight may capture such sentiments and integrate them into their works, which in turn may affirm and reinforce the sense of Asian identity.

The Gift of Imagination and Creativity: Many hymns have been composed today with little imagination and creativity; they may be judged as sheer imitation or copying. Such works are like a cup of soup in which, according to a Chinese expression, the liquid is replaced, but the substance remains the same—tasteless and uninspiring! We have seen many imitators in Asia; we have enough hymns in gospel song style. What we do need is something beyond an apprentice’s work. To be creative is to be able to make something new. Without fresh ideas or musical expressions, the work cannot be considered creative. In his book Church Music and Christian Faith, Erik Routley invited us to ask, “What in this is new?”3 It is not whether the grammar is right, but it is what makes this piece of work unique. What image or message relevant to our time is it trying to communicate? Through conscious effort and critical evaluation, one should be able to discern contemporary values.

Matured Skill for Treatment of Materials: Maturity of skills depends on willingness to learn and requires constant effort to improve. We need frequent stimulation from other colleagues and openness in accepting criticism and suggestions. Sometimes, the tendency is to become provincial, enclosing ourselves in our small shells or getting stuck within our own styles. Composers from other cultures may have totally different problems and approaches, their methods may not be applicable to ours, but their experiences and their works may stimulate our imagination and provide us with clues to overcome our own self imposed boundaries. This is one of the reasons why we in the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music are constantly having workshops on the music of various countries and encouraging composers to write and experiment in every way they can.

Sincerity and Humility in Seeking the Guidance of the Holy Spirit: The spiritual quality of a work of Christian art can best be produced by one who practices, understands, and is familiar with or sympathetic

3 Erik Routley, Church Music and the Christian Faith, Revised ed. (London: Collins Liturgical, 1980), 35.


to the Christian faith. Although a piece of music or an art work, not intentionally done for communicating Christian messages, may still convey certain aspect of God’s revelation, our concern here is to encourage Christian artists to exercise their artistic sensitivity to communicate their faith, be they in the forms of responses, hymns, simple sketches or larger works. In countries where the great majority of the people are ignorant of Christian expressions, one can hardly expect a non-Christian artist to produce appropriate music for the liturgy. In other words, one whose life is detached from the life of the church has limitation in expressing the faith of the community. A talented non-Christian artist may be able to sing beautifully in a church as if it were a concert hall, yet it might not be an act of his faith or an ideal medium for God-centred worship. On the other hand, a devoted Christian, who continues to improve his artistic skills and search for his spiritual growth, will be inspired by the Holy Spirit to discern or portray the truth, goodness and beauty as light beams that reflect the mystery and glory of God.

The Performer and the CongregationThe future of contextualisation also depends on those who perform and listen to the music. The following attitudes might enhance the process of understanding and acceptance:

Proper Interpretation by the Performer: Proper understanding of the characteristics of a piece of music: its style, interpretation, and execution, are the most important keys to the success of a work and its acceptance by the audience or congregation. The performer is a medium, a bridge between the producer and the audience. Like a creative artist or a performer, and in this case, a choral conductor, an organist or a vocal soloist, should have the skill, the dedication, and the willingness to learn and to accept challenges. Choir members also need that kind of commitment to learn from the conductor. In this manner new works can be accurately interpreted and introduced to the congregation. This involves the cooperation of training centres in seminaries or churches.

Intimate Cooperation and Supervision by Church Leaders: Unless seminaries and church leaders are sympathetic to the movement and the ideal of contextualisation, are willing to cooperate with composers and performers, to promote the compositions, to train


performers, and to supervise the usage of new works, contextualised compositions will not stand a chance of surviving. And unless a local minister or choir leader is willing to select a new or unfamiliar hymn in his service, the congregation will never have the opportunity to listen or to sing it. This also leads to the problem of professional church musicians.

Recognition of Professional Church Musicians: The standard of church music can be improved only when the church acknowledges the importance of professional church musicians and is willing to support church music programs. There may be some exceptions, but the church can hardly expect to raise the standards of church music by relying merely on volunteers or amateur musicians. Although these ‘musicians’ may be good performers, they may have little or no knowledge of the function of music in worship. They may be enthusiastic in serving the church but they may not have the required skill to function properly.

Also, in order to encourage new compositions, a composer’s rights must be protected. The lack of respect for copyrights in many parts of Asia is a serious hindrance to the promotion of contextualised music. Church choirs make photocopies of new compositions without paying the composer. This prevents the composer from publishing more new works. Church institutions and their leaders, therefore, can play very important roles in correcting the practice and promoting such endeavours.

Willingness of the Choir and Congregation to Learn: Most Asian Christians and choirs already feel at home singing the Western hymns which have become an integral part of their expression of faith. Newly composed works with strong cultural elements, however, may disturb their comfortable habit of singing Western hymns, and may create some resentment. The congregation needs to be re-educated to appreciate their own culture. They need to be encouraged to try other ways of expressing their faith. The majority of our congregations and choirs need to be assured that their indigenous cultural expressions are also acceptable to God. They, like the artists, have to cultivate their interest in and respect for their own music. After some exposure they might begin to appreciate the new sounds which reveal new Christian messages in a contemporary local society.


Proper Application to the Spiritual Life of the Church: The ultimate goal of producing and performing new contextualised works is to enrich our understanding and experiences of the Gospel, to bear new witnesses and to nourish the spiritual growth of the church. Such works should be introduced carefully, properly, and in the appropriate occasions. The needs of various interest groups in the church must be taken into consideration so that those who sing or listen to the new works are benefited by them. We would, therefore, need carefully tailored music educational programs for different age groups in the church. By helping these groups understand the meaning and ways of worship, praise and witnessing through contextual music, they would be able to interpret their faith, thus hastening the process of contextualisation.

The seeds of contextualisation have been sown, and are awaiting careful cultivation of their growth and the bearing of fruit. We must emphasise the importance of education in all aspects of Christian expression. It is imperative that we help Christians, starting from early childhood, to be able to express their faith in their own ways. By encouraging all poets, composers, performers and congregations to freely exercise their precious gifts – natural or artistic – they may be able to experience God in more intimate ways. They may be able to share more meaningfully the message of the Gospel with others in their own context. This, in a sense, demonstrates the principle of “incarnation.” In fact, the whole endeavour of searching for contextualisation may be summed up in this mysterious word “incarnation”: our theology, worship and music should be embodied in our existential context. We have seen more poems interpreting the faith, reflecting on the images, issues, struggles and concerns which are uniquely Asian. Many traditional Asian musical instruments are being utilised to reinforce the native sound, and more composers have internalised their traditional musical styles and have been able to create works that already exhibit the new sounds of the times. ‘Secular’ composers are beginning to raise their eyebrows in appreciation of the new church music. We are on the verge of witnessing the dawn of mature Asian church music, with which the Asians can make joyful noises to the Lord and proclaim God’s redemptive acts, as the Israelites did in the Old Testament, but this time in unique Asian ways.

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C h A p t e r t w o

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Introduction

Ever since Shoki Coe introduced the term ‘contextualisation’ in the late 1960’s, it has become one of the most important terms to

be used in doing theology, planning liturgies and composing Church Music. No theologian, liturgiologist, church musician or educator can ignore the issues of contextualisation, if they are serious in dealing with their fields in the contemporary context. By now, more people in these fields have taken for granted that contextualisation is the natural and logical way to do theology. However, for some Asian church musicians some twenty to thirty years ago, it was a struggle to know how to define and proceed with the problem of contextualisation. This writer made his first attempt to define contextualisation of church music from an Asian perspective in 1984.1 I have moved on to define contextualisation efforts in church music from a more positive angle.2 What follows are my recent attempts to revisit ways of contextualisation of Church music in Asia.

1 I-to Loh, “亚洲音乐本色化之趋向 (Toward Contextualisation of Church Music in Asia),” 神学与教会 17, no. 1 (1986): 57-66; “Toward Contextualisation of Church Music in Asia,” Asia Journal of Theology 4, no. 1 (1990): 293-315; “Toward Contextualization of Church Music in Asia,” The Hymnology Annual 1(1991): 89-114.

2 I-to Loh, “向耶和华唱新歌（二）：邻音，乡音与怪音 (Sing to the Lord a New Song (Ii): Neighboring Tones, Native Tones and Strange Tones),” 神学与教会 25, no. 1 (1999): 32-53.

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The Meanings of Contextualisation of Church Music

The term ‘contextualisation’ as used by Shoki Coe is one of the most powerful terms for doing and interpreting theology. There are many different Chinese translations for this term, the meanings of which originate from the word indigenisation (tu zhu hua, ben tu hua) to contextualisation (shi kuang hua, qing jing hua, chu jing hua, mai luo hua) and so on. Since the terms tu zhu hua and ben tu hua have the implication of returning to the past, they are limited and carry negative connotations, and so are inappropriate for the idea of the intimate and complicated double wrestling of the Text (the Word of God) with our present context, as was proposed by Coe. My 1990 article “Toward Contextualisation of Church Music in Asia,” originally written in 1984, tried to interpret the meaning of contextualisation from a negative angle. The result was less than ideal. Now let us try to interpret contextualisation from a positive angle.

• Contextualisation stresses the importance of modernisation of the national spirit (ethos) of traditional art forms (i.e., interpreting the ethos and elements according to the situations of time, space and people to gain and communicate new meanings). This includes composing in traditional musical idioms to express modern issues, using contemporary vocabularies and poetic forms, but does not necessarily require maintaining old musical styles. It is not necessary to use old musical instruments but to utilise traditional musical elements and sounds to communicate new ideas with new techniques and new styles.

• Contextualisation is the cultivation of self-esteem, seeking anew the gifts of God, affirming the values of our own culture and knowing the arts as a genuine expression of faith, with the understanding that any search for truth, goodness and beauty in the Christian faith is pleasing to God. Therefore, contextualisation is like cultivation of the Christian faith, sowing seeds in native soil, watering and letting them absorb the contemporary artistic ethos to grow strong, reaching the stage of maturity and bearing fruit.

• Contextualisation widens our knowledge, interest and skills, so that one can appreciate and accept the truths of God’s revelation in other cultures of the world. After objective


analysis, digestion and understanding, one may be able to compare these truths with local contexts, and be inspired to find new media, create new works or interpret new faith.

• Above all, contextualisation is the manifestation of the Imago Dei in human beings and participation by human beings in God’s continuing creation. It helps us search for the mystery of God’s revelation, letting Christ enter and transform our culture and arts, and utilise fully our contemporary native art forms to interpret and witness the Gospel.

Before dealing with contextualisation of hymns and musical expressions, we should lay basic theological foundations underlying the call for contextualisation.

Theological Foundation for Contextualisation

• Arts and creativity are primal gifts of God. God created human beings in God’s own image and gave them the ability to name all creatures and the power to have dominion over them (Gen. 1: 26-28, 2: 19-23). Therefore, our gifts of understanding and interpreting the truth and revelation of God should be utilised to proclaim the meaning of salvation to all people at all times in all places.

• Preserving the gifts of all cultures and exercising our talents to the utmost, as shown in Jesus’ parable of stewardship in Matthew 25: 14-29, 20-21, are also the mandate of God. Only in so doing, can we faithfully fulfil our duties and participate actively in God’s continuing creation.

• God in Christ has incarnated in human form, and has been dwelling amongst all peoples at all times in all places. It is, therefore, the duty of those “in Christ” (Eph. 4:7; 2 Cor. 5:17) to live out, witness and proclaim the Good News through their native forms of arts, symbols and cultural expressions.

• God the Creator in the power of the Holy Spirit continues to reveal Godself through events, new ideas and matters throughout the history of humankind. Thus it is the responsibility of people with Imago Dei (Gen. 1:26) to pursue all means of discerning God’s revelation. By proclaiming God’s will through their cultural expressions, the Christian

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faith may be understood by the people, and may play a vital role in our modern life. Musical and liturgical arts, as integral parts of cultural expressions of this Christian faith, particularly lend themselves to contextualisation.

• Ecumenical sharing of contextualised theological ideas and musical and liturgical expressions of peoples and churches in other parts of the globe are vital in witnessing the unity and diversity in Christ’s Body. Without contextualised expression in any local setting, the idea of incarnation cannot be properly understood, and the unity of the universal church would only be nominally understood.

Process of ContextualisationThe core of Church Music is hymns and, to a lesser degree, liturgical responses sung by the congregation in worship. Choral anthems and other aspects of instrumental music are not necessarily universal in Asian liturgical context. (Many churches have no choir or instruments in worship.) Anthems and instrumental music are therefore left out of this discussion of contextualisation. The search for ways to contextualise hymns in Asia during the last few decades has identified a series of approaches that mark stages and degrees of contextualisation. Although one stage does not necessarily lead to the next, there seems to be a natural growth of interest in use of indigenous material, and improvement of skills in handling musical materials. In my 1986 paper I proposed a process of contextualisation of hymns in five stages. (See Chapter 1.) Here I offer some revisions to the stages.

1. Imitation of Western Gospel Hymn StyleBeginning composers often imitate the styles with which they are familiar. The Western gospel hymn style, prevalent in most Asian churches except for India dictates the way in which many Asian musicians have learned to express their faith. Even though some of the results may be far from satisfactory according to the Western standard of quality, these are the first steps towards the development of creativity. There is, however, a danger in lingering at this stage, lest creativity in producing something truly new becomes lost. (See Example 1, EACC Hymnal No. 142 “He Called Me, Son,” Japan). Composers at this stage either totally ignore their native culture or simply incorporate certain ornaments or glides that echo a native

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Such melodies may reflect the ‘real’ identity of the culture and may be easily identified by the native church circle, and even by those outside. Some of the adaptations may include native instrumentation to emphasise the characteristics of native styles. Others may provide harmony in Western styles. Available resources indicate that most Asian countries have reached this second stage. Once a group has reached this point, the problems of association may sometimes put contextualisation on trial. Some cultures have no difficulty singing Christian texts set to secular folk melodies, while others may find the juxtaposition hard to digest. Precedents have been set by the reformer Martin Luther and the church music composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Both adapted well-known folk tunes for use as congregational hymns. A judicious approach would be to observe two principles:

• Melodies which today’s congregations closely associate with non-Christian events or functions and those which invite ridicule might jeopardise the progress of contextualisation and be better left for later use.

• The Gospel principle is clear: the blood of Jesus Christ purifies and makes us acceptable to God. If we are sincere in adapting ‘secular’ tunes of good quality to communicate Christian messages, Christ will sanctify our intention and effort and transform our fruits into sacred songs pleasing to God. (See Example 3, EACC No. 139 “The Prodigal Son,” which is a typical Japanese folk melody with simple harmony, and Example 4, Sound the Bamboo No. 61 “God of Regions and of World” from Myanmar, with parallel inverted chords). “The world and all that is in it belong to the Lord” (Ps. 24:1). If we accept God as our Lord, then every aspect of our life, including music making – whether related to or detached from our church activities – are in God’s domain. God is the one to rule what is acceptable to God.

50 in seArCh For AsiAn sounds And symbols in worship

today’s language to today’s people. Beauty in sound set to meaningful statement of faith is the best we can offer to God and God’s people. We have already seen some promises in Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 2000.

Example 7STB 176

Contemporary Problems for Contextualisation

The above analysis, with the exception of the mature contextualised works was mainly based on observations of Asian hymns before the 1980s. Rapid developments of mass media and pop culture during the last two decades have dramatically changed the music scenes of the Churches in Asia. When dealing with contemporary theological issues we frequently pose the question of their relevancy to the present context, which most people can identify. However, when it comes to emphasising the importance of contemporaneity in church music, we enter deep and muddy waters! Church music in Asia today is even more dominated by Western repertoire than previously. Western praise choruses in the pop style are 100% foreign to Asian native cultures, but the young generation has embraced them wholeheartedly. Subsequently, the music has formed young Christians’ new imported identity. This happens not only in Asia,

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but also around the world. The difference is that Africa and Latin America seem to have maintained more of the substance of their own traditional cultures. It seems that their people are less affected by Western pop culture. In Asia, especially in large cities, anything that happens in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, London or Paris would be on TV at any minute. Western hit songs have an impact on Asian cities as soon as they are released. To the younger generation the musical context is mainly Western pop. Their concerns are definitely different from those of the older generation. This makes generalisation of approaches to contextualisation impossible.

No matter what we say, there will be exceptions. If we ask young people to state their musical context, the answers would mostly be Western or Western pop, without reference to style. What matters most is whether a certain song is attractive and popular. They do not ask whether the text or musical style is relevant to their native cultural contexts. Their disinterest towards and lack of knowledge of their own traditional music prevents them from associating themselves with their own native culture. A contextualised work utilising native musical idioms will be more foreign to them than a traditional Western hymn, and will probably be of little meaning to them. But a new composition imitating their Western pop style would catch their attention. They might own it and appreciate it more than any other style. We are in a dilemma of defining both context and the way of contextualisation.

Undoubtedly we need different approaches to deal with different groups and to search for appropriate ways of contextualisation. Putting it simply, this means the interpretation and expression of Text (Christian faith in any artistic form) in a given context. When dealing with contextualisation of hymns, ideally both text and music have to be taken into consideration. On the one hand, the contents and subject matter, style and poetic devices of text are obvious within the culture: The choice of vocabularies; local imagery; particular idioms or expressions; and specific cultural or theological issues. It is therefore, unnecessary to draw general guidelines for contextualising texts. But it is possible, as a student of composition, ethnomusicology and worship, to formulate certain guidelines to help people in the process of composing and doing theology with music and worship in the diversified contexts of their congregations.

5� in seArCh For AsiAn sounds And symbols in worship

Four Types of People in Congregation

Contextualisation of hymns today might consider various contexts of the following types of people in the congregation. This classification may be more applicable to the more Westernised Asian countries, namely: Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and modern cities like Shanghai, Bangkok, Manila, Bangalore, etc. For the sake of easy discussion, I propose to classify people into four types according to their general education and interest or orientation in music. I realise the limitations, and dangers of generalisation and over-simplification. There will always be exceptions, but this general classification may provide certain clues when searching for ways to contextualise hymns in Taiwan and other modern Asian locales today.

1. The General Younger GenerationThe reality of present context is the overwhelming Western pop oriented mass culture among the younger generation. Observe people on the streets, buses, and metro-trains, the majority of whom wear headphones and listen to music either from CD players or MP3s. To what are they listening? Is it not pop or songs from movies, performed by local, regional or Western stars? The musical styles may vary, but they are mostly romantic, nostalgic and soothing moods, or heavy metal, rock, and vigorous. Some may be other local pop styles, but even these are imitations of things from the West.

2. The Intelligentsia‘Intelligentsia’ refers to people who have received higher university education and now serve as educators in primary, secondary and university levels or as white-collar executives in all ranks of businesses and government agencies. Because of their primarily Western oriented education they subscribe to Western value systems and enjoy the Western classical and contemporary music with little or no interest in either pop or traditional folk music. In Taiwan, this phenomenon is exhibited in a few dozens of music schools and graduate programs in universities where thousands of devoted students major in Western music theories, composition, choral and instrumental performances. They will be the future musicians who will create and perform ‘elite music’ for the high society.

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3. Protectors/ Preservers of Native Traditional MusicThere is a minority group of musicians and music lovers who are interested in learning, preserving and promoting ancient national musical traditions. These have the potential for developing contextualised church music, and offer hope for the future. One can find them in all Asian countries where devoted students take instruction in Departments of National or Traditional Music in universities or national academies of arts. This is the extreme example of going the opposite direction of those in Type 2.

4. Majority of the General PublicThe majority of the general public are those who, although having their own preferences on certain musical styles, are more or less open to whatever possibilities their leaders care to offer. With proper guidance, encouragement and education it would not be too difficult to lead this group towards the ideal of contextualisation.

Principles of Contextualising Hymns

For the General Younger GenerationSince their cultural context is Western pop and entertainment oriented, and mostly seeks instant gratification, church music for worship or for nourishment of their spirituality would naturally fall on similar styles. Furthermore, music in classical styles and traditional Western hymns may have little meaning to them. Contextualisation, therefore, would lean toward composing in contemporary Western Romantic Style, with the possibilities of incorporating certain native and traditional musical idioms and musical instruments to link the past with the present, and the local with the Western. It would be important also that they be given small doses of other musical styles so that they would not be isolated in their own small eccentric and unreal world but made aware of their being part of the greater and diversified body of Christ.

For the IntelligentsiaDue to the lack of exposure to their traditional music, or because of the indoctrination of Western values and aesthetic views, the majority of the intelligentsia may have little or no knowledge of their own music. Even worse, some of them may look down on traditional music. For promotion of contextualised church music, we, therefore,


may need to re-educate these people theologically and aesthetically, helping them to understand and accept that traditional music is also a gift from God, and that to God, there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles (See Acts 10:34-35). All genuine expressions of faith are beautiful and acceptable to God. We can also adopt traditional musical motifs or folk melodies, that carry no other religious or negative connotations and set Christian texts to them either in traditional Western harmony (to create familiarity) or with innovative harmonic idioms to create works of art that both composers and consumers might enjoy and feel proud of. Original compositions in contextual styles may also widen their perspectives and establish their sense of identity and pride.

For Preservers/ Protectors of Native TraditionsMusicians who are capable of performing traditional music would probably enthusiastically create and develop new music that would be accepted gradually by the congregation. This was the case in the history of the Western Church. There are several approaches to this.

• They may adapt certain traditional instrumental pieces for church use, especially those of moods appropriate for worship, or those that are less familiar and carry no particular religious associations.

• They may compose new songs or instrumental pieces for liturgical use, either entirely in the traditional style without adding anything, or as hybrids of the best of the East and the West.

• Mature performers and composers might compose new hymns utilising native idioms, instruments and contextual harmony (the harmonic languages derived from local traditions), or with more innovative multipart treatments, the result of which is a mature and authentic contextualisation.

An excellent example from Taiwan exhibits the mastery of poetic language, utilising double adjectives to depict the agony of Jesus’ suffering. Its music also reflects the local wailing song or folk operatic styles to reinforce the pain of the cross. (See Example 8, “ Tõ chiâ” jiök-the‚ lâi chhut-sì”).


For the Majority of the General PublicHere is an uncultivated area. The public are normally not that strongly opinionated. They are open to guidance and education. They follow leaders whom they trust. For such a group, one may start with introducing simple hymns with folk idioms (either adaptations or newly composed) and then arrange tunes with simple harmony. These could be syncretic and is familiar to them, thus easily acceptable. New compositions utilising folk motifs or imitating folk styles may be arranged or harmonised innovatively or in Non-Western styles. (See Example 10, Sound the Bamboo No. 252 “Watch the Bush of Thorns”).

Example 10STB 252

Personal Search for Innovative Pan-Asian Styles

After composing contextualised Taiwanese hymns for over three decades, I have found greater fascination and challenges in setting texts from other countries and utilising the various musical languages of my Asian neighbours. These may be seen from the following examples:

• “Jesus Christ Sets Free to Serve” (Example 11, Sound the Bamboo No. 247) utilises a Korean folk rhythmic pattern with a changgo (hourglass drum) accompaniment, which is most popular among Korean folk tradition.


• The hymn “God of the Bible” (Example 13, Sound the Bamboo No. 255) describes the unchanging faithfulness of God and God’s expectations that human beings change in order to face the Cross. The tune utilises musical features to depict these phenomena. Motif A uses D = 3 4 5 7b 1 (mi fa sol sib do) scale with an eight-count rhythmic pattern 3 + 2 +3 (reinforced by drum patterns), and motif B is in Bb = 1 3 4 5 7 (do mi fa sol si scale with 3 +3+ 2 pattern. The time signature of 8/8, meaning the constant eight counts per measure throughout the piece is intended to symbolise the faithfulness of God that does not change through history. The two patterns of A and B exhibit the changes in the scales, grouping of beats, figures of accompaniment with drones, intervals of fourths and fifths and the formation of independent lines, all of which are my attempt to show the necessity of change on the human part in order to face the Cross. Here again, the musical elements are from India. The concept of accompaniment is neither Western nor Indian, but my own, purposely scored to do theology of change and stability with musical figures.

Example 13STB 255

• “Mit Allen Meinen Sinnen” (Example 14) is my recent composition in a free imitation of Balinese Gamelan style, in which the lower parts in octave play the simplified outline of the main melody like jegogan (large keyed metallophones) in half-notes, while the treble part takes


claim that Western education, values and cultural environment have formulated their identities, it seems natural that they contextualise their faith and art forms in their Western context. Some of them may feel no need to relate to their traditional native culture. Others may feel that their traditional cultures are associated with pagan practices, hence unworthy for Christian use. We can respect their views and preferences, and we are not in any position to force them to retrieve what they have rejected. We are, however, concerned that if the majority of the people in the Third World follow the same traditional Western approach and give up their unique artistic traditions, the world of music, including church music, may turn into a starved sphere of unified Western or Western pop culture – uniformity without diversity. God’s image would become that of a Caucasian God, and this world would become a very boring place to live in.

In addition to digging into my own native traditional musical resources and treating them with contextual multipart textures, my approaches to contextualisation are no longer confined within my own Taiwanese context. I believe that no artist or composer should be content with simple imitation of the styles of their forefathers, either native or foreign. God has bestowed on us thousands of diversified cultural and artistic forms. This awaits our exploration into all possibilities and into the unknown. Ultimately, we are to develop the gift of creativity to the utmost as a realisation of the Imago Dei in us. By composing music in new styles, whether native or international, we participate in God’s continuing creation for God’s glory, which is eternal.

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C h A p t e r t h r e e

ContextuAlisAtion oF AsiAn liturgy And musiC: From Ailm to globAl Contexts. A personAl reColleCtion, reFleCtion And vision

My aim is to reflect on my journey in contextualising Asian liturgy and music between 1982 and 1994, the years where

Asian Institute of Liturgy and Music (AILM) was the focus of my work.

My Preparations and Initial Road to Contextualisation

I was struck by the beauty of singing hymns in four-part harmony every day at the Tainan Theological Seminary chapel when I entered in 1955. But I gradually began to question why there were no hymns in our Taiwanese style. There were a few in our hymnal, but the harmony was Western. It was not until 1960 during my 4th year in the Seminary when I was asked by Rev. George Todd and Miss Isabel Taylor to translate a Passion Play that I began to consider the problem of contextualisation. My logic then was that since the Passion Play was originally intended for African Americans in Harlem, New York, they had to use Negro Spirituals. But now it was for Taiwanese, so we should use ‘yellow spirituals’ though there were no such songs. Thus, I translated all the Negro Spirituals and began to search for Taiwanese folk musical elements to create new yellow spirituals before the term “contextualisation” was known. The term was coined by my mentor Dr Shoki Coe sometime in the late 1960s after he left Tainan to become director of the Theological Education Fund. Although the Passion Play had inspired me to enter into a


new road to composition, it was not until 1966, near the end of my second year at Union Theological Seminary’s School of Sacred Music in New York that I finally broke through the barrier of Western harmony and began to establish my own style of composition, as exhibited in my Christmas Cantata “The Prince of Peace.”

In the summer of 1968, I was invited by the Urban and Rural Mission Committee of the Christian Conference of Asia (URM, CCA) to attend their training program at Kyoto Kwansei Seminar House. This enabled me to meet many Asian leaders working among the poor and the oppressed, and for the first time I was introduced to some of their songs. Thus, I began my initial Asian journey between 1968 and 1972 to Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia and the Philippines, collecting songs from city streets, slums, simple shelters, and among workers, young people’s groups, church choirs, congregations, authors and composers. This eventually led to the publication of New Songs of Asian Cities in 1972. My exposure to Asian cultures helped me to realise how little Asian churches had utilised their own traditional musical gifts for the proclamation of the Gospel. It dawned on me that the only solution was to help my Asian neighbours to understand their own music. Hence, I pursued ethnomusicological study at UCLA in 1974.

My training in ethnomusicology prepared me for understanding the theories and practices of many Asian traditions, but they had little direct relation to existing Church Music as such. That was because very few Asian hymns were written according to Asian theories. Even if there were, they were not popularly sung. As I was pondering how I might be able to put Asian musical theories into Christian practice, Francisco Feliciano, whom I only met once very briefly in 1970, came to UCLA in the summer of 1980 to invite me to teach at AILM after my graduation. I sensed a calling from God that I had been led and prepared for that new mission in Asia. At the age of 46, I brought my whole family (Hui-chin and our teenage children Ben, Ken and Leng) to AILM in November 1982 to begin my mission of learning and developing the contextualisation of liturgy and music in Asia. I had my initial training in Theology, Western Church Music and then Ethnomusicology. I had also taken courses in liturgy and was aware of the importance of relating music to liturgy, but I was like a young bird just learning to fly with my own newly-developed wings, without the necessary techniques to fly against strong currents or even to face typhoons.

ContextuAlisAtion oF AsiAn liturgy And musiC ��

Laying the Foundation of Contextualisation at AILM

Joining the teaching staff at AILM in 1982 marked the beginning of the realisation of my original vision for Taiwan and Asia. In fact, the mission to be carried out for the following 12 years was “far beyond our mind’s grasp,” as Feliciano has written in his Communion hymn “What a Great Mystery” (Sound the Bamboo No. 82). I only had a vague idea of what I was supposed to do, not realising the enormous tasks that were ahead of me. Probably it was providential that Feliciano did not give me a job description or even dictate my responsibilities. I had to figure out gradually what I should do. I began to develop teaching courses for the students. The first two batches consisted of about 8: Calvin Chelliah from Malaysia, Nove Tuulua from Samoa, Marcius Tinamunan and Timotheus from Yogyakarta, Waldemar Simamura from Simalungun, Indonesia, Picas Kess and William Carey from India, and Dany Carino, and a few others from the Philippines joined later. I began to teach Hymnology (Western only, because there were still very little resources in Asia) and Introduction to Ethnomusicology, then added Theories and Practice in Field Work, then Transcription and Analysis. Gradually I also offered courses for individual studies, tutoring individual students in the study and analysis of music from their own countries with the purpose of helping them develop skills in utilising their native musical elements in their compositions. This I enjoyed the most. Later on, I added courses in Music Cultures of Asia, and Organology (study of musical instruments). After collecting more materials from my field trips, I began to teach Introduction to Asian Church Music, and finally, Seminar in Music and Liturgy. My wife Hui-chin was the co-teacher of this course (She also volunteered to work as a librarian organising all the books and scores, and set up a small co-op to help students with financial needs). We enjoyed helping students develop their skills and imagination to create new music, symbols, and symbolic acts in their new liturgies.

In addition to teaching at AILM, I also had other teaching and research responsibilities that took me to different Asian countries and beyond. I made regular visits to Tainan Theological College and Seminary and Summer Institute of Linguistics. These trips also became occasions where I discovered talents and recruited students for AILM.

A main responsibility, however, was collecting hymns for the CCA Hymnal. From 1986, at the request of the Christian Conference


of Asia, I took up the responsibility of collecting, transcribing, translating and editing new hymns for Asian churches. I regard that as one of the most important missions for me at AILM. Dr Feliciano had given me freedom to undertake projects that would benefit AILM as well as Asian churches. It took more than four years to complete the project. Trial edition of Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal was published in 1990. Feliciano, James Minchin (who had done most of the paraphrasing) and I formed the editorial team. As usual, Hui-chin volunteered to assist in the editing! It was a very important publication for CCA. 280 hymns from 22 countries of the CCA Member churches were included. Approximately 85% of the songs in the hymnal were collected, transcribed, translated and/or published for the first time. (Some of them were collected by me earlier between 1968 and 1972 in Asia, and between 1979 and 1982 in the USA) For the first time churches in Asia and other parts of the world had easy accesses to so many Asian hymns with a distinct Asian spirituality and diversified musical styles. Sound the Bamboo also became my first textbook for teaching Asian Church Music at AILM and other seminaries in Taiwan. Sound the Bamboo was further revised and expanded and published in 2000 as the final edition, with the total of 315 hymns, which made up for the shortcomings of lesser representation from Korea, Pakistan and some other countries. Sound the Bamboo was reprinted in 2006, with minor revisions, for wider distributions in the West by GIA Publication, one of the largest music publishers in the USA.

Publication of Resources in Asian Church Music and Liturgy

The most satisfying part of my research was the recording and publication of eight hymn/ song collections from various countries, with transcriptions, original languages, translation, and notes, all with cassettes. They are all bi-lingual or multi-lingual, with English translation. These have become important resources for teaching and researching Asian music and Church Music:1

1. Festival of Asian Christmas Carols, with cassette and record, 1984 (in English and Chinese editions)

1 I- to Loh, “Asian Resources on Music, Worship and the Arts,” 神学与教会 22, no. 2 (1997): 59-81.

ContextuAlisAtion oF AsiAn liturgy And musiC �5

2. Qun Shan Huan Chang (Let the Hills Sing, hymns from 6 tribes in Taiwan, 1986)

3. Kejia Sung Zhu zhi Ge (Hakka Songs of Praise, ed. w/ Chen Chian-chung, 1987)

4. Sing New Songs to the Lord: (New pan-Chinese anthems, 1987, trilingual)

5. Kristus Sundaring Bali (Christ the Light to Bali, with cassette, 1988, Indonesia)

6. Rak Phra Jao Rao Pen Thai (The Love of God sets us Free, 1989, Thailand)

7. Thousands of Songs Full of Praise (cassette of field recordings from South Asia: Pakistan, Sri Land, Nepal, 1990, 20 hymns from Sound the Bamboo)

8. Jyoti Do Prabu: Bhajans from India (cassette, CCA Hymns recorded in Kolkata, 1995, CCA Communications and the Diocese of Calcutta)

However, not all was well. Regrettably, I was unable to complete two projects before leaving AILM: (1) Indian lyrics. It became too difficult for accurate transcription, and there was insufficient material. Thus, it was not practical for churches; and (2) A Report on the 1992 Ecumenical Workshop on Liturgy and Music. Due to the incomplete documentation and the lack of musical recordings, notations and translations, the transcription of liturgies alone became less useful. The liturgies were already edited, but could not be published. These setbacks point to structural issues in developing Asian Church music that churches and seminaries need to face.

First Fruits of AILM: Some Prominent AILM Alumni

Looking back, 30 years since I first set foot at AILM, AILM has produced perhaps the first younger generation of Asian composers and musicians. Many of them are holding key positions in Asia and beyond. Their diverse career paths perhaps serve as a good review of AILM’s achievements in its early years. Among the AILM graduates:

1. Lim Swee Hong from Singapore earned his PhD in Liturgical Studies at Drew University in 2006. His dissertation was on “Giving Voice to Asian Christians: Assessing the


Contribution of I-to Loh to Congregational Song.” Lim taught briefly at Trinity Theological College in Singapore. He was Chairperson for the Worship and Liturgy Committee of the World Methodist Council, and Adjunct Professor of Worship at Asbury Theological Seminary, Kentucky, USA. He now serves as Chair of Liturgy and Music at the World Federation of Methodist Churches. He began teaching Church Music at Baylor University, Texas in 2010.

2. Christian I. Tamaela from Indonesia teaches at Ambon Theological Seminary. He earned his MTh at Tainan Theological College and Seminary (TTCS) in 2001, and is now writing a PhD dissertation for Free University, Amsterdam.

3. Lu Chen Tiong teaches at Sibu Methodist School of Theology. He also earned his MTh at TTCS in 2001, and is writing ThD dissertation for Southeast Asia Graduate School of Theology.

4. Daud Kosasih from Indonesia went on to graduate at TTCS with a MACM degree in 2001. He is a composer and choral director, and teaches in several universities in Medan, Indonesia.

5. John Barathi from India, a TTCS MACM graduate in 2001, serves at the office of Liturgy and Music, Church of South India.

6. Edgar Macapili received MSM from Southern Methodist University, and has been teaching at TTCS. He recovered the almost extinct Siraya language, and produced a dictionary of the language. He is a leading composer and conductor in southern Taiwan.

7. Judith Laoyan Mosomos teaches at Methodist School of Music, Singapore, and is now studying for Doctor of Worship Studies at the Robert E. Webber Institute of Worship Studies, USA.

8. Vuluk Lai, MTh in Worship and the Arts, SEAGST, built a new church with strong Paiwan cultural and Christian symbolism. He and his wife Uping (also an AILM alumni) lead a concert choir tours in Taiwan.

9. Hayu Yudaw, MTh in Liturgy and Music, SEAGST, pastors a church, and teaches at Yushan Seminary. He is a successful composer, performer and promoter of tribal music.


10. Shang Gui-xiang from Taiwan teaches Balinese Gamelan. She has become a successful conducting teacher at TTCS, and is conducting a few choirs.

11. Inchai Srisuwan: dedicated church musician, social worker, working in Bangkok slums, now serving as Chair of their denomination.

12. Ruth Srisuwan: earned MDiv with Inchai both promoting Thai music, and performing in Northern Europe every year, helping YMCA conferences in liturgy and music, ex-chair of their denomination. She is now pursuing a DMin studies in the Philippines

13. J. T. Ashley Williams earned a doctorate in music. He is a very successful musician in India, currently director of International Academy of Performing Arts, Bangalore.

14. Tita Valenciano has become Youth Secretary of Lutheran World Federation.

15. Rie Ikeda is a dedicated social worker for laborer’s rights in Tokyo

16. Geeve Mathews taught music in Saudi Arabia. He now teaches in India and is a specialist teacher at Oakridge International School, Hyderabad.

17. Joy Nilo from the Philippines is a successful composer, performer.

18. Jonathan Hayap becomes a music director in a USA church.

Re-establishing My Base of Contextualisation in Taiwan

I began teaching part time in Taiwan, for two months initially in 1985, four months in 1986, and six months from 1987 onwards. After a few years, it became obvious that I could not fulfil my responsibilities equally well in both countries; when I left for one country, programmes in the other country would not function properly. I realised that I had accomplished what I could for AILM and Asia. The Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal Project had been completed, and a few of our graduates had established teaching positions in their native countries. It was time for me to move in new directions. I left AILM in April 1994, and returned to my alma mater in Tainan.

Upon returning, I was re-appointed Head of the Church Music Department. I set up the Hiong-im Gak-hong (Centre for Research


and Promotion of Taiwanese and Global Church Music) in 1994, to which I donated my collection of music, books, scores, liturgies, field recordings, records, CDs, and innumerable Asian and African musical instruments, including a set of Balinese Gamelan Anklung, and ethnomusicological materials. I also revised the Church Music curriculum, some patterned after AILM practice, especially in choral conducting techniques. I also asked Ms Shang Gui-xiang to teach the gamelan; we gave our debut in the National Concert Hall in Taipei in 1995. Sensing my enthusiasm and effort in promoting global church music, Carlton Young, the renowned composer, hymn editor, conductor and music professor, donated his collection of books on church music, hymnology, musicology and thousands of choral scores and records. Later on, Mary Oyer, the famous Mennonite scholar in African music, hymnology, and Christian arts, also gave many of her collections to enrich our Centre. So, in effect, Tainan became one of the best centres for the study of global church music, for very few seminaries in Asia or in the West had so rich and diversified a collection of global church music in one place.

I was unexpectedly called in 1995 to become President of Tainan Theological College and Seminary, one year after my return. It was the kairos that I could put all theories and theology of liturgy and music into practice. And in 1999, my vision of setting up a graduate program in Church Music was realised at Tainan Theological College and Seminary, offering MACM and MTheol degrees, the latter under the Southeast Asia Graduate School of Theology. We were privileged to have invited all the best scholars in music and liturgy as visiting professors. They included Carlton Young, Mary Oyer, Pablo Sosa, Thomas Thangaraj, Terry MacArthur, Michael Hawn, Kosuke Koyama and U Kyaw Than, among others. This was the high point of my career as a church music educator: a program with theology and worship at its core, with local, Asian, global and Western church music treated equally, to achieve a holistic liturgical-theological-musical leadership in the church and in theological education. It was from 1995 on that I could concentrate more on teaching and promoting Asian as well as global liturgy and music simultaneously in Taiwan and other parts of the world.

I also served as the Vice President of Association of Theological Education in Southeast Asia (ATESEA, 1998-2002) and Dean of Southeast Asia Graduate School of Theology (SEAGST), Taiwan Area (1996-2002), and was the Founding President of Taiwan Graduate


Theological Union (TGTU, 2000-2002). I was frequently invited to give lectures in the following schools in Taiwan: Taiwan Seminary, Yushan Seminary, Baptist Seminary, Taipei, Lutheran Seminary, Hsinchu, Holy Light Seminary, Kaohsiung, and Tunghai University, Taichung. I also served as Adjunct Professor of Ethnomusicology at Suchow University, Taipei, and Tainan University.

I was further appointed (since 1998) Editor for the Official Hymnal of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT), with Hui-chin as associate editor. The supplement Se-ki Sin Seng-si (Century New Hymns) was released in 2002, with 130 hymns from 35 countries, CDs and a handbook. Two more editions have been published, a Taiwanese-English edition (2007), and Mandarin edition (2008). The official PCT Hymnal Seng-si with 650 hymns was published in March 2009.2

Although the original plan was to have 50% of hymns from the West, and 25% from Taiwan, and 25% from Asia and the Third World, we were slightly below that expectation. We have at least produced a contextual, global and ecumenical hymnal. But one cannot push too hard. It is extremely difficult to change the musical taste of the congregation. We would need patience and perseverance to educate all.

During the last few years I served as Visiting Professor in and outside of Taiwan: member of Centre of Theological Inquiry (Princeton 2003-04), Sabah Theological Seminary 2005, 2010 and 2012, Sibu Methodist School of Theology, 2005, Divinity School of Chung Chi College, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006, 2008 and 2011, Trinity Theological College, Singapore, 2007 and 2009, Taiwan Theological College and Seminary, 2007, 2008, 2010, and Chinese Christian Seminary in Latin America, also teaching in Buenos Aires, Argentina, June, 2008.

Reflections on Methodologies of Contextualisation

My Personal Search for Ways of Contextualisation of MusicNot wanting to be influenced by Western theologians and their thoughts, I began my mission in Manila (1982) and other parts of Asia without consulting any related materials from the West. I tried

2 Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, Seng-Si (Taipei: Presbyterian Church in Taiwan General Assembly, 2009).


to develop my own ways. I only began to read Anscar J. Chupunco’s Cultural Adaptation of the Liturgy,3 when I was preparing to present a paper in England in 1985 (See Chapter 6). Although I am not a theologian, I am not without theological reflections; neither am I a music theorist, yet I have developed certain approaches to dealing with various Asian musical styles. My basic approach when searching for ways to contextualise Asian church music was “not to imitate Western traditional musical styles” even though my contrapuntal technique has been much influenced by J. S. Bach, who is still my idol as a great composer of church music. Through my extensive field research, I found new insights for composing works that would exhibit certain ‘Asianness,’ but not necessarily confined within any single cultural style. Hence, in addition to my own Han cultural roots, I have adapted and experimented in my compositions with various ethnic elements from Taiwan (including Holo, Hakka, Amis, Pinuyumayan, Bunun, Paiwan, Saisiat, Tsou and Sao tribes) as well as from the Middle East, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Philippines, Java, Bali, South India and Nepal, resulting in what I call my own “Pan-Asian style” (For examples of my work, see Chapter 2).

Further, to avoid misunderstandings and criticisms that contextualisation implies returning back to one’s old traditions, I emphasise the “contemporaneity of musical expressions: creating something new out of the old.” It is my conviction that one could modernise one’s old musical tradition with means other than imitating or copying Western traditional harmony. Thus my motto has been: “Modernisation is not the equivalent of Westernisation.” To achieve these two goals, I taught students the ethnomusicological approach to study one’s own native musical traditions, including all instrumental and folk genres. I believe that after acquiring in-depth understanding and skills of one’s own native musical traditions, one would be equipped to compose new music to contextualise one’s Christian faith. It is rewarding to see that a few students have subscribed to my methodology.

Weaknesses in Composing Asian HymnsAs an itinerant beggar of hymns all over Asia (between 1968 and 1994 and from 2005 to 2007), and in no less than 40 countries around

3 Anscar J. Chupungco, Cultural Adaptation of the Liturgy (New York: Paulist Press, 1982).


the globe to date (2010), I was privileged to find many interesting hymns by amateur poets and composers. I also met many trained, professional or semi-professional composers who were more interested in composing larger choral works than simple hymns (Dr Feliciano is an exception). Many composers have a misconception that once you are good in composing larger choral pieces, hymn writing would become very easy. Personally, I never believed so. I have evidence to prove otherwise. Hymn writing is a limited art that requires special techniques. On the one hand, it should be simple enough for the congregation to sing in one accord in worship. On the other hand it should possess poetic and musical beauty, and be theologically sound so that it can convey Christian messages with imagination, climax, and excitement, or a sense of tranquillity, repose and satisfaction. Good hymns are theological statements of Christian faith in an artistic form, and singing of appropriate hymns or responses in proper liturgical context enhances spiritual renewal. That is why I insist that hymns are the soul of church music; they are more important than choral anthems. Many former AILM students showed promise in composing good choral pieces, but some of them have neglected the importance of composing hymns. It was no wonder that the AILM Chorale was successful and had some impact on European churches in their concert tours because of their unique Asian choral presentations. Hymns in Asian styles, however, were negligible at that time. In fact, Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 1990 only consisted of a few original works from AILM students at that time, despite the high calibre of the student community. These included: Lim Swee Hong (Nos. 118, 314, 315), Inchai and Ruth Srisuwan (Nos. 2, 72, 217), Rudy Pantou (Nos. 98, 180, 203), Christian Tamaela (Nos. 7, 104, 116, 119), Waldemar Simamora (Nos. 137, 287), Toga Rajagukguk (Nos. 50, 287), Tom Maddela (No. 186), Judith Laoyan (No. 97), Daud Kosasih (No. 24), Calvin Chelliah (Nos. 110, 125), Picas Khess (No. 133), John Barathi (No. 251), Sang Maung (No. 61) and Rody Vera (No. 160). Now that American ‘praise and worship’ pop style choruses have invaded and taken over innumerable churches in Asia, we are at a loss to find good, interesting Asian hymns to offer the younger generation and combat the ‘music war.’ I feel that composing new and lively Asian hymns for the contemporary world is an important task we all should pursue diligently.


The Need for More Asian Poets and LiturgiologistsAILM has already produced more composers than poets and liturgiologists. We are proud to have two liturgical scholars: Tom Maddela, former dean of St Andrew’s Theological Seminary, Manila, and Lim Swee Hong, who now teaches at Baylor University, Texas. We also appreciate the contributions of Lu Chen Tiong (Sibu, Malaysia) and Christian Tamaela (Ambon, Indonesia) at their respective seminaries and churches. We still need more creative poets who can write texts that would reflect more Asian metaphors and spirituality, and portray Asian imageries, realities, and particular concerns. We have already witnessed the utilisation of some Asian symbols and symbolic acts in worship from various countries, but they still await more in-depth analysis and ‘theologisation,’ so that they can be widely practiced and accepted. I am happy to say that we have done a lot of innovative contextual liturgies at Tainan Seminary, but impacting the local churches still needs considerable time and effort.4

Constant Struggles for Maintaining Asian Musical IdentityFor promoting contextual Asian music, I have come to see a general tendency and paradox in the church: the closer the music to the ethnic style, the more difficult for people both within and outside of the culture to appreciate and perform, and the closer the music is to Western style, the easier for all people to enjoy. Personally, whether in Asia or in the global context, I have chosen to walk the hard way with the intention of letting people experience the mystery of God’s revelation that they may not know, rather than to compose in the style to please people by simply letting them enjoy what they like. In the midst of the effect of globalisation, I also detest some Western composers or editors taking Asian or Third World songs and randomly arranging them in Western styles to satisfy their own taste or to find their markets, thus destroying the integrity of God’s creation in the non-Western world. I have to admit my original sin as an ethnomusicologist: the stubbornness in trying to protect our Asian musical identity. This has sometimes made me and some of my compositions unpopular in Taiwan, Asia or the ecumenical world. But I believe this is my calling. Here I stand. Help me, O God.

4 I-to Loh, Hymnal Companion to Sound the Bamboo: Asian Hymns in Their Cultural and Liturgical Contexts (Chicago: GIA, 2011).


Re-stating Theological Foundation for ContextualisationThis brings us back to the theological foundation for contextualisation. I made two attempts to define the term contextualisation in 1984 and 1992, but did not discuss it in depth until Lim Swee Hong’s query in 2004 for his dissertation.5 I then jotted down the re-stating theological foundation for contextualisation.6

Vision of Contextualisation for the Future

What then is my vision of contextualisation, taking into account of my journey so far, amid the present-day challenges of globalisation and post-modernism? I suggest the following general approaches, complementing what I shared elsewhere (See note 6):

Approaches for Dealing with Issues on Worship• The Bible and the Teachings of Jesus

The events of the Biblical world in the Old Testament were combinations of the ancient Near Eastern, Babylonian, Egyptian and Canannite cultures. The New Testament world was under the cultural influences of the Greek and Roman Empire. Thus all historical events, incidences and contents of the Psalms and Biblical literature were closely related to the peoples and cultures of those times.7 Jesus, however, changed the whole situation. The original centre for worship in the tabernacle, temple and synagogue in Jerusalem or Zion were removed. Jesus maintains that the most important aspect of worshipping God is to worship “in spirit and truth,” not the location, method or form. He says, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). For God is more concerned about inner beings and the human mind, not laws, forms or outward expressions. This principle of Jesus’ should be our theological, missiological and cultural foundation for contextualisation. In other words, we should always consider whether

5 Swee Hong Lim, “Giving Voice to Asian Christians: An Appraisal of the Pioneering Work of I-to Loh in the Area of Congregational Song” (PhD diss., Drew University, 2006), 290.

6 See Chapter 2: Revisiting Ways of Contextualisation of Church Music in Asia.

7 Archie Lee, “圣经中的崇拜 (Worship Traditions in the Bible),” in 基督教会崇拜的重探 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Christian Institute, 2003), 19-25.


our theological or cultural expressions are capable and relevant to help us profess our faith and worship God in spirit and truth.

• Sharing of Truth and Faith of the Historic Catholic ChurchAll historical churches and denominations have held on to their own particular understandings of truth and Christian faith, and have contextualised their theologies, art forms and liturgies. No matter how good any of these forms may be, they are but a partial truth. None of them could claim to have all the truth. Learning and sharing of these historical gifts of the Catholic Church’s worship forms, therefore, could bring us nearer the sum total of all truth, and would undoubtedly widen and deepen our understanding of the mystery of God’s revelation, and strengthen our awareness of being part of the Body of Christ.

• Paradox of Christian Expression in Post-modern EraChristian music and liturgies have gone through over 2,000 years of changes according to confessional differences and cultural preferences. Successive historical development of dualism, secularisation, and charismatic movement has pushed contemporary Christian thoughts and expressions to a new dilemma. Churches are at a crossroad, not knowing where to go. We have seen the paradox of Christian expressions, in that some conservative and evangelical churches which uphold the importance of holiness and separate themselves from the secular world have been more liberal in utilising the most secular styles of pop music and show oriented worship forms to attract people, while some of the ‘liberal’ mainline Protestant churches have been more conservative in maintaining their traditional liturgies and hymns. Some evangelical churches tend to provide ready and easy answers to questions of faith, while liberal churches find it difficult to solve the conflicts and are constantly struggling to search for logical and meaningful answers. Post-modernism that raises doubts and questions all traditional views and value systems has further complicated the matter of Christian expressions. We, therefore, realise that no single approach to the interpretation of Christian faith or ministry could be acceptable and applicable to all modern situations and needs. Consequently, it is necessary to search for more comprehensive ministries in the church or in educational institutions that could establish balanced yet challenging music ministries or educational programs in the following levels.

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Vision for Developing Comprehensive Music Ministry• Make every effort to meet the emotional and spiritual

needs of the younger generation today, so that they would continue to stay and grow in the church.

• Create and apply a variety of responses, acclamations, hymns and instrumental music in all styles in proper liturgical context, and utilise dramas and multimedia to enliven worship services.

• Provide simple, contextual and global hymns for the general public for their worship, for interpretation of Christian faith, spiritual nourishment and their applications to contemporary life today.

• Promote intermediate level of ecumenical hymns and/ or anthems that are challenging to musicians and the educated for their artistic, spiritual and intellectual growth in the post-modern world.

• Commission larger choral works or concert hall music for specific occasions and celebrations, which are also challenging and satisfactory to artists and the intelligentsia, thus contributing to the world of Christian arts for the greater glory of God.

• Never cease praying for the wisdom and guidance of the Holy Spirit to enable us to pursue all the above and other ministries for God’s kingdom.

Questions To Be Pondered with Younger Generation TodayI have stated that “modernisation is not the equivalent of Westernisation,” but globalisation has further tarnished the already weakened identities of the people of Asia and the Third World. The whole world has been bombarded with Western (or to be precise, American) pop-style praise choruses, and most young people have wholeheartedly accepted Western pop cultural values and have almost rejected all other Christian expressions from historical, ecumenical, global and native sources. It is even more difficult to pursue our ideal of contextualisation of music and liturgy in this post-modern era. The following four questions need to be posed to the younger generations.8

8 I-to Loh, “与文化对谈的崇拜：实践礼仪与音乐进路 (Worship Is Cultural),” in 神是我们的神：圣乐与牧养发现之旅, ed. Angela Tam (Hong Kong: Jiandao Theological Seminary, 2008).


1. God could use traditional music cultures of the West as media for God’s revelation, but can God be imprisoned by these Western traditions?

2. God could speak through pop cultures and let them communicate certain messages of the Gospel, but can we draw an equation between the value systems of pop cultures and those of the eternal truth?

3. God could let unfamiliar arts of the Third World interpret the meanings of Christian faith, but can we reject them? Have we got nothing to do with our sisters and brothers in the global village?

4. God continues to reveal God’s glory through our native music and art forms today, but can we understand, or be moved by them? Do we look down on them or even feel ashamed of them?

We could borrow St Paul’s argument and ask: If God so loved us all that through His Son and the Holy Spirit, He has inspired all cultural gifts of creativity to reveal Himself, His redemptive love and providence, are there any cultural and creative arts and genuine expression of faith that can separate us from the love of God? (Rom. 8:35-39) The answer is a unanimous NO! Therefore, whether and how AILM and all who are involved with music and theological education are prepared to maintain a balance of proclaiming the meaning of the Gospel as well as the glory of God and meeting the needs and challenge of the post-modern world is a constant challenge that we cannot ignore.

Conclusion

Jesus expects us all to be fishers of people, meaning to win more people for Christ. Thus the Gospel should take proper contextual forms and cultural media that are easily perceivable by the people we are working with (1 Cor. 9:20-23). We Asians have already learned and accepted some of the truth from Western perspectives; the kairos has come that we should be aware of what God has been saying to us, and revealing through us, and what God requires of us today. The unity of the church universal in the Body of Christ may best be witnessed through the worshipping assembly utilising diversified cultural forms. Asia contains thousands of musical cultures that


reflect the awesome glory of God’s endless creation. It would be blasphemous to God, if Asians deny our own gifts and chose only to imitate everything from the West. If Christ has incarnated himself as an Asian, let us communicate with him in our Asian languages and art forms. It is good to learn to ‘speak English’ but don’t forget that our compassionate God accepts us and encourages us to use God’s gift of our mother tongue to worship God “in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).

Fellow poets, composers, artists, liturgiologists and theologians: in addition to joining the world to speak ecumenical languages, especially ‘English’ in worship and in the proclamation of the Gospel, let us be proud to speak also our own mother tongue!

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C h A p t e r F o u r

ApproAChes to ContextuAlisAtion oF ChurCh musiC: with speCiAl reFerenCe to “welComing Another yeAr with the spring breezes”

Introduction O sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvellous

things (Ps. 98:1).

This is the biblical mandate. The key words are “a new song.” Christians all over the world have been praising God with this

Psalm for over 2,000 years (not including the Old Testament era). In the Old Testament context, the Psalmist admonishes people to compose and sing a new song to acknowledge what marvellous things God has done for them. Putting the biblical mandate to our present context in Taiwan, Asia and the United States, it should read: Sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvellous things in Taiwan, Asia and the United States. Marvellous things usually refer to positive aspects of life and blessings, but I believe they may also imply how God has given His people courage, wisdom, perseverance and hope to overcome calamities and to reflect their faith at times of crises.

It was my usual practice as the president of the seminary to send Christmas greetings to friends and supporters around the world.

On ‘921’ (21 September) 1999, Taiwan suffered the strongest earthquake of the last century, and before the wounds were healed, there came floods and mudslides the following year. On ‘911’ (11 September) 2001, the United States was attacked by terrorists;

ApproAChes to ContextuAlisAtion oF ChurCh musiC ��

the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City crashed to the ground, and thousands of innocent lives were lost within minutes. The eyes of the world have witnessed these tragedies through the media with utmost bewilderment. Even though the US is so far away from Taiwan, our people who had just suffered the calamities of natural disasters could feel the agonies of the American people who have lost their loved ones on 911. Under such a difficult time, how could we celebrate Christmas?1 But what should I write during that long period of suffering? What message of hope could we have during that time of adversity around the globe?

I asked a poet friend Gân Sìn-seng to write a poem that would reflect the anxiety in the world and to ponder on the meaning of Christmas at that time. Then I composed the hymn, which was subsequently set into a choral piece: Welcoming Another Year with the Spring Breezes.

The earth is shaking, shaking in a night of deep slumber.Awakened in dreams,Wordless, in tears, only to question the heavens:My beloved family, where have they gone?My destroyed home, when can I rebuild?Why were the mountains and rivers devastated by mud slides,All that I can smell are the filthy insatiable desires?

Fires of war are burning, burning,Burning in the new century, covered with fog.In the signs of modern civilisations,We see with our wide opened eyes, opened eyes,The cold currents of hatred;Trying thousands of times, yet they cannot be pushed away,

cannot be pushed away.The root of evil sows seeds everywhere, sows seeds everywhere.Satan, formulated in the dark smoke,Ridicules human ignorance with the wind.

1 I - to Loh, “以音乐做处境的神学－以「与春风做夥迎接年冬」为例 (Doing Contextual Theology with Music: An Example from ‘Welcoming the New Year Together with the Spring Wind’),” Theology and the Church 27, no. 2 (2002): 209-215.


(Chorus A) Morality losing its direction in flight,The soul sinking in vanity,The earth, with unbearable agony,Awakens our dreams in deep slumber:Give up your insatiable greed; imprison your hatred in cages.Break away from the snares of desires;Together with the spring breezes, let’s welcome another year.

A voice is calling, calling all to “come to me,”From oceans to high mountains,From ancient times to the present;Wherever the people are, there the voices of this call reach.Where there is love, there his name is.When this voice of calling becomes seeds of peace,They will take root from Christmas night and generate new lives.

(Chorus B) Christmas bells are ringing again, each ring reports of peace;

The unchanging love of Christ the LordIs the eternal hope for human beings.Release gently all trials; let charity sail into the harbour.Walking through the gate and lane of times,Together with the spring breezes, let’s welcome another year.

Western listeners may find this composition somewhat different from what they are familiar with. It sounds different, because I have contextualised my Christian expression through Taiwanese musical language. If I did not, it could have sounded like any nineteenth century Western anthem, the style in which most Taiwanese and Asian composers enjoy composing. Then for sure, you would not know whether it was a new song written by a Taiwanese, or by some Western composer from the nineteenth or early twentieth century.

What is contextualisation of Church music? Contextualisation is the use of one’s own verbal and musical language to interpret the gospel, to express praise and thanksgiving to God, to voice concerns on issues confronting one’s time and environment. When this is done, ones expression of faith in worship and witness in daily life become more meaningful and challenging.

For the past 2,000 years, innumerable hymns were written by poets, musicians, theologians, pastors or laypersons from the West


according to their cultural, linguistic, musical and theological contexts. Many of these contextualised Western hymns have been exported outside of their original contexts and translated into many different languages in different parts of the world. They have become new songs in worship services. Now after one or two centuries, no matter how much people from Asia and the Third World have internalised and regarded these songs as their own, we have to acknowledge that they are simply repeating the biblical interpretation, theology, liturgy and music of the Western world. They are not their own proclamation of God’s marvellous deeds among their people. So inevitably, one must ask: Has God only revealed God’s self to the people and churches of the West? Does God only accept worship and praise that are expressed through Western cultural forms? We believe that God is the Lord of all cultures, and that the salvation of Jesus Christ is for people of the whole world. Such conviction can only be realised through their own contextualised expressions. How do we contextualise? This is the theme of our colloquium today.

Existing Approaches to Contextualisation of Hymns in Asia

In my search for contextualisation of hymns in Taiwan and Asia, I have found five existing approaches: Mere translation of the text to a local language, Imitation of Western gospel song styles, Adaptation of existing folk or traditional melodies, Adaptation of folk or traditional idioms or song motif and Innovative and matured Asian styles.

Let us observe these five methodologies.

1. Mere Translation of the Text to a Local LanguageIt is necessary to translate hymns from Western languages to whatever the language is spoken in the mission field (country), so that the people could sing with understanding. To borrow Peter Casarella’s phrase traductor est tradditor (translator is a traitor),2 this is most evident in hymn translation. Although fidelity, clarity and beauty is

2 I-to Loh, “In Search for Asian Identities in Asian Hymns: An Overview of Texts and Musical Styles in Sound the Bamboo,” Cultural Encounters: A Journal for the Theology of Culture 1, no. 2 (2005): 93.

ApproAChes to ContextuAlisAtion oF ChurCh musiC �5

relations and theological interpretation for a more holistic approach to contextualisation.

Four Aspects of My Approach to Contextualisation of Church Music in Taiwan

For my composition “Welcoming Another Year with the Spring Breezes,” I have taken the following four aspects of my approach to contextualisation: (1) Utilising Taiwanese Musical Idioms; (2) Incorporating Cultural Forms of Expression; (3) Dealing with Taiwanese Text-Tune Relationship and (4) Text and Context - Doing Theology with Music.

First of all, I adapted a Paiwan motif [motif meaning the main idea of a song or melody that constitutes the core for development in a song]“ualaioyi” (non-lexical syllables) to set the theme “toa toe teh io” (the earth is shaking). Secondly, I used the Heng-chhun folk song “Su-siang-ki” motif “su-ah-su-siang-ki” (when I think of… or as I contemplate on…) to interpret the texts “to-tek e be hang” (morality losing its directions in flight) and “sim-leng e hi-khang” (the soul sinking in vanity). Thirdly, by utilising the “Long-chhoan-khek” (Rural Song) motif “ui-tioh ko sa-tng”(earning for three meals), I urge people to “tham-loan sim-tiong pang” (give up your insatiable greed) and “oan-hun koai jip lang” (imprison your hatred in cages). Finally, I imitated Western contrapuntal technique – circle of fifths – to highlight that “Chu Ki-tok boe pian e thia-thang, si jin-lui eng-oan e ng-bang” (the unchanging love of Christ the Lord is the eternal hope for human beings). After “Kho-lan khin-khin pang” (urging all to release gently all trials) and “Jin-ai sai jip kang” (let charity sail into the harbour), I chose “Su-siang-ki” and a joyful Hakka song motif to conclude the song “Together with the spring breezes, let’s welcome another new year.”

Let me analyse them below.

1. Utilising Taiwanese Musical IdiomsTaiwanese scales, melody and idiomsHan Taiwanese (referring to Taiwanese of Han race immigrated from Fujian province of China a few centuries ago) use five tone scales (1 2 3 5 6, or 6 1 2 3 5). Occasionally, they also use a six-tone or seven-tone scale, but without a half-step ascending progression (3-4, 7-1). A half-tone descending progression (1 7 6, or 5 #4 3) is permissible.


Both the Paiwan and the Rural Song use 6 1 2 3 5 (la do re mi sol) scale, and “Su-siang-ki” with 5 6 1 2 3 (sol la do re mi) scale, with tonal centres around re (2), do (1), or sol (5) respectively. I have retained all the respective melodic and rhythmic idioms of these ethnic groups in the development of this composition; I also added a sixth tone si (7, e.g., 67 65 3 –), but still observed the traditional folk practices by avoiding a half tone ascending progression (7-1). Western traditional music are mostly in major or minor seven-tone scales, and they have variety of meters, such as 4/4, 3/4, 6/8 or more complicated meters, while Han Taiwanese music uses only 4/4 or 2/4 times. Melodic idioms like 34 32 3 is Western, while 35 32 3 or 61 65 6 (without half-tone progressions) are very Taiwanese or Chinese. The descending half tone progression 21 76 1 – however, is a typical feature of the Hakka song, so I used that as a contrast to depict the joyful mood at the final cadence. Notice this final full cadence 21 76 1 – is different from usual Western practice, but it has a slight resemblance of the fourteenth century composer Francesco Landini’s cadence: 7 76 1 –.6

Harmony or Multipart TreatmentWestern music is almost inconceivable without harmony, but there is no concept of harmony in Han Taiwanese music. All classical or folk traditions are monophonic, with the possibilities of heterophony (different instruments playing the same melody with different variations simultaneously, e.g., 3 2 3 – played as 35 32 3 – resulting in heterophony or sometimes the effect of an occasional multipart). The main melody is generally harmonised in parallel fourths (mm.8-9), imitation, counterpoint (mm.74-76), and some rhythmic interlocking parts (mm.31-32). Notice how the parallel fourths have introduced 4# (G#) which has later on become an important tone that shifts the scale a whole tone higher without a modulation. (mm.35-36 Alto B = 6: 6 #4 #4 6 7 – is the equivalent of C# = 6: 53 35 6-in the new mode). I have avoided Western chords (I (for the combination of tones 1 3 5), VI (6 1 3), IV (4 6 1), V (5 7 2) etc.) and their progressions: I- VI- IV -V- I etc.; but often use parallel fourths (1-4, 2-5) and counterpoint that would not form any chordal progressions. These musical features and idioms are carefully incorporated to express my contextual Asian or Taiwanese styles.

6 Archibald T. Davison and Willi Apel, Historical Anthology of Music, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1946), 56-57.


2. Incorporating Cultural Forms of ExpressionFolk and traditional songs are vivid reflections of the life, value systems and concerns of the people; they bear the imprints of cultural symbols and metaphors. Thus utilisation of folk song motifs, their idioms or their use of non-lexical syllables in new compositions brings familiarity and emotional ties between singers and listeners.

• The Paiwan “ualaiyoi” motif sets the tone for the theme and construction of the song.

“Ualaiyoi” are non-lexical syllables, which are usually regarded as words without specific meaning, but they are by no means meaningless. It is a common practice among many indigenous people in the Philippines and Taiwan to sing vocables such as “ualaiyoi,” “salidummay” or “na-lo-an” at various occasions to express different meaning and emotion, depending on the subject matter, content, occasion or purpose of the singing. The vocables themselves may also be a medium to call one’s attention to what has been sung or will be sung. Therefore, these non-lexical syllables express multiple meanings and emotions. “Ualaiyoi” plays a very important role in my composition.

The natural intonation of the initial text “toa te teh io”(the earth is shaking) coincides with this “Ualaiyoi” motif 12 22 1 2. It is this motif, its variations and development (23 3 3 3, 5 6 6 5 6 – 6 7 6 5 3 –) that form the core of the entire song. Thus the Paiwan musical culture is embraced and integrated into those of the Holo (Hokkien speaking people), Hakka (Hakka speaking people), and even mixed with Western contrapuntal techniques to contextualise this new composition. This symbolises unity in diversity of all ethnic groups in Taiwan, as well as people of the world that are familiar with Western musical styles.

• Heng-chhun folk motif “su-ah-su-siang-ki” serves as the core of the choruses A and B.

One of the most famous folk songs in Taiwan is “Su-siang-ki” (title). It originated in Heng-chhun village situated near the southern tip of the island that was the co-habitat of the Paiwan and Amis, the acculturated Pi-po, Hakka and Ho-lo people. It embodies the musical spirit of Taiwanese people and exhibits the simplicity, melancholy, warmth and beauty of village culture. This “Su-siang-ki” bears one of the most important characteristics of a genuine folk song,


in that the melodic structure remains intact, but it has innumerable variations and texts. The initial motif “su-ah-su-siang-ki” (5 2 5 1 2 –) skipping down and up a fourth marks the unique character of this song. The initial words “su-ah-su-siang-ki” (literally “when I think of…” or “as I contemplate [on certain things or ideas]”) is an expression of the singer’s desire to recall one’s own past, to pass on certain moral teachings or to reflect on issues of the time. Can this not be utilised to convey Christian messages? I myself have adapted this motif many times in various compositions as an important medium for contextualisation.

The natural intonation of both choruses A: “to-tek e be-hang” (morality losing its directions in flight), and “sim-leng e hi- khang” (the soul sinking in vanity) and Chorus B: “seng-tan cheng teh tan” (Christmas bells are ringing again), and to a lesser degree of resemblance, “sia-sia po peng-an” (each ring reports of peace) share the similar descending and ascending melodic progression of “su-ah-su-siang-ki” (5 2 5 1 2 –). This phrase urges people to ponder on certain problems, thus amplifying the meaning of the original texts and reminding people to consider what has happened, why the tragedies occurred and why the world has come to such a chaotic situation. So this musical motif set to the new texts helps people to relate our conditions back and forth and enhances our theological reflections. This motif has further developed through variations carrying new messages to deepen theological considerations (See mm.49-62).

• Rural Song motif “ui-tioh ko sa-tng” (for earning three meals) brings familiarity to local music and reminds people of a simple life style.

This rural song motif is from “Long-chhoan-khek” (Rural song, text written by Tan Tat-ju, and tune composed by So’ Tong, 1935). Although not a real folk song, it is so popular and loved by most people that it has almost attained the status of a folk song. The lovely motif 3 5 1 6 5 – “ui-tioh ko sa-tng” (for earning three meals) depicts the ethos of working diligently for earning daily meals and living a simple life. It is now being utilised to urge people to “tham-loan sim-tiong pang, oan-hun koai jip lang” (give up your insatiable greed; imprison your hatred in cages). The messages here show a big contrast to the original folk text, thus carrying an important lesson for all to consider changing their attitudes and life styles.


• The Hakka motif carries joyful and positive mood.

Hakka people belong to the Han race with Hakka as their mother tongue. They have preserved their musical traditions as seen from this motif 2 · 23 21 76 1 – This phrase sounds joyful, and the musical style is unique, in that no other ethnic group in Taiwan has that melodic feature. Thus incorporating the unique Hakka feature acknowledges their importance, especially when this particular feature follows immediately after the climax, and brings to the final and positive conclusion of the piece, as if all singers and listeners have returned to our musical home in Taiwan.

3. Dealing with Taiwanese Text-Tune RelationshipTaiwanese as a tonal languageTaiwanese is a tonal language with seven tones, i.e. when a tone changes, the meaning will also change accordingly. Using my name “To” as an example, there are 7 tones corresponding to their respective meaning. They are: knife, to lie down, to pour, table, to escape, way or road (logos, Tao) and to burn.

With such tonal inflections, speaking in Taiwanese or reading a Taiwanese poem would naturally formulate melodic lines. Many Taiwanese folk songs were formulated from such narrative lines. Further, in the process of speaking, any vocabulary with two or more words, only the last word retains the original tone, while all the previous ones have to modulate to other tones. For my full name, pronounced individually, it is Loh, I, To (50 13 2 –), but together they become Loh I-to (1 1 2 –). This creates problems in hymn singing, because even if the melody is composed with the natural intonation and inflections of the first stanza, it would be a miracle that would match the series of tonal inflections of the additional stanzas. This is the biggest challenge for translation of foreign hymns into Taiwanese. Because of the awkward expression formulated by wrong tone-tune combinations, it is easy for people to misunderstand the meaning. Fortunately, with the printed Han characters, imagination and association through the context, people may be able to understand the correct meaning. This is why solving the tone-tune conflict is paramount in composing texts with tonal languages. Hence I regard text-tune relation as a very important aspect of my contextualisation of music in Taiwan.


Text-tune relationshipThe phrase: Lan tioh tang-sim o-lo Chu Ia-so (literally: Let us in one heart praise Lord Jesus) can naturally form a melody: 3 2 3 5 6 1 6 5 6 –. It has been my effort to set the pitch of the melody to match the tone of the text. Text-tune relationship in this piece may be examined from three levels. The first level denotes the original folk tunes composed according to the natural intonation of their respective texts, such as “su-ah-su-siang-ki” (5 2 5 1 2 –), and “ui-tioh ko sa tng” (3 5 1 6 5 –). They were all in perfect match. The second level is the new text set to the folk idiom: “to-tek e be hang” (morality losing its directions in flight) and “sim-leng e hi-khang” (the soul sinking in vanity) all match with the music and text of “su-ah-su-siang-ki.” The third and the most important level is the conceptual transformation: “Su-ah-su-siang-ki,” intended for people to ponder on certain ideas, is now carrying new messages to urge people to consider why “morality has gone astray” and why “our souls are sinking in vanity.” Therefore, “Su-a-su-siang-ki” has been transformed into a deeper level of theological discourse, thus becoming a tool for doing theology to be discussed in the next point.

I would like to point out that the principle of music following the natural intonation of the text in this composition was observed in most of the first stanza, and the main melody in other stanzas. I have, however, at times taken the liberty in breaking the tone-tune relations so that the melody could follow the musical logic, create interest and surprises, even develop to climaxes. In so doing, it achieves artistic beauty as well as emotional satisfaction. Since the main melody still maintains mostly the natural intonation of the text, the meaning of the text is not totally sacrificed (mm.104-109). It is my contention that clarity is essential in church music, thus it is far more important to transmit messages clearly than to achieve artistic beauty or intellectual satisfaction. For a complicated choral piece, it is not easy to maintain this balance. I am constantly struggling with this linguistic dilemma. How wonderful it would be, if we could satisfy both expectations. This leads us to consider further musical issues in depth from theological perspectives.

4. Text and Context: Doing Theology with Musical IdeasAs we know, J. S. Bach used a lot of musical figures to express theological ideas, like the popular ‘word painting’ technique of his time. In his Prelude and Fugue in Eb (BWV 552b), Bach uses William


Croft’s tune St Anne to interpret and give glory to the Triune God. The piece is in three sections, with three fugues. The theme of the first fugue uses whole notes to depict God; the eighth notes in the second fugue symbolise Jesus’ walking (his ministry among the people) and the 16th notes in the third fugue depict the flying Holy Spirit, all with theological implications.

In my compositions, I like to use musical ideas or figures, whenever possible, to describe the meaning of the text or to symbolise theological ideas—putting it simply, to do theology with music.

The text of this song was written for the contexts of the time. Now I would like to share with you how I have engaged Gan’s texts with my multiple musical and cultural contexts in this choral piece. In other words, how I went about doing theology with the adapted folk motifs.

Paiwan Motif “Ualaiyoi” to Signify Solidarity with the Least• The aborigines are the masters of this island nation. There are

at least 15 distinct tribes in Taiwan, who belong to Malayo-Polynesian stock; some of them have been in this island for thousands of years, and most of them still maintain their own languages, family and social structures, religious beliefs, myths and legends, rituals, costumes and diversified multipart singing techniques. The multipart singing techniques include: sustained drones, parallel fifths and fourths, occasional multipart, double thirds, sectional cannons, tone clusters, Sprechstimme, free harmony and complex multipart singing. It is fascinating that an isolated small island could have developed such diversified choral singing styles that I have named Taiwan a musical microcosmos.7 Personally, I feel that tribal cultural heritages are very significant. But they have traditionally been looked down upon by the Han people. Therefore, utilisation of their musical motifs is to remind all peoples in Taiwan that they are the masters of Taiwan, and that their musical gifts would enrich our Taiwanese artistic expression for the glory of God.

7 I-to Loh, “Tribal Music of Taiwan: With Special Reference to the Ami and Puyuma Styles” (PhD diss., University of California Los Angeles, 1982), 448.


• Adaptation of musical ideas to interpret the meaning of Christian faith from the Paiwan people who constitute only 0.3% of the population, is a gesture of our identifying with “the least” of our sisters and brothers (Matt. 25:40), and of acknowledging our solidarity with them, who are also children of God, bearing the images of Christ.

• Most of the aborigines reside in the mountain areas, and there were signs of ‘land shifting’ during the 921 earthquake. They were the last ones to have received aid from outside. Using their motif as the initial idea of the song signifies their importance and our love and concern for them and sharing with their sufferings.

The Heng-chhun Folk Song “Su-siang-ki” Motif to Reflect on our Reality and to Remind Us of Christ’s Salvation

• Since the words “su-ah-su-siang-ki” call for people to ponder on certain issues, setting new texts here with identical intonations would inspire people to ponder on why morality has lost its directions in flight, (an implication of the American flight that was hi-jacked and ‘lost its direction’ and eventually crashed), and why our souls are sinking in vanity (because of our greed). This would also encourage us to make theological reflections on the sinfulness of humanity: why the greediness, why so much corruption, why the hatred between Muslims and Christians, and why the hijackers had killed so many innocent Americans. …This would eventually call for our repentance and confession of sins.

• Using the “su-ah-su-siang-ki” motif for the second Chorus calls people’s attention to “Christmas bells are ringing again, each ring reports of peace.” Here are two powerful reminders of the peace and new hope that Christ has brought through his birth. “Su-siang-ki” thus directs us to consider the most important mission of Christ’s earthly ministry: Jesus has come to bring good news to the poor, to open the eyes of the blind, to make the lame to walk, to release the captives, and to declare the favourable years of the Lord (Lk 4:18f). Hence, through the “su-siang-ki” motif all are reminded of the salvation of God through Christ.


• For the cause of modernisation and economic development, we have neglected our spiritual needs, resulting in the “the soul sinking in vanity.” We have gone astray as if “morality has missed directions.” The poet reminds us that the earthquake on 21 September has shaken us awake from our dumb conscience and through the unbearable pain and suffering. Likewise, I tried to recall our moral values through the adaptation of this folksong. The figure of five-tone motif and its variations are repeated again and again (mm. 49-62 Tenor and Bass) to remind people to reflect on our conditions, thus becoming a medium to do contextual theology, urging us to change and to repent.

The Rural Song Motif “Ui-tioh ko sa tng” (for earning three meals) to Remind Us the Ethos of LifeThis also has a theological significance. Taiwan used to be an agrarian society, where most people had to rely on manual labour, working day and night, to earn their three meals everyday. However, our economy and extensive development today are no longer for earning meals, but for fulfilling insatiable desires. This motif, therefore, reminds our people of the traditional ethos and virtues of working diligently, urging us to “give up the insatiable greed” and be content with meagre food and to live a modest life, rather than being too greedy by over-cultivating land, thereby destroying the ecological balance resulting in natural disasters. Thus the phrase takes the role for transforming a Christian character—to be modest.

The poem also reflects the hatred among international communities, which seek the revenge of “tooth for tooth.” We all need the love of Jesus Christ to overcome animosity. So singing this phrase prompts people to consider new actions: to “oan-hun koai jip lang” (imprison our hatred in cages). This second phrase also points to the problems of political, societal, economic and religious conflicts around the world, especially referring to the hatred that had caused the 911 tragedy. With these reflections, restraint, repentance and even forgiveness, we might be able to “kia- chhut cheng-iok e lo-bang” (break away from the snares of desires) and “kap chhun-hong cho-hoe ngia-chih ni-tang” (together with the spring breezes, we might be able to welcome another year).


The Hakka Joyful Motif to Bring New HopeFor the ending of the Choruses A and B, I adapted a piang-pan genre of Hakka songs from Zhu-dong area: 2 · 23 21 76 1 – for the new text: “ngia-chih ni-tang” (welcoming another year). This typical Hakka melodic feature is unique, not found in any other ethnic groups in Taiwan. The Hakka people constitute 14% of the entire population; they have preserved their traditional musical styles with distinct character. This particular musical phrase sounds joyful and optimistic, so I utilised this motif to convey the positive attitude and faith for the ending. This was intentionally done to highlight the beauty of Hakka music, which was often neglected by most people.

Western Contrapuntal Technique to Highlight Christ’s Love as the Hope of the World, and to Enrich the Monophonic Nature of Han MusicIt is noteworthy that stanza 3 portrays a voice calling people of the world to come to him, and that “Tng kio-sia hoa-choe peng-an chi, tui seng-tan-mi loh-kun lai si-thoa” (when this voice of calling becomes seeds of peace, they will take root from Christmas night and generate new lives). The voice states the hope of good news, and is immediately followed by the sound of the bells that proclaims peace. At this point, the poet proclaims with confidence that only the unchanging love of Christ can lead people into the new world of peace and joy. Here Christ’s name appears for the first and only time (“Chu Ki-tok boe pian e thia, si jin-lui eng-oan e ng-bang” (the unchanging love of Christ the Lord is the eternal hope for human beings)) and it is also here that I utilised Bach’s favourite technique of circle of fifths (6 – 3, 5 – 2, 3 – 6, 2 – 5, mm.98-101) as a counterpoint to “Su-siang-ki” motif and its variations. It leads the piece gradually “kia-ke soe-goat e mng-hang” (walking through the gate and lane of times) into climax at measure 105. Here Western contrapuntal technique has enriched the monophonic nature of Han Taiwanese musical style, and has given a new life to the song. Although it was an imitation of Western counterpoint, but without the usual chordal progressions, the result was still very much Asian or Taiwanese in style. It also shows the need for one to be willing to get out of ones own culture or cultural tradition, and to “go the second mile” in order to find new possibilities in multipart treatment.

ApproAChes to ContextuAlisAtion oF ChurCh musiC �5

Towards Maturity in Musical Appreciation and Theological ThinkingHere I should like to clarify my attitude to adaptation of existing melodies. Unless it is a cultural practice for allowing the same melody to be matched with various texts, it is against my principle of adapting any folk song directly for Christian usages without going through the process of transformation. For this piece, I only adapted the first five notes of the Paiwan “u-a-la-i-,” Heng-chhun “Su-ah-su-siang-ki,” the Rural work song “ui-tioh ko sa tng” respectively, and the Hakka song “joyful motif.” In general, I only adapted the main motif to capture the life and spirit of the respective songs and integrated them into various sections of the piece to carry new Christian messages. This shows the original folk text and music in the context of traditional Taiwanese culture, but they have now been placed in two new contexts (Taiwan as a whole and the United States) and have been transformed into a new Christian song in a new global context. The interaction of both texts (original folk texts and new Christian text) and multiple contexts (Taiwan, USA and the globe) are similar to what Shoki Coe calls the “double wrestle” of Text and Context for contextualisation,8 or to use another term, doing theology with text and music. This is analogous to requiring a new convert to join catechism classes. Through the classes, Christ can transform one’s character, and through baptism one becomes a new creation, a member of the church, and eventually a vehicle for proclaiming the Gospel of salvation. This is one of the approaches for my doing theology with music, as seen from the analysis above of the approaches, process, and theologising for my composition.

There are different levels of theological depth; the more one contemplates, the deeper it develops. In order to train a theologian, one would examine deeper and wider theological issues that would help deepen our understanding of the Christian faith.

Church music has similar concerns like those in theology. An ordinary person may be satisfied with singing “Jesus Loves Me This I Know,” or “What A Friend We Have in Jesus” with simple contents and harmony. They may not feel the need for knowing more. But for trained musicians, matured Christians or the intellectuals, they would

8 Shoki Coe, Recollections and Reflections, ed. Boris Anderson, 2nd ed. (New York: The Rev. Dr Shoki Coe’s Memorial Fund, 1993), 268.


like to sing more sophisticated hymns such as “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” or “Bring Many Names” with classical, contemporary or more complicated musical styles. They might find satisfaction in appreciating harmonic progressions, formal structure, aesthetics and theological interpretations on advanced pieces. For we all believe that music can convey and communicate a range of meaning, emotion, spirituality and theological ideas that words alone are inadequate to express properly. Similar to the importance of doing exegesis and commentary for understanding a certain biblical passage, a well composed hymn or choral anthem deserves a similar approach in analysis, exegesis and commentary for theologians and musicians to explore deeper meaning and implication through the double wrestle of text and context.

For the past three decades, I have been encouraging more advanced students to create new compositions with higher artistic value that would convey deeper theological ideas. It is not only to satisfy the composers’ search for technical maturity, but also to enable more Asians to appreciate the beauty and theological depth of Asian church music. So that more people would come to the realisation that our God is truly the Lord of all cultures, arts, histories, and of all peoples around the globe – that through new compositions of high art music, God is glorified.

Conclusion

We have seen from the above discussion that my composition began with a motif from the aborigines to symbolise their importance and our identifying with the least. The “Su-siang-ki” motif reminded people to consider the unique musical features of Taiwan and to ponder on how our moral and ecological failures led to our tribulations. The rural song motif admonished the general public to repent and to change their attitude toward labour, ecology, and economy, and to care for humanity. Lastly, the combination of the “Su-siang-ki” motif, the Western contrapuntal technique and the Hakka joyful motif led to conclusion in the climax that the love of Christ is the key to hope of the world. Here I have demonstrated how the monophonic nature of Han Taiwanese music has been enriched by Western contrapuntal technique. It is an imitation of an artistic technology of the West, yet not a Westernisation; the distinct Taiwanese identity is not lost. Hopefully singers and listeners would


be able to appreciate this artistic expression of Christian faith, hear the new messages, and gain new hope – welcoming another year with the spring breezes. Although this work may still be far from being an ideal model, this initial dialogue between musicological, cultural, linguistic and theological disciplines might help us find a more holistic approach towards contextualisation of church music in Taiwan, which might be applicable to other parts of the world.

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C h A p t e r F i v e

worshipping through inCArnAtionAl musiC: my mission

Introduction

Our theme is on “Incarnational Music and Worship.” Before we can talk about worshipping with ‘incarnational’ music, we need

to address the relationship between local culture and the practice of worship and music as well as our relationship with the Church at large. Only in realising that we are one in the body of Christ can we then address the diversity in worship, and to see how diversities serve a common goal of lifting up the name of Christ and proclaim our unity in Christ.

Investigating the Meaning of Worship and Style

I prefer the term li-bai (to worship with a ritual) than chong-bai (adore) when speaking about worship. This is because I am not used to using the term chong-bai which is a term used for respect and adoration of heroes, rock stars, materialism, social status and so forth to worship God. Christian worship is an expression of our unique and personal relationship with God. Such a relationship is far more than what the term chong-bai (adoration) can encapsulate.

Definition of WorshipWell-known Methodist liturgical scholar, Paul Hoon, considers Christian worship the revelation of God through Jesus Christ and the varied human responses to it, be it emotion, language or action, through the mediatorship of Jesus Christ. As such, worship is Christ-centred. According to Hoon, through Christ God speaks to us and is

��0 in seArCh For AsiAn sounds And symbols in worship

revealed to us and in turn, we, through Christ, respond to God.1 Peter Brunner explains worship with the German word

Gottesidenst, which means God’s service to humanity, and likewise humanity’s service to God. Brunner, in quoting from Martin Luther, states, “our dear Lord Himself talk to us through His holy Word and that we, in turn, talk to Him in prayer and song of praise.”2 There are others who also see worship as a memorial or a celebration of God’s actions toward us today and a promise of what He will do for us in the future.

In other words, it does not matter how we define worship. Worship speaks of a relationship that is dialogical, i.e., God’s revelation to us and our response to it. It does not matter what God chooses to reveal himself to us since God would surely choose ways in which humanity can comprehend the divine revelation. In turn, our response would often be situated within our cultural context, relying on what is commonly held as meaningful expressions.

The Style of WorshipThere are varieties of worship styles. Some denominations like Anglican, Lutheran, and Methodist would emphasise a more liturgical approach while others like the Reformed Presbyterian, Independent churches would advocate a freer approach. Of course, there are those who clearly do not place any emphasis on liturgy such as the Baptist and the Mandarin Worship groups based in Taiwan. Some strongly deny the use of any liturgy in their worship services but in fact their worship also assumes certain liturgical form. Quaker worship is a case in point. They do not sing hymns but allow anyone who feels moved to stand and bear witness or to read the Scriptures. The worship might just be an occasion where everyone sits quietly, and when the time for worship is over they just get up and leave.

Likewise, Pentecostal churches that are gaining more prominence in the last decade advocate ‘liturgy-less’ worship. Multimedia technology has also been readily embraced by some churches though others might be wary of this new development. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that this is another manner of our response to

1 James F. White, Introduction to Christian Worship (Nashville: Abingdon, 1980), 139.

2 Ibid., 18.

worshipping through inCArnAtionAl musiC ��

God’s revelation. Frankly it does not matter how different our worship styles are. The degree that we comprehend God’s revelation will determine our response to the divine. History has shown that the reason why there are varieties of worship styles is because when we received God’s revelation, we in turn draw on our context and understanding to render a response to God. Therefore, different perspectives and understandings will result in different worship approaches and responses. Each ethnic group would also draw on their language, hymns, music, and other cultural elements to transmit God’s revelation and respond to it, thereby achieving the objective of worship. God is the Creator, He is all powerful, all knowing, and more than able to accept all manner of worship styles. As such, we need to use all that God has given to us, in terms of knowledge and talent, to respond to that divine revelation so that God may receive all glory.

Developing the Function of Music in Worship

Even though music is not absolutely needed in worship (the Quaker worship serves as an example), yet as church traditions show us, music occupies a primary role within the act of worship. Its function can be seen in the following:

Music as WorshipRegardless of the genre of music used in worship, singing in a worship event is an incarnational act. Very often, music is the primary means of worship. As such, it becomes a form of worship. However, overemphasis of this approach may result in worship becoming a form of performance. Even though the performers may be sincerely rendering their praise to God as a personal act of worship, but those ‘audience’ below the stage can only listen, enjoy and watch, not truly making that experience their personal worship of God.

However by exercising due care in congregational song selection, it is possible to enable congregational singing to carry the multiple dimensions of worship such as praise, thanksgiving, or even repentance. Such worship expressions are the embodied emotional responses to God’s revelation.


Music Can Prevent Worship from Becoming Mere Intellectual ExercisesWorship that overly emphasise preaching can easily become a religious cliché or philosophical game, relegating Christian worship to the sphere of thinking. (That is of no value to the faith of the assembly) Music can invoke human emotions and thereby enable the connection between faith, the emotional response, to belief, the theological underpinning. Such connection reveals the close relationship between liturgy and faith. In short, music can move the hearts of people and enable them to experience the fundamental objective of theology. As Robin Leaver says, “Music prevents theology from becoming a purely intellectual matter by moving the heart of man to consider its ultimate purpose – the doxology of the new creation.”3 This statement permits us to see that worship and music is inseparable. Theology helps us avoid the theatrical performance trap of music making in worship while music enables us to experience God’s word beyond words and philosophical hocus pocus and connect us directly to the Truth as found in Jesus Christ so that the power of the Gospel can fully be experienced.

Hymn Singing is an Unifying Act of the CongregationThere is no better way to express the unity and harmony of an assembly in worship than the voices lifted up in song.

Congregational hymn singing is an important function of church music. This is because hymnody (both texts and tunes) is the spirit of church music. If there are only choral works, instrumental pieces, and music for soloist, church music becomes merely a form of performance for the pleasure of those who gather. However, when the assembly is engaged in the corporate act of hymn singing, it manifests the reality of many becoming one, testifying to the fact that the assembly is united with Christ and that God’s spirit binds all as one. In addition, the combination of beautiful melody and faith engaging text would draw us into an indescribable realm of worship.

3 Robin A. Leaver, “The Theological Character of Music in Worship,” in Duty and Delight: Routley Remembered. A Memorial Tribute to Erik Routley (1917-1982): Ministry, Church Music, Hymnody, ed. Robin A. Leaver, James H. Litton, and Carlton R. Young (Carol Stream: Hope Pub. Co., 1985), 49.


Music as a Medium for Proclaiming God’s RevelationIt is hard to comprehend and give voice to the creative, loving, salvific work of God but through the imaginative and creative powers of music, the mystery of God’s revelation can be revealed, God’s work can be experienced. While it might not be possible for the divine mystery to be explained totally, nevertheless, music can strengthen faith. Music is an important gift from God for it can be used to convey God’s words. Just as Paul writes, “Faith comes by the hearing, hearing from the words of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). Music, therefore, is a key manner in which the Gospel is transmitted. Some people are not inclined to preaching, but appreciate hymns or sacred music and it is through this musical media that they encounter and accept Jesus as their Saviour and Lord. Others who have lost hope and have had their faith shaken, have also found solace and renewal through the power of the hymns.

The Focal Point of Worship and Church Music is Jesus ChristJust as Christ is the focal point for Christian worship, the same is true for church music. Be it through hymn texts or hymn tunes, the purpose of church music is to draw humanity to Christ, to enable Jesus to be seen and experienced so as to enable us to worship “in spirit and in truth.” We do so by praising God with our grateful hearts and through our best gift of music making, we glorify God. When our hearts and all else are focused on Jesus Christ, only then would the ultimate purpose of church music be achieved.

Reinforcing the Ecumenical Nature of Music and Worship

Our current worship pattern can be said to contain influences from the Old Testament, the Jewish synagogue, the time of Jesus Christ, through the practices of the early church, and two thousand years of different traditions, plus the influences of Europe and North America before being transmitted to us. Such liturgical practices are important as they carry within them the treasures of our faith. The practice of church music is comparably shorter since the bulk of what we sing as hymns or perform as sacred music comes from the Euro-American churches. Through more than ten centuries of nurture and development, church music outfitted with nineteenth century Western


dress code came onto the shores of Asia. Inadvertently such became a part of ‘our’ culture. While this is something that our churches have been proud about, in terms of its heritage, yet this has also created a burden for us. In fact we have become overly familiar with this tradition that we forget that diversity in tradition is the norm of church culture and the unique feature of the ecumenicity of the church. For when the Gospel is transmitted to different cultures, it is expressed and manifested within the confines of that cultural background.

In 1988, the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrated their one thousand years of missional endeavours. The Church in South India considers Thomas, one of Jesus’ disciples, to be their founder and thus have at least 2,000 years of history. African churches also have a long history. The liturgical practices and church music of these churches have been influenced by milieu of the local culture. Through time, theology, liturgy and music have been nurtured within the cultural setting and their development continues to the present. Yet, our Asian (or Chinese) churches appear to be stagnated, holding onto the liturgical and church music practices that were transmitted to us by missionaries in the nineteenth century. This in turn has created a faulty impression that Christian tradition that originates from the West is the urtext (i.e., the true form) and that all other Christian worship expressions, including our own, are viewed with prejudice, suspicion, and eventually rejected. As a result, the church in Asia has failed to embrace the reality of a pluralistic nature of Christ’s body. In fact, all churches in our world embody the Body of Christ. Churches in South America, in Asia, and in the Pacific islands are all part of the Body of Christ. If we firmly believe that all churches everywhere have distinctive roles to fulfil as their expressions as the Body of Christ in proclaiming the Gospel and God’s glory, then it is not too far fetched to accept the fact that we can also experience God’s revelation through them and thereby have our faith strengthened. Their liturgical and church music practices can also enhance our worship and strengthen our worship experience. When we learn to recognise that they are also a part of the Body of Christ, and accept their worship expressions that might be different from ours, then we would have achieved that unity of fellowship that is based on love. Only then would we experience the true impact of that paradigm that calls us to be many yet one in Christ. For the


IndonesiaIn the communion practice of a church in Java, someone had used chicken meat as an adaptation of Christ’s body.5 In the twentieth century, Indonesian gamelan music has said to have made the greatest impact to the world of music. Its slendro scale system with more or less equidistant intervals (actually not equal at all) is comparable to the whole-tone scale system in the West. Debussy was influenced by this Asian ‘more or less’ equidistant scale concept that enabled him to launch the new era of modern music in the West.

The three pieces of Christmas music, composed by Waldemar Simamora and Wisnusubroto Soenardi, both former students at the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music, reflect the character of

5 See the discussion in Chapter 7: Asian Symbols and Symbolic Acts.


Indonesian composition.6 Their compositions are in Pelog Patet Barang, i.e., using the scale 2 3 5 6 7, or similar to “si do mi fa sol” in the Western concept. In Kami Mendengar Suara Malekat and Telah Lahir Bagimu Kristus Tuhan, the gamelan arrangement was orchestrated by Soenardi, with the saron (metallophones) playing the ‘harmony’ which in fact functions as the ‘fixed melody,’ which the bonang (kettle gongs) anticipate and decorate. The slentem (metallophones with individual resonators) and saron demung (lowest of the saron family) also join in playing the fixed melody, to which the peking (highest in the saron family) doubles the density, i.e., two to one note. The gambang (xylophones) and another gender (higher pitch than slentem) assume much more freedom in decorating and improvising around the fixed melody. The kenong (largest gong kettles) and kempul (hanging bossed gongs) periodically mark in alternate positions, and the largest gong strikes at the end of a gongen (somewhat similar to a ‘period’ or complete section unit of a composition). The two basic structures of gamelan pieces are ketawang and ladrang. (See Chap. 8, ex. 15)

The lyrics of the Malam Kudus is a translation of Joseph Mohr’s “Silent Night.” A careful comparison, however, will reveal how different it is from the original. This reflects one of the difficulties in translating from one culture or language to another.

The Church in Indonesia has embraced its own culture and sought to develop its own church music. Yamuger (Yayasan Musik Gereja Indonesia, the Indonesia Institute for Sacred Music) has published several songbooks. Many of the songs included draw from the local musical idiom.

PhilippinesColonised by the Spanish for nearly 400 years, their music naturally reflect a certain Spanish influence. In particular, the popular, romantic, and at times lively use of the guitar, in addition to the triple meter in their music has now typified what is Filipino music. In their practice of Holy Communion, the coconut, its flesh and juice have been used to substitute for bread and wine. The communion hymn, Kay Laking Hiwaga (Sound the Bamboo No. 82) composed

6 I-to Loh, A Festival of Asian Christmas Music (Manila: AILM and New Day, 1984), 50-56.


Constructing Incarnational Worship and Music

From Indigenisation to IncarnationI have always been an advocate for the movement to indigenise our church music since I was enrolled at Tainan Theological Seminary. It was, all in all about 28 years of advocacy effort. Yet upon quiet reflection and evaluation, I am embarrassed and saddened. Saddened because time has flown and the effort for contextualisation is long drawn. Embarrassed, because after so many years, I have yet to make a serious impact on this issue. After nearly 30 years, this continues to be the concern in my life. A few years ago, I published an article on the purpose and possibilities of contextualisation to generate awareness but that has proven unsatisfactory. In the last two years, I have ceased advocating contextualisation. This does not mean that I am not interested in this issue but rather sense that such a concern ought to be a part of the greater effort in the incarnation process of worship and music.

Incarnation is central to Christian doctrine. It speaks of God becoming human through the person of Jesus Christ, and like being born and living in our midst as in Hong Kong, Malaysia or Taiwan, and experiencing what we would experience in our life time – joy, anger, sorrow, sickness, hunger and so forth. While experiencing the multi-dimensional aspects of humanity, Jesus brought the love and salvific plan of God into this world in order that we may, through our encounter with this incarnated Christ, know God, understand God’s plan of salvation and seek to reconcile with the divine.

What is the relationship between this concept of incarnation and our present discussion on worship and church music? How might we draw on this concept to realistically express our Christian faith within our situational context? Consider the following negative examples:

Banana Church: In observation of the church, in particular, the Chinese church, for the past decade, I have come to sense that it is a ‘banana’ church. Bananas have yellow skin but when it is opened, it is white. We are Asians, (Chinese) and we typically recognise ourselves as being ‘yellow people.’ Yet as the church, we are completely Caucasian (white). It appears that the moment we become Christians, we earnestly strive to imitate Caucasian ways of expressing faith.


Translated Theology: Our theology is a mere translation, just examine the books in our theological institutions. The majority of which are either English or (to a lesser degree) German translations. Thankfully in the recent years, Asian theological thought has begun to make some headway in this arena.

Copied Music: Our church music is ‘copied music.’ There are two meanings to this idea. Firstly, we have copied all types of Western music including anthems and hymns for our own use. A quick perusal into our denominational hymnals certainly supports this finding. Second usage of this term, copy, can be understood as imitation. Our creative effort in hymns and praise choruses are in complete imitation of Western musical idioms and has no distinctiveness of being Asian. As a result, our congregational songs are no different from the West.

Second hand Liturgy: Our liturgy is ‘second hand or used.’ The majority of our liturgy maintains a nineteenth century Euro-American outlook. Virtually no thought is given to its adaptation to the cultural context of our time. Despite the fact that the Euro-American liturgical practices have changed, seeking new and better manner of expressions, we have stubbornly maintained the antiquated liturgical practice of the nineteenth century. This is not to say that ‘used or second-hand’ liturgy is bad and that ‘new’ is good. One can certainly point out that these imported materials can be a fine resource for our liturgical use. One would do well to even examine, study them and even use them for our worship needs and thereby nurture our faith. However, it does not mean that this is the only manner to articulate our worship. Can those translated Western texts fully represent the struggle and concerns of our present time? How realistic might it be to expect the liturgical ordo and the hymnodic repertoire of the Westminster Abbey to relate to the struggle of the poor and oppressed in Asia or to address the fears of Hong Kong’s imminent return to China in 1997? We can certainly learn from the liturgical practices of the West, including its faith and musical expressions, yet our context is distinctly different. We have paid a heavy price to be Christians. It would appear that in order for us to be reconciled with God, we have been alienated from our culture. It seems to me that


if we were to be culturally grounded, we risk being alienated from God. Sadly, this appears to be the implicit attitude maintained by the majority of our churches.

It is because of this prevalent ‘Western-Centric’ attitude that Asian theology, liturgical practice and church music do not deal with the present – the here and the now. C. S. Song once argued, “There will be no creative theology in Asia until we have mastered the grammar of cultures in Asia, deciphered its syntax, and penetrated its semantics.”7 This statement, likewise, can be applied to church music. Unless our liturgical and church music practice is grounded within the cultural context and takes into consideration the concerns of our people, we would not be able to create music that is truly incarnational. Instead, we would merely be translating and copying the ‘incarnationally white’ music. As such the critical question that confronts us today is: where is the ‘yellow body,’ or dare we ask, where is the ‘Asian Culture’?

Where is the Rice?In the 1982 US presidential election, Democrat candidate Walter Mondale in responding to the Republican candidate Ronald Regan uttered, “Where is the beef?” This was a catch phrase first heard over the television networks when the fast food businesses were comparing the quality of their beef in their hamburgers. In our search for Asian expressions in our liturgy and church music, we might draw on this analogy and ask, “Where is the rice?” We are essentially seeking to know what is the essence (substance) of Asia. Rice is the most important staple for Asians. Though many have adapted to eating bread, like those who have lived in the United States for two or three decades, Asians yet routinely and paradoxically state that a meal without rice is unsatisfying.

Well-known Korean poet, Chi-ha Kim, once wrote the poem “Rice is Heaven.”8 It is a known fact that Asians favour having friends seated around a round-shaped table for a meal. Such an act of gathering and eating speaks of the strength, unity and love that

7 C. S. Song, “Dragon, Garuda and Christian Theology,” in Doing Theology with Cultures of Asia, ed. Choo Lak Yeow (Singapore: ATESEA, 1988), 31.

8 Chi-ha Kim, The Gold Crowned Jesus and Other Writings, ed. Chong-sun Kim and Shelly Killen (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1978), 30.

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exist in that fellowship of all who eat together. In the act of gathering for a meal, the spirit of Christ is also with us and that is why rice as an efficacious symbol. When Jesus was on earth, he declared to the Jewish people that he is the Bread of Life. This has been aptly translated into Chinese as sheng ming de liang (sustenance of life). However, it would have been far more meaningful to us if we had rephrased that and declared that Jesus is the Rice of Life.

No wonder Japanese theologian, Masao Takenaka, entitled his book God is Rice.9 Since rice is so important, we ought to ask – where might the essence of worship and music ‘treasure’ be hidden? For the past four days of this conference, we have sung through numerous Western-Style works, made use of the Western liturgical practices that have been handed to us, yet where is our ‘rice’? Is it not true that without rice, we would remain unsatisfied? Why is it that when we become Christians we are only thinking about bread and have abandoned rice altogether? Have we despised what God has graciously given us? Please do not misunderstand my stance. I am not asking us to abandon our liturgical tradition of feeding on ‘bread,’ but I am advocating that since rice is our primary staple, while we may continue bread, we need to make the effort of partaking in the rice that God has graciously blest us with. In this manner, we can better connect to our community and maintain that we are not culturally different from them. Indeed we ought not to waste this special gift of grace that God has given to us. We have the responsibility of nurturing, harvesting, and using this rice that God has blessed us with.

The world is indeed getting smaller in the twentieth century even as global communications become more advanced, and we are rapidly becoming a global village. Likewise, the Gospel has also been distinctively expressed through various cultural expressions. That is the reason why the music in our worship needs to follow suit and develop a close relationship with the cultural text of any given locality in order that Gospel may truly be embodied through us, thereby allowing God’s glory to shine forth among us. I would like all of us to take a quick look at the diagram:

9 Masao Takenaka, God Is Rice: Asian Culture and Christian Faith, The Risk Book Series (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1986).


lacking. Likewise, the content and application of music, in terms of its emotion and message, ought to uphold this tripartite relationship. A lack in this relationship is less than ideal.

Through the influence of culture, worship and music can develop some distinctive characteristics. There are three types:

1. The first type is traditional. This includes both local as well as that assimilated from external sources. A great majority of Chinese churches have greatly assimilated external practices for their worship and music yet have not fully developed their local sources.

2. The second type is multicultural. Aside from European influence in our worship and music, are there other ethnic elements? How much do we know about worship expressions of Africa, South America or Asia? Or are we restricting ourselves to being influenced by one country or one denominational tradition and thus neglecting what God is presently revealing to us through the global church, which God had intended for us to be in fellowship in order that we might experience the work of incarnation?

3. The third type is contextual and contemporary in terms of trend and time. Can music and worship be truly contextual and contemporary? Could it draw from the present experiences of humanity, relate to it and have a close connection to it? Could it actualise God’s Word becoming flesh in us? Or are we forever destined to be the ‘banana’ church that has ‘translated’ theology, singing ‘copied’ music and using second-hand (used) liturgical order? Will we be satisfied with such a situation? Or can we be resolved to search for our ‘rice,’ seeking to use our cultural context to proclaim the Gospel?

The outermost circle is to reflect the state of emotional receptivity and acceptance in relationship to worship and music. By the media of our culture, the Holy Spirit reaches out to us, enabling us to understand and receive the Gospel. However as people are all different in their educational and social backgrounds, there would be differences in degrees. On the one end, some are greatly attracted to gospel songs and ‘praise and worship’ songs. While this is not wrong on its own, we need to further delve into this issue and recognise that regardless of the churches’ musical and liturgical content and ordo or theological


concerns, there needs to be an educational component in order that Christians may have the opportunity to grow. The opportunity to sing hymns from other Asian countries in our worship service, to broaden our hymnodic repertoire, getting to know the worship expressions of others, all of these are the educational responsibility of the worship leader.

On the other end of the spectrum, we need to select and choose where to creatively develop music and deepen theological thought, so that those who are more inclined towards philosophy and theology such as theologians and intellectuals, and highly skilled musicians may have their faith challenged and thereby grow spiritually. In so doing, we would fulfil the calling that God has entrusted to us through gifts as faithful stewards.

No one can truly understand the mystery of God’s self-revelation, yet God will enable his revelation to be viewed from various perspectives, by all people of differing educational abilities. In turn, they will respond to God’s grace in their own manner to express their praise and obedience. Such a duo relationship between God and humanity is far beyond the capacity of language and other communication arts for expression. The work of the Holy Spirit is to bear witness to the mystery of God and thereby enable us to experience it. Our infinite God draws on earthly elements to illuminate the God-self and allow finite humanity to express their response within the context of their culture, thereby enabling the embodiment of worship.

Suggestions and Examples for the Integration of Music and WorshipDrawing on Chinese-based examples, let us examine some possibilities of integrating music and worship.

Prelude: The Prelude commonly uses meditative type of music to help the congregation to be still before God. The use of the Nanguan (Southern Pipes) instrumental ensemble or Hakka instrumental music are some possibilities when one can have composers who are willing to study these musical idioms and thereby create or rearrange works based on these musical nuances, such instrumental works can be wonderfully effective. If choirs are involved in leading the congregation in preparing for worship, they could sing The Lord is in his Holy Temple – a work based on a Nanguan musical motif (Example 1).


Prior to Scripture Reading, Hymns of Universal Praise No. 637 “Your Word is a Lamp to My Feet” could be sung, emphasising the strength of God’s word.

Offering: Aside from financial giving, this moment is also about the offering of our talents. Instrumentalists or choir could offer their thanksgiving reinforcing or elaborating on the theme of worship through music. Lyrics could be printed on the worship bulletin so as to engage the congregation in this corporate act of worship. Many times, choral anthems are presented in between the reading of scripture and homily. There are occasions when such musical works have no relevance to the sermon. This gives rise to the unfortunate result of an emotional disruption that detracts the ability of the congregation to receive the preached word. In order to overcome this situation, care must be exercised to ensure that the anthem is relevant to the context of the liturgy (ordo) or what is being preached. Otherwise, the most ideal spot to have the music rendered is during the Offertory.

The Lord’s Supper: This has the most possibility for change and a vehicle to express the relationship between faith and culture.

The Lord’s Table could draw upon the round-shaped table commonly used by the Chinese. It symbolises reunion; there is no distinction between young or old, high or low position in a round table. All are in fellowship and all are equal. In the celebration of the (Lunar/ Chinese) New Year, the round table is the symbol of family gathering. Visitors become family when everyone is gathered at the round table. Unity and fellowship is clearly expressed. In our observance of the Lord’s Supper, this is a suitable symbol to adopt. Locating the round table in the central space of the sanctuary, congregants can be invited to come forward and receive the holy elements. Such a proposal has implication for liturgical space since the majority of sanctuaries (especially Presbyterian) are rectangular in shape. The focal points of Word and Table are usually kept in front, at a distance from where the congregation is seated. This results in a lack of intimacy in worship. Is it any wonder that worship has become a spectatorial act? Might it be possible for us to rethink the use of space for worship, using circle, oval or even semi-circle? In this way, eye contact among the congregation and closer proximity of the leadership of worship to the worshippers are achievable so that


the unity and fellowship of all who gathered are clearly proclaimed. Indeed, setting a round table in a central location is clearly ideal for it maintains a Christo-centric focal point.

The elements for Communion, the bread and the cup could be substituted and draw on what nourishes us daily. So in place of bread, we could use Taiwanese rice bun (man-tou), rice cake, sticky glutinous rice, red-coloured rice cake, and so forth. In terms of the cup, we could use rice wine, plum wine, sarsaparilla soda, green or red tea, and so forth. All these could be used to signify the saving work of Christ in our reality. We are not advocating that the Church totally abandons its traditional symbols of bread and cup. On the contrary, under significant occasions, with ecclesiastical discussion, such substitution might be used to better express the mystery of incarnation as Christ being incarnated through us as signified by the use of our context and culture.

Post-Communion, we could sing, “O Bread of Life for Sinner’s Broken” (Example 5). This song can be accompanied by flute or bass zither. An alternative work, Rice of Life can also be sung. This work is an adaptation of a harvest song from the Taiwanese Bunun tribe, whereby an earthly act of ‘rice eating’ as portrayed in a song is transformed to convey the emotional expression of participation in the Lord’s Supper.

Example 5

Sending forth and Blessing: Go in Peace (Example 6) may be sung, an alternate hymn would be Hymns of Universal Praise No. 654 “Benediction.”


worship and lifestyle must be inter-related. Our culture must carry our faith so that our worship expressions may be relevant and authentic.

Conclusion

We have touched on several issues on this occasion but we have yet to address the issue of my call. In fact, there are six points in which I had originally used in Chinese. The six verbs – tan-suo (to investigate), fa-hui (to develop), qiang-diao (to reinforce), xue-xi (to learn), jian-li (to construct), and zhu-qiu (to pursue) – express how I understand my call, and they motivate me to persevere in my present direction in order to fulfil my call.

When I was in middle school (8th grade), I attended a summer camp. At that camp, I first experienced God’s call. Filled with excitement and passion, I stood up and just as it was written in the book of Isaiah, “O Lord, I am here, send me” I responded. At that time, my rationale and call was to offer myself and study theology. Upon graduation, I would go forth to the hinterland and assist my father in his pastoral work among the indigenous people. However halfway through my theological education, I found that my interest and gift in church music were much stronger than in theology. Though I graduated with a theological degree, my call was changed and I became a teaching assistant at the seminary and assisted in the editing of the 1964 (Seng-Si) hymnal of the Taiwan Presbyterian Church. Upon my return from a time of church music studies overseas, I discovered that my call is not only to teach Western church music but to nurture and develop indigenous church music. So I had no other alternative except to go overseas once again to study ethnomusicology. Upon graduation, my intent was to return to Taiwan and make my contribution to the development of Taiwanese church music. But the ‘Macedonian call’ led me to teach in Manila instead. There my training from America was put to the test, sharpened, and broadened. Upon maturation, I was led back to Taiwan. That is why I label myself with a strange title, Beggar of Asian music. Why do I say that?

The co-founder of Christian Conference of Asia, D. T. Niles once said that the meaning of the Gospel or the work of evangelism is like being a beggar. Whenever the beggar discovers a place that can provide nourishment, that person would immediately inform other beggars about that location. I am like that sort of a beggar.

worshipping through inCArnAtionAl musiC ��5

For almost six months of a year, I would be wandering all over Asia, asking composers, poets, liturgical scholars, to showcase their creative works. Once I uncover any good works, I would document them, help their creators be networked with others, and even attempt to publish these works. In my travel, I would often encourage churches in various regions not to overlook or neglect the ‘rice’ of their lives, hoping that the ‘rice’ would eventually develop and nourish the church. So my calling is to still be the ‘Beggar of Asian Music,’ continuing my effort in visiting Asian countries, encouraging the development of hymnody and other church music expressions. At the same time, to dialogue with my other colleagues in this field of church music and explore the possibility of using Asian cultural expressions within the field of worship and church music. In addition, to encourage them to be open-minded and accept all types of musical expressions, be they Asian or global in nature, so that in our worship, we may truly experience the diversity within the one nature of Christ’s body. Indeed that we may experience the incarnation resonating within our very lives whereby the Word becomes our body, feeds on our rice, dresses in our clothes, speak in our languages, sing our songs, and enable those around us to meet with God directly and understand God’s word, and thereby draw more people into the presence of God.

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C h A p t e r S i x

ContemporAry issues in inCulturAtion

Introduction

Anton Baumstark remarks, “It is of the very nature of liturgy to relate itself to the concrete situations of times and places.”1

I often wonder how much we have followed this principle in our worship life in Asia. We probably have merely translated more foreign liturgies than we have adapted to the Asian circumstance of time and place. Let me cite two incidents.

During the critical event in the history of the Philippines on 23 February 1986, churches held their Sunday morning worship services throughout the city of Manila, while thousands of people, including Roman Catholic sisters gathered on the main highway EDSA, kneeling down in front of the tanks, praying and begging the soldiers not to advance and kill their own people. In some services there was not a single reference to what was happening in the country; they simply followed the translated liturgy as a routine. No wonder some young Christians raised their voices to question their church authorities about the relevance of their Christian faith to the situation they lived in.

In July 1988, I was invited by the World Association of Chinese Church Music (WACCM) to speak at their biennial conference and workshop on a topic “Contextualised Music in Worship: My Mission.” During the five-day workshop they dealt with issues on Music and Worship, Choral Music and Worship, Liturgical Music

1 Anton Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy (Westminster: Newman Press, 1958), 18.

ContemporAry issues in inCulturAtion ��

and Worship, Instrumental Music and Worship, and Contextual Music and Worship. All the main speakers have studied in the USA or England, all have graduate degrees; all were among the best of overseas Chinese leaders. All of the contents and reference materials were either American or British, including liturgies and hymns. I felt uneasy that there had been no suggestion of how to relate music or liturgy to Chinese or Asian culture! It was only at the last day before my lecture, that Chinese instruments were used to accompany the singing of two Chinese hymns, one of them with traditional western four-part harmony. The irony was that while the purpose of this association (WACCM) is to promote contextual church music, no effort was made to use contextualised liturgy or music during the first four days of the workshop.

This, unfortunately, is a common reality in most Asian churches, with the exception of the Isaan community churches in Thailand and some of the Churches of South India. Since my topic is on music, we will only focus on the musical aspects of inculturation.

In order to understand the issues of inculturation through music, I would like to discuss translation, acculturation, and inculturation as three stages of development.

I will be providing examples of these stages from Asia, since I am most familiar with Asian musical traditions. What we are aiming at, of course, is to create new forms in native styles as particular incarnations of the Spirit of Christ.

Translation and Transplanting

You may be aware that both liturgy and music in Asia today are the direct influence of the early Christian missionaries, who had understood and interpreted the Gospel according to their cultural context. Thus, the Christian faith clothed in Western culture was accepted totally and wholeheartedly by Asians, and was regarded as the only proper way of Christian expression. It is likely that the early missionaries must have made some effort to bridge the gaps between Christianity and native cultures, but it must have been a very difficult task for them as well as the native people.

The problems were probably twofold. First, the missionaries had inherited a Christian faith that had, over the centuries, absorbed and influenced the essence of Western civilisation. It was only natural that their interpretations of the Gospel and expressions of


faith were oriented toward Western culture. With good intentions, they translated what they understood as Christian faith into other languages in order to be able to communicate to the natives. In effect the Christian faith was clothed in Western culture and values in the form of liturgy and music.

Secondly, fascinated by the new Christian faith and associating it with the ‘advanced’ Western culture, technology, in particular, Asian converts have probably idealised and absolutised these Christian expressions and values. To the missionaries steeped in Western culture, it seemed necessary that the new converts denounce their past and to remove the association of pagan practices in order to prove their true conversion to Christ. Eventually this became the prevailing attitude of the converts themselves and a prerequisite for the conversion of subsequent generations. Unfortunately, it has led to the denial of the native culture and values; Christians became alienated from their local culture and their own people. They were eager to learn and adapt the new Christian expression, including liturgies and music. They even become so attached to these forms that they regarded them as the only authentic way of Christian expression.

We can see clear evidences of these effects in liturgy and music, for it was the people who adapted themselves to the liturgy of the new Christian culture rather than the liturgy that was adapted to the people’s way of expression. This translated liturgy eventually became a fixed act of worship. Local symbols and artistic expressions, especially music, were mostly rejected and hardly had a chance to become the tools of expression in worship.

Herein lies one of the major issues: How meaningful and relevant were these translated and transplanted forms? Translated liturgies have little to do with the local situation and cultural expression. The translated poem or hymn text can easily lose the beauty of the sound, form and content of the original. Furthermore, the intimate text-tune relations are often lost especially in tonal languages, such as Taiwanese (Hokkien), Thai or Chinese where the meaning is changed if the melodic progression does not follow the natural intonation of the text. Let me cite a few examples here:

In “Jesus loves me this I know” the refrain “Yes, Jesus loves me” sung in Taiwanese becomes “Dead Jesus, hear me.” In “We have heard the joyful sound,” the recurring phrase “Jesus saves!


Jesus saves” (Chu oe kiu) becomes “cook, [it] will shrink, cook, [it] will shrink.”

We realise that even if the melody of a hymn is composed with the intonation of the first stanza in mind, it will still be difficult to eliminate the conflict between musical pitches and tones on the subsequent stanzas. But with careful treatment, some of these problems could be minimised.

We need to address a few more fundamental issues theologically:

Unity in DiversityWe have to admit that in any international gathering, it is usually a wonderful experience for every Christian to sense the unity of One Body in Christ when we can sing the same great historical hymns together in different languages. But does it mean that only Western hymns can give this effect?

If Christians all over the world express their faith only in Western forms, wouldn’t this kind of unity be rather superficial? Wouldn’t the unity within the diversity be a more powerful witness to the Body of Christ with many parts?

Perhaps those who participated in the worship experiences at the Sixth General Assembly of World Council of Churches in Vancouver in 1983 could give witness to this.

Stagnation of CreativityIf we merely translate the Christian expression that we inherited from the previous generation without creating new hymns for one’s own generation, then what has happened to God’s creative gifts? Has not God bestowed on us His gifts to create different art forms?

Wouldn’t we be like the wicked and lazy servant who buried his master’s money? (Matt. 25:14-30)

Limiting GodThe most serious question we need to ask further is: Have we put God into a certain cultural box, thus limiting God’s revelation? (Of course, God’s act cannot be imprisoned by any cultural form). Wouldn’t it be a type of idolatry for us, if we worship the idol of Western culture?

Can we still profess that we believe in “the God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth” if we place Him in a certain cultural box?


Christians in the Pacific islands have accepted Western hymns and gospel songs wholeheartedly ever since the missionaries taught the hymns to them. But they had to ‘improve’ the rhythm and/or harmony in order to please their musical aesthetic. Simeon B. Marsh’s tune Martyn, written in 1836, has been popularly associated with Charles Wesley’s “Jesus Lover of My Soul.” In this version from Tonga, it has been sung with such vigour that it might be superior to the original form.

These examples clearly show us changes and modifications to the Western hymns. The Indonesians had to substitute tones of the scale and alter the melodic lines, the Australian aborigines had to add ornaments and variations, and the Tongans had to incorporate their particular style of performance in order to make these hymns meaningful to them. In this process of acculturation, they seemed to have made those hymns their own, speaking from within their hearts, and touching the souls of many in their culture. Such a process of acculturation raises the issues of authenticity and integrity of the original hymns. Because of the alterations, the Indonesians have made the tune Ravenshaw almost unrecognisable and the integrity of the hymn seems to have been impaired. Should we correct them or force them to sing according to the original version? When we introduce a foreign expression to a certain culture, the recipients may find it necessary to modify the tune before accepting it. To what extent can we expect to preserve the authenticity of the art form?

On the other hand now that many Asian hymns are being introduced to the West or other parts of the world, most people find it difficult to execute the microtones and ornaments. They usually only sing the bare melody, thus losing the spirit and beauty of the original song. Even worse, some have arranged them into Western four-part harmony. What happens to the integrity of the music? This leads us to the next issue.

Inculturation

Over the last half century, more and more Christians in Asia have expressed their faith through their music, either through adaptation of existing folk melodies or through writing new hymns that reflect their native traditional styles. Such efforts could be classified under Chupungco’s suggested category of inculturation. We might group the various approaches into two types:


musicians who are fascinated by these ‘exotic’ melodies might just arrange them with four-part harmony to satisfy their musical impulse without trying to understand the particular style, or they harmonise them simply because they assume that the congregation would prefer the harmony. If inculturation brings about changes in the music culture, are there any guidelines to preserve and protect the native heritage from being indiscriminately changed, destroyed, or poorly syncretised? In our commitment to convert the native people and to adapt their music for use in the liturgy, do we have any right to change their music that is also God’s gift to them?

Toward Incarnation: “Speaking in our Own Native Languages” (Acts 2:8)

From a purely musical point of view, inculturation of music in liturgy is not sufficient; one has to move beyond inculturation towards incarnation. The term incarnation is used here to indicate taking the forms and elements of the indigenous people to express Christian faith. While certain elements of liturgy must preserve the essence of our historic faith – the core of the Gospel, music as a servant to the hymn text or liturgy must become expressive forms of the incarnation by taking forms indigenous to and understood by the people. The early church became very strong and active after Pentecost. When the followers of Christ began to speak in the various tongues, the ethnic groups present could identify as their own native languages. For our discussion the term ‘native language’ may be interpreted from two musical perspectives: native music in traditional styles and native music in contemporary styles.

Native Music in Traditional StylesNative language is like a mother tongue that is one’s most natural and intimate medium of expressing one’s thoughts and feelings; it speaks deep to heart and mind. A composer who knows his own traditional music and masters the skills of expressing his thoughts through this medium can convey deeper meaning and strike resonance among his own people. Let me cite an example.

Indonesians used to tease their Christian friends by calling them “Black Dutch” because Christians used to show much pride in dressing, thinking, acting, worshipping and singing like the white Dutch. Christians on the island of Bali, where 98 percent are

ContemporAry issues in inCulturAtion ��5

practicing Hindus, have always been accused of being destroyers of local culture. But the effort during the last two decades was toward incarnation. With the motto “Christ is my life but Bali is my body,”4 Christians began to seriously study their own culture, and have developed new songs, gamelan music, puppets, dances, dramas and paintings to communicate the Gospel in traditional styles. To the Balinese Christians, Christ has become incarnate in their Balinese body and is living a Balinese life with them. They are no longer Black Dutch, but Balinese Christians. One can see a song from the “Parable of Ten Virgins” by Nyoman Darsane.

I would like to direct your attention to another important example from the Isaan Community Churches at Udon Thani, in the northeastern part of Thailand. They show us an ideal model for integrating Christian faith with local culture. Although this church was founded and led by an American missionary, no elements in their liturgy, music, or Bible study courses were imported from the West. These Christians live in rural areas; they learn their faith directly from the Bible; they worship and praise God through their own native expression. When they come to worship in family houses, they learn to play the local instruments (mouth organ, xylophones, drums, etc.); the playing and singing lead naturally into their worship. They usually conclude with a Holy Communion, in which a baked loaf made of sticky rice and roselle juice replace bread and wine. It is like a common meal but it re-enacts Christ’s sacrificial love for their salvation. So far, this is the most unique approach to evangelism and worship in Asia today. Their music and liturgy are a genuine expression of faith springing out of their hearts and minds. A good example may be found from “God Loves the Isaan People” in Rak Phra Jao Rao Pen Thai.5

In my opening remarks, I quoted Baumstark’s statement that “It is of the very nature of liturgy to relate itself to the concrete situations of times and places.” Now from this Isaan expression of Christian faith, we no longer see any gap between Thai culture and ‘Christian’ liturgy. The composers have, however, been accused of being heretics

4 I-to Loh, Kristus Sundaring Bali (Christ the Light to Bali): A Collection of New Balinese Hymns, vol. 12, AILM Collection of Asian Church Music (Manila: AILM, 1988), 7.

5 I-to Loh, Rak Phra Jao, Rao Pen Thai (The Love of God Sets Us Free): A Collection of New Thai Hymns, vol. 13, AILM Collection of Asian Church Music (Manila: AILM, 1989).


by some main-line churches who have held on faithfully to Western liturgy and music. To the latter only the liturgies and music imported from the West are considered authentic Christian expressions, but these Western forms are, in fact, alienating these Thai Christians from their own Thai culture. Here we find a paradox of Christian expression and culture: the closer the Christian expression is to the Western culture, the easier the acceptance for the traditional Christians; the closer to the native culture the Christian expression is, the more resistance it causes. This, unfortunately, is exactly opposite to the ideal of dynamic liturgy and functional music.

Native Music in Contemporary StylesWhile we may rejoice in the fact that more Asian Christians are able to express their faith in their traditional idioms, we realise that such expressions have also become stumbling blocks to some traditional Christians and have alienated those who are keen on modern expressions. This is why we consider new native music in a contemporary style as another kind of native language in a modern sense. Although modern people may not necessarily reject all of their own roots, they may find such native idioms old fashioned and uncomfortable. Therefore, Christian composers today are facing this challenge to create more innovative new works, which not only reflect unique native characteristics but also capture the spirit of the time. These new compositions will make more sense to contemporary people. We have already seen this promising task fulfilled in some recent works.

An anthem entitled “Potri” from India will make this point clear. It is a praise to the greatness of God by John Barathi, who formerly studied at the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music. The raga and melodic ideas are basically South Indian in style, but the ostinato and polyphonic treatment are new. The work is innovative in that it gives Indian church music a new dimension. Although we may find certain clues of acculturation, the result is by no means Western. He has created a new native music embodying both traditional and contemporary styles to proclaim God’s glory. With such a composition, John can affirm the message that Christ has become incarnate in his contemporary South Indian body. Through this particular cultural medium John interprets the meaning and relationship of his own people to the sovereign God of all.


We are aware that cultures and cultural values are in the process of continuous change, that contemporary expressions cannot be cut off from the continuum of historical traditions, and that all cultures and traditions are eventually subject to the judgment of the Gospel.

From the above examples, we have heard Christian faith expressed through native music both in traditional and contemporary styles; we have also witnessed hymns going through various stages of acculturation and inculturation.

To end, next time you listen to Asian church music, ponder over the following questions:

• Can we detect the manifestation of God’s saving power through the advent of new music?

• Does the music lead us closer to the heart of the Gospel?• As we listen may we meet God face to face?• Can God use this new music to make us new?

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C h A p t e r S e v e n

AsiAn symbols And symboliC ACts

Many Asian liturgies and forms of worship are replicas or imitations of those practiced in their mother churches

in Europe and the West. Although there are vast national and denominational differences in liturgical practices in Asia, one may group Asian liturgies into four traditions: the Mar Thoma tradition in South India, the high church liturgical tradition, the free church tradition, and the recent charismatic tradition. The Mar Thoma church is believed to have been established by St Thomas, one of Jesus’ disciples. Their liturgies are, therefore, close to those of the Eastern Oriental Church (Syriac) tradition. Both the high church tradition, such as Episcopalians, and the Free Church tradition, such as Presbyterians, were introduced to Asia from Europe and the West during the last two centuries. The charismatic tradition entered Asia mainly from the United States after the Second World War. All liturgies and music from these four traditions have been adopted and translated into Asian languages. Although one may find minor changes in their orders and in their wordings of contents of prayers, the shapes and the theologies of Asian worship are basically the same as those of their mother churches.

The current trends of liturgical revival from the West, the new awareness of Asian identity, and the new interest in Asian cultures have contributed greatly to the renewal of worship in some Asian churches today. While local congregations still maintain their traditional Western forms of worship, some seminaries in South India, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia, to name only a few, have been developing contextual liturgies and music that are gradually gaining acceptance. Ecumenical conferences and international gatherings in

AsiAn symbols And symboliC ACts ��

Asia over the last decade have also inspired many innovative worship forms. Furthermore, the publication of Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal has played a significant role in adding dynamic life to Asian worship. This collection, which contains 315 hymns in 45 languages from 22 Asian countries, is published by the Christian Conference of Asia.1 One should also mention a group of community churches in Isaan, northeast of Thailand, which have developed native forms of worship that utilise local hymns. An ordinary Sunday worship service, which is conducted in family churches (they do not build churches), consists of the following order:

Prelude (native ensemble of mouth organ, lutes, flutes, and drums)

Call to Worship (in song and dance)Reading of the ScripturesBible Study or SermonPrayer of ConfessionHoly Communion Apostle’s Creed (sung) Words of Institution (1 Cor. 11:23-26) Prayer

Distribution of the Elements (sticky rice loaves and rosselle tea)

Communion Singing of Communion Hymn and Dancing Prayer of ThanksgivingOffering (with song and dance)Prayer of IntercessionPostlude (native ensemble)

Although Asian churches seem to show little creativity in their liturgies, some of them have begun to explore various cultural expressions, symbols, and symbolic acts, and to utilise them in their worship. The following is a brief description of some of these acts in their liturgical contexts.

1 Christian Conference of Asia, Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 2000 (Hong Kong: Christian Conference of Asia, 2000).


Call to Worship

Conch Shells. Conch shells symbolise longevity; they are believed to have magical powers. In many rituals, they are used to call for rain and the spirits of ancestors. They also announce the arrival of a chief or an important person, thus marking the beginning of an important event. It is natural that the Christians in Moluccas, Indonesia and Pacific islanders use the conch shells on Sunday morning, as a call to invite people to worship God.

Greetings and the Sign of Peace

Namaskar. Namaskar is an Indian way of greeting, where both palms are folded in front of one’s face, followed by a slight bow and by the saying of “Namaste!” meaning “I greet the divinity that is in you.” This posture represents humility, respect, and reverence. It has become a general greeting for Christians, especially as a sign of peace during worship services.

Thai Christians have adopted this posture, but with the hands placed near the heart accompanied by a greeting of “sawatee.” Since hand shaking and embracing may be too intimate in some Asian cultures, the Namaskar sign is very well suited for an Asian context. One can find the same in northern Sumatra, Indonesia.

Holding palms together is also a popular sign of reverence among Buddhists, Taoists, and to a certain extent, among Confucians. It is a posture for praying, and for paying homage to gods and respected sages. Christians in Thailand have naturally adopted this sign of reverence in their prayers. Instead of responding “amen,” they further bow their head to touch the tip of their fingers, as a sign of “so be it.”

Hongi. The traditional way of greeting guests for the Maori is to hold each other’s arms and rub each other’s noses together a few times, while looking into each other’s eyes warmly. This tradition has been adopted in the church not only as a common greeting, but as a sign of peace as well. In practicing the Hongi, people go around and greet everyone present at the church. Care is taken that no one in the room has been left out in this friendly ritual.

AsiAn symbols And symboliC ACts �5�

Paying Obeisance to God

Parikrama. Some of the churches in South India have created a particular ritual during their worship service to pay obeisance to God. First, they set up a mandala, a place in the sanctuary decorated with a cross, pebbles, vase, and lotus flowers (a sign of purity). The mandala represents the Holy of Holies, thus acknowledging God’s presence. Then, the worshipers bring gifts of flowers or any objects of God’s creation and walk slowly in a meditative posture around the mandala three times, each time placing one gift on the mandala and doing the sign of Namaskar. This action also symbolises thanksgiving, praise, and offering of self to God. After this action, the worshipers return to their seats (on the floor) and continue their meditation.2

Penitence

Coconut Smashing. The Tamil Indians in Malaysia are mostly Hindus. In their festive processions, some would smash coconuts (symbolising their hearts) along the road to express their penitence for sins they have committed. Since the hard skin of the coconuts have already been removed, the impact causes the coconut to break into small pieces. The juices and the fragments of white meat splash all over the place. This symbolises the resolution of the “sinner,” as if he or she were saying, “May I perish like this coconut, if I commit the same sin again!” Then, they would pick up one or two pieces of the kernel, symbolising the pure heart or conscience and peacefully go home. Some Christians have adopted this practice in the church. After confession of sin, they smash the coconut; and after the assurance of pardon, they pick up a kernel as a sign of peace of heart.3 Here, one can see the inculturation of a pagan ritual to a new Christian context with powerful effect.

Sugar Cane Breaking. In Papua New Guinea, a host breaks sugar cane into pieces to share with his guests as a token of welcome and as an assurance of breaking any possible barrier between them.

2 Choo Lak Yeow and John C. England, Doing Theology with People’s Symbols & Images, ATESEA Occasional Papers (Singapore: ATESEA, 1989), 21.

3 Ibid., 19.

�5� in seArCh For AsiAn sounds And symbols in worship

Christians have utilised this custom in their worship. After the confession of sins, they break sugar cane and distribute the pieces to all participants, as a sign of breaking the wall of division, of mutual forgiveness, of total acceptance, and of unity in one Lord.

Mat Covering. When Pacific Islanders want to show their regret for having offended someone, they ask a respected person, preferably the head of the community or the pastor, to beg for forgiveness. The acting penitent will go and sit in front of this person’s house covered with a large piece of mat as a sign of sorrow and repentance. If the offended party accepts the apology, he/she will come out to remove the mat and invite the penitent into the house, thus restoring their broken relationship. If the apology is not accepted, the penitent is literally killed. This sign of penitence has been accepted into their liturgy: during the prayers of confession, a representative sits on the floor at the front of the congregation, covered with a mat. After the assurance of forgiveness, the pastor removes the mat as a sign of God’s forgiveness and reconciliation with God and other people.

Fern Furling. The Maori of New Zealand have a ritual, which Christians have adopted for their worship service. During the prayer of confession, the congregation walks in line slowly forming the shape of a furling punga frond and silently confessing. When the line forms a crowded circle, the assurance of pardon is pronounced. Then, they turn around, unfurling, as a sign of being relieved from the burden of sin. With new life, they walk faster in joy, sing a song of praise, and return to their seats.

Proclaiming God’s Word

Batu Pamali. Batu pamali are “sacred stones” originally placed in front of the Baeleu, the ancestor’s house in the Moluccas culture of Indonesia. These stones are living signs of the presence of their ancestors’ spirits; they represent promises, as well as taboos and punishment. The people would make a promise in return for a wish, with the stones as their witnesses. If they broke the promise, the stones would punish them through various disasters.

Maluccan Christians have adapted this idea, relating it to the Biblical concept of Christ as the Rock of Salvation, and as an expression of Peter’s faith (Matt. 16:18). They build the pulpit with

AsiAn symbols And symboliC ACts �5�

stones, upon which is placed the Bible. They pray to God and preach God’s Word in front of these stones, with authority and confidence that God is their witness. They are responsible for preaching the truth. The Communion Table is also built with these sacred stones. They conduct Holy Communion on these stones, as a powerful witness that God-in-Christ is in their midst making a new covenant.

In the same region, pulpits are also constructed in the shape of a large conch, from which God’s Word is proclaimed loud and strong and from which the gospel is spread to all.

Hindu Symbols Adapted to Christian Preaching. Some priests of the Roman Catholic Church in South India have adapted Hindu expressions by wearing an orange robe, sitting in a “yoga” posture, with the right hand making the “ok” sign, which symbolises speaking truth in preaching. They even put coconut oil, a lamp, and flowers on a plate as an offering, which is then raised by both hands and circled vertically three times while chanting “shantii, shantii, shantii” (peace). All of these are cultural adaptations whose significance can easily be identified and understood by some Indians, although others may be offended.

Receiving the Light

Aarti (Lamp). When a Hindu prays in a temple, the devotee may hold a small aarti copper lamp with two tiers; the upper tier has five wicks that can be lit. Christians in South India have adapted this custom by giving this lamp a new identity. First of all, a pagan symbol on the top of the lamp has been replaced with a cross. The light, which had symbolised enlightenment, wisdom, and knowledge, has now been reinterpreted according to Christian faith. Jesus Christ is the Light of the World, without him, there is no life. It also symbolises the Word of God. In a worship service, after listening to the Word, the congregation is invited to come forward to receive the Light and to pray for wisdom in understanding. First, the worshipers come to feel the flame with both hands and then touch their foreheads to symbolise intellectually receiving God’s Word and/or Christ into their heads. After the second feel of the flame, they touch on the eyes to symbolise a prayer for illumination of the mystery, for seeing the Light and understanding the truth. Finally, the third touch is on the heart to indicate the receiving of Christ and his Word into their


hearts with emotion, feeling, and love. Again, this is a meaningful inculturation of an existing rite into a Christian rite.

The worship service in traditional Protestant churches tends to put too much emphasis on passive cerebral understanding of the Word. But by encouraging worshipers to come forward and to touch and feel the warmth of the flame, as though they are touching Christ and his Word, faith comes alive. Many, who have participated in this symbolic act in some ecumenical services, have witnessed this uniquely uplifting experience.

Holy Communion

Coconut Meat and Juice. Coconuts are probably the most popular and most important subsistence for people in Southeast Asia and the Pacific regions. Millions of people rely on the coconut and its products for a living. The Filipinos have made use of the coconut in their Communion service. One can easily understand the implication of this symbolic act within the Holy Communion service: one coconut, being broken, with meat and juice coming from the coconut to nourish the people. Traditional elements for Holy Communion, bread and wine, were originally an integral part of the Jewish, as well as the Western meal. Since neither of these are part of the Asian meal, coconuts become meaningful substitutes for bread and wine.

Rice Loaves and Roselle Tea. Sticky rice is the most important staple food for the agrarian people in north-eastern Thailand. The Christians, therefore, use sticky rice baked in the shape of a loaf to be broken and shared during their Communion in the house church. They also drink a red-coloured tea made of rosselle leaves to represent the blood of Christ. The rosselle juice is a kind of herbal tea, which is believed to have a healing effect for the body. Thus in the Communion service, it signifies spiritual healing as well. During or after the partaking of the elements, the communicants may stand up and dance freely to show their joy and thanksgiving for the spiritual food and Christ’s salvation. This cultural adaptation into the Eucharistic liturgy is so meaningful and powerful to the Isaan people that the church has grown astonishingly in the region.

Rice Cakes. Rice is the most important staple food. Life without rice is unimaginable in Asia. The famous Korean poet, Kim Chi-Ha,

AsiAn symbols And symboliC ACts �55

considers a community eating rice together at a table as a spiritual experience. Japanese theologian, Takenaka Masao, writes that God is rice rather than God is bread, in the sense that rice is the symbol of life in Asia, just as bread is the symbol of life in the West4 So on various occasions, Asian Christians in Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, etc. have used rice crackers or rice cakes for Communion with powerful effect.

Sweet Potatoes and Rice Wine or Oolong Tea. Sweet potatoes used to be the main staple food for the poor in Taiwan. The physical shape of the island also resembles that of a sweet potato. Furthermore, recent political oppression and religious persecution have given rise to a sense of pride and self-identity in Taiwanese Christians. Hence, these Christians use the sweet potatoes, as a symbol of their faith. A recent poem uplifting such a Taiwanese spirit reads:

Sweet potatoes, fearless about being rotten beneath the earth, only yearn for the sprouting of leaves and branches for generation

after generation.

The efforts of spiritual reconstruction and contextualisation of theology and liturgy have inspired Christians to use sweet potatoes as the ‘bread’ for Communion: a baked whole potato is broken into pieces for people to share. The meaning of sacrifice, as implied in the poem above, reflects the words of Christ, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies … it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). Thus, the potato is suitable for taking the place of bread. Since grape wine is foreign to this culture (although imported grape wine is available), rice wine, a popular liquor for feasts as well as general cooking, or oolong tea, the best and most popular brand of Taiwanese tea, are served as the “cup” for Holy Communion. Thus both “bread” and “wine,” being native elements closely related to daily life, become intimate and meaningful celebrations of the Lord’s Supper within the Taiwanese culture.

4 Choo Lak Yeow, Doing Theology with Cultures of Asia (Singapore: ATESEA, 1988), 65. See also Chi-ha Kim, The Gold Crowned Jesus and Other Writings, ed. Chong-sun Kim and Shelly Killen (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1978); Masao Takenaka, God Is Rice: Asian Culture and Christian Faith, The Risk Book Series (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1986).


Chicken Meat. It is almost unthinkable to substitute chicken for bread in Communion. But Indonesian Christians have used it with the following rationale:

(1) Chicken is the most popular meat for general consumption.(2) No matter how beautiful chickens are, they only live for

people, sacrificing themselves to nourish human beings. (3) A rooster reminds us of the weakness in human nature and

our possible denial of Christ as did Peter (Matt. 26:75).(4) Chickens remind us of God’s love as shown in Jesus’

lamentation for Jerusalem: “how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. …” (Matt. 23:37).

Furthermore, chewing the chicken during Holy Communion makes people savour its taste, as if they are actually making the effort to digest the body of Christ, not just letting the “bread” melt in the mouth.

The above experiments may have gone far from Western traditions. It is hard to know how well they will be accepted into the official liturgy of any mainline Protestant church. They, nonetheless, represent the conscious effort of some Asian Christians to search for ways of interpreting their faith and for forms to worship God. Some of these cultural perspectives may give us insight and encourage us to seek for meaningful Christian expressions in our own contexts.

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C h A p t e r e i g h t

A glimpse At multipArt prACtiCes in trAditionAl AsiAn musiC

Introduction

D. T. Niles once said that evangelism is like a beggar who after finding some food tells other beggars where the food is available.

I am like that beggar, going country after country begging for hymns and church music. When I discover hymns, I introduce them to other church musicians. It was as such a beggar that many Asians have received me kindly at their churches, working places and homes. In this essay I shall report on what I have found and learned from Asian churches about multipart practices in Asian traditional music.

Asian music is mostly known for its being monophonic, i.e., a single melody without harmony. Other lesser known features include minute microtones (intervals smaller than a minor second); intricate ornaments; complex rhythm and rhythmic cycles, as in Indian music; duple time and various pentatonic scales, as in Chinese, Korean and Japanese court traditions; compound triple rhythms, as in Korean folk repertoire; polyphonic stratification, like that of Indonesian gamelan and the related but simpler practices in Malaysia and Southern Philippines; and the equidistance seven-tone scale, as found in Thailand.

Multipart practices among some Asian cultures are little known, and the techniques have seldom been utilised by contemporary Asian composers of church music. Asian composers have largely chosen to adopt the Eastern/European traditional harmonic system. Some have met with certain success and popularity, while others in synchronising the distinct styles, may have sacrificed the integrity of their native art. Very few, however, have made sufficient efforts


Singing in double thirds, which Jaap Kunst referred to as ‘fanfare melody,” is also popular among people in New Guinea,4 but the music shows more rhythmic vitality than that of the Bunun’s.

7. Polyphonic Stratification

The term ‘polyphonic stratification’ was coined by Mantle Hood, a leading authority in Indonesian music. It refers to the multipart practice of the gong-chime cultures of Southeast Asia. Ensembles of gong-chime culture are many voiced (polyphonic), “but each voice [is] derived from the main melody, rather than being independent of it, and heard at the same time (stratification).”5 Jaap Kunst describes this phenomenon as colotomic structure, which means “a system that marks off music into temporal units according to the entrance of specific instruments in a specific order at specific times.”6 To illustrate:

Javanese GamelanThe Gamelan is an Indonesian orchestra that consists of many sets of colotomic instruments. The saron and gender (metalophones) play the fixed melody, with the peking (smaller size) doubling or anticipating, and the larger size saron playing a pantjer (a recurring tone played between each tone of the fixed melody), or imbal (a rapid alternation with its upper and lower neighbour) or njatjah (a rhythmic reiteration of each tone). The bonang (gong kettle) plays the skeletal framework of the fixed melody; some play twice the speed, others engage in simple improvisations that anticipate the fixed melody. The Gambang (xylophone) and tjelempung (zither) play fast moving parts independent of each other. The rebab (bowed lute) is the leader that gives cues to all the parts and voices, blending them into a restrained and imaginative melodic improvisation. On top of

4 Jaap Kunst, Music in New Guinea: Three Studies, 2nd ed. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967), 102.

5 David Morton, “Polyphonic Stratification in Traditional Thai Music,” Asia Pacific Quarterly 1, no. 3 (1971): 78.

6 William P. Malm, Music Cultures of the Pacific, the Near East, and Asia, 2nd ed., Prentice-Hall History of Music Series (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1977), 43.

A glimpse At multipArt prACtiCes in trAditionAl AsiAn musiC ��

that a male chorus and female soloist contribute their independent lines. See Example 14 below.7

Example 14

7 Mantle Hood and Hardja Susilo, Music of the Venerable Dark Cloud (Los Angeles: Institute of Ethnomusicology, UCLA, 1967), 16-24.


every other measure; the biwa (plucked lute) plays simpler patterns with the highest note also coinciding with that of the koto. The shoko (small gong) and two other drums play a rhythmic pattern in a four-measure cycle. Thus, five different melodic instruments complementing one another with the main melody supported by harmony both from above and below at regular structural points is unique. Such a practice is not found in any other music of the world.9 See Example 17.10

Example 17

Korean Confucian ceremony also preserves ancient Sung (960-1279) tradition, though probably modified slightly to their own style. Briefly, the colotomic structure is evident. They have very complicated orchestrations in which each individual instrument improvises.

Xuan suo shi san tao of ChinaIn 1824, a certain Mongolian musician scholar of the Ching dynasty (1644-1911), Rong Zhai, transcribed and edited a collection of 13 ensemble pieces entitled Xuan suo shi san tao (literally, “13 Suites for

9 Shigeo Kishibe, The Traditional Music of Japan (Tokyo: Ongaku No Tomo Sha Corp, 1984), 39.

10 Robert Garfias, Music of a Thousand Autumn: The Togaku Style of Japanese Court Music (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975), 241.


Stringed Instruments”),11 which deserves special attention here. The multipart practice of the Tang instrumental ensemble has long been forgotten except for certain clues that may be found in the Japanese gagaku ensemble discussed earlier. All of the known traditional Chinese ensemble music is played in unison with occasional heterophony. Rong’s publication, however, has given us an exciting clue to multipart practices prior to eighteenth century China. As found in the piece Shi-liu ban (“Sixteen Variations”), the main melody is played by wind instruments, namely xiao, di (flutes) and sheng (mouth organ). A very popular folk melody ba-ban is superimposed as a counter melody. Furthermore, an er-hu (bowed lute) is added to double the main melody with only slight variations here and there. A pipa (plucked lute), san-xian (three-stringed plucked lute) and a zheng (zither) also provide different melodic and rhythmic figures typical of their respective styles to form a ‘sextet.’ As indicated by the title, the piece consists of sixteen variations on the same melody. The counter melody ba-ban, however, remains intact all the way through. Although the multipart practice was conceived with the idea of matching two independent melodies together, whether by intention or accident, we discover that two or more parts meet frequently in unison and octave at the beginning or end of a phrase. The fourth and seventh degrees (fa and si) of the diatonic scale are sometimes used against the third (mi) and eighth (do) in the other melody. The intervals of minor seconds and major sevenths are thus heard. Here, the different parts meeting at structural points, in unison or octave, is a simplified form of polyphonic stratification See Example 18.12

11 Zhai Rong, 弦索十三套 / Xuan Suo Shi San Tao, vol. 1 (Beijing: Renmin Yinyue Chubanshe, 1985).

12 Ibid., 27.


cadences and other structural points in a style similar to the gamelan practice.

Example 19

Nagauta Accompaniment of JapanIn the nagauta (literally “long song”) of the kabuki theatre, we find a similar kind of stratification. The shamisen (plucked lute) plays the melodic line based on a borrowed standard pattern.14 The voice usually follows or anticipates one or one half count creating syncopation and adding neighbouring tones or other ornaments. The voice always descends a whole step at the close of a phrase. The bamboo flute paraphrases freely with similar techniques. When a no-kan flute is engaged, it plays stylised ornaments and figures that are at times almost completely free from the original melody, creating sharp clashes of intervals in minor seconds and major sevenths or ninths. In addition, the human voice, like sprechstimme, and the drum provide further rhythmic accompaniment. See Example 20 Tsurukame.15

14 William P. Malm, Nagauta: The Heart of Kabuki Music (Rutland, Vt.: C. E. Tuttle Co., 1963), 67.

15 Ibid., 267.


Example 20

8. Complex Multipart Singing of the Amis in Taiwan

There is a complex multipart singing style that the Ami people proudly place under the “national anthem” category. Such songs involve four to six-part mixed chorus. After the leader sings through the melody once, the chorus joins in with distinct parts that are developed through motivic imitation and the interpolation of independent musical ideas. One of the parts, misaertitsai, sung by a female is characterised by the use of high falsetto within the narrow range of a fifth. The lowest note is the tonal centre and there is frequent use of yodelling, a down gliding tone and repeated highly dense rhythmic patterns. The unifying force for each chorus is the periodic unison and the joining of all voices in unison or octave at the cadence. Such a complex multipart singing may have developed out of exercising the maximum freedom and creativity within the framework of the main melody. This may also be a reflection of the


Conclusion

From this brief survey, we have learned that there are a surprising variety of multipart practices among Asian countries. It is a commonly accepted view that the beauty of Asian music lies in its melodic lines, tone colours, minute intervals, ornaments, rhythmic variety and so forth. The harmonic aspects of Asian music, though not theoretically developed, are in wide practice. In our effort to promote contextualised church music today, we are not trying to persuade our colleagues to limit themselves to the available traditional forms and techniques. I believe that entering into this new era of modernisation, which unfortunately has been taken as Westernisation, does not mean that one has to be uprooted from one’s own soil or to give up one’s own cultural heritage. Change and Westernisation are inevitable, but before resorting to the use of traditional Western harmony, we would like to remind composers of the rich resources available in their own backyards. With a wider knowledge of their own traditions, a deeper understanding of their styles, and better acquaintance with their multipart practices, they may be able to create new works of art which not only maintain the essence of unique traditional features but also be contemporary in style and content.

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C h A p t e r n i n e

Contributions oF ‘AsiAn’ trAditions to The PresbyTerian new hymnal, usA (1990)

“Sing a new song to the Lord” (Ps. 96: 1) has been a constant call and challenge to Christians of all ages and all places.

Great Christian poets and composers in history have enriched our spiritual life through their innumerable works that have not only explored the depth of our faith but also the width of Christian experiences around the world. “Sing a new song” is also a response to God’s love through God’s gift of creativity. It is one of the best means by which the community of God’s people can renew their thanks and praises to their Lord and witness of their faith in their corporate worship services. Thus, new hymnals are produced and revised every few decades. Historically, it used to be the norm that Asian churches translated only hymns from the West, but it is a welcome and healthy sign that Western/ European Christians have begun to show their interest in how they may be enriched by Asian hymns.

In 1979, when I was appointed to the task of collecting and compiling an Asian-American Hymnbook for the National Federation of Asian American United Methodist, I encountered great difficulty, for Asian-American hymns as such were scarce. Although most of the new immigrants had brought with them their own hymnals, the hymns were mostly translations from the West. There were indeed a number of original compositions in their own native styles, but they were not as popular as Western Gospel songs or those written in the same styles. Putting aside the problem of musical styles, a great majority of hymns appearing in the final product of Hymns from the Four Winds were written by Asians, rather than by Asian-


Americans.1 Contributions of ‘Asian’ traditions to The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990) is no exception.2 The quotation mark in the word ‘Asian’ is probably justified, for some of the hymns bear little or no Asian traits, and there is certainly more than one tradition in Asia. It is these diversified musical traditions that are enriching the worship life of the church today, not only among the Asian-American communities, but, hopefully, among Caucasian and other ethnic groups as well. Let us examine some of the special features of these hymns according to their ethnic origins.

Chinese Hymns

Without oversimplifying the situation, one may say that many Chinese melodies are characterised by their being in anhemitonic penta scales (i.e., doh-re-mi-sol-la, without half-step progressions, and with finals on sol, la or doh). This is common to all the five hymns in the hymnal. The strong impact from their mother churches and the general interest in Western harmony has prompted most composers to harmonise their hymns in the ‘familiar styles’ of the West. “Holy Night, Blessed Night” is an exception; it utilises contrapuntal techniques and echoing effects to feature the melodic beauty. The large skips down a minor 7th and up a 5th near the cadences mark another characteristic of this song. Bamboo flutes and/or bowed lutes may be used to re-enforce the Chinese style. This is one of the most beautiful hymns written since the reopening of churches in China. “May the Lord, Mighty God” incidentally, is not a folk tune, but an original composition “Wen Ti” by Pao-chen Li. The original setting had a heavy homophonic texture, but only the “descant” is retained for its simplicity. Chinese is a very compact language; a poetic line may be full of imageries and ideas, that translation becomes a problem. Take “Holy Night, Blessed Night” again, for example, stanza 2, lines 2-3, literally means: “Golden qin (zither) and jade zheng (another kind of zither) sang together in great harmony over the heavens, Hallelujah! Mountains and oceans made joyful sounds in one accord!” It is almost impossible to

1 I-to Loh, Hymns from the Four Winds: A Collection of Asian American Hymns (Nashville: Abingdon, 1983).

2 Presbyterian Church USA, The Presbyterian Hymnal: Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Songs (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990).

Contributions oF ‘AsiAn’ trAditions ��

condense these imageries within 17 syllables! This is but an example of injustices done to most poems in the process of translation. The tune for “Praise Our God Above” was originally a chant Hsuan P’ing, which is the first offering hymn of the Confucius Ceremony on his birthday, 28 September. Since this ceremony is close to the autumn harvest, Chinese Christians have adapted this tune as a hymn of harvest thanksgiving. It is normally sung in a solemn mood. “Great Are Your Mercies” was written by one of the leading Chinese theologians, Dr Tsu-chen Chao to match a farmer’s folk tune “Song of the Hoe.” Because of the ideal marriage between text and tune, this hymn has a strong appeal to rural folks. “Midnight Stars Make Bright the Sky” is another favourite Chinese Christmas carol. The consecutive eighth notes on the third and fourth system may cause some difficulty in singing, therefore, they should be sung in a moderate tempo.

Japanese Hymns

The three hymns from Japan represent three currents of stylistic influences: ancient Japanese, nineteenth century Western, and traditional folk. “Here, O Lord, Your Servants Gather” uses an ancient Gagaku mode. Gagaku is the Imperial Court music of Chinese origin, which dated back to the Tang dynasty over 1,000 years ago. Typical characteristics are: pentatonic scale, isorhythmic, slow movement and a very distinct orchestration similar to the concept of colotomic structure, in which different instruments enter in particular orders and intervals, and with their respective stylistic figures. In this piece, the scale is ‘re-mi-so-la-do-re,’ with the finalis on re. Although the harmony is quite different from the Gagaku style, the parallel fifths on the basses are the reminiscence of the sho (mouth organs) style. The text was written in 1958 for the World Council of Christian Education Convention in Tokyo, with the theme “Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth, the Life.” We may mention by passing here that this tune “Tokyo” was not accepted in the Kyodan Hymnal; instead, they chose another tune in Western style – “Tokyo Convention.”

“Sleep Fast Asleep” is a Japanese favourite Christmas hymn. Although the melody and harmony sound Western, some figures, especially the final cadence, reflect certain Japanese flavour. “Why Has God Forsaken Me?” utilises a unique scale: re-mi-fa-la-ti-re,


which is found in many Japanese folk traditions. The music seems to create certain mood of anguish, sorrow and mystery, which is suggested both in the text and tune name Shimpi. The first stanza may be sung a cappella with great effect.

Korean Hymns

Among the seven hymns in Korean language, three are actually Western European: “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine,” “What A Friend We Have in Jesus,” and “How Great Thou Art” and one (O Come unto the Lord) is in Western style, which, nonetheless, is one of the most popular hymns that Korean Christians are fond of singing. The melodies of the three remaining hymns bear Korean characters but are set in Western traditional harmony. “Christ, You Are the Fullness” is an adaptation of the most popular folk song “Arirang.” This song is said to have over seventy different versions according to localities. It may need another style of harmony, if one desires, to bring out or preserve its natural beauty. Although a drum accompaniment may bring life and authenticity to this folk tune, the present text seems to preclude its use.

Triple and compound triple times are two of the most popular rhythms in Korean folk songs. “When I Had Not Yet Learned of Jesus” and “Lonely the Boat” belong to these types respectively; they are both through composed; namely, the whole song is a continuous development of melodic lines without any repetition of same phrases. The latter has a very solemn mood, depicting spiritual struggles and confidence that the Lord is there in the midst of our turmoil. For efficient rendering, some of the stanzas may be sung as a solo, with the choir humming the other parts.

Filipino Hymns

After nearly 400 years of colonisation, Spanish influences are still vivid in Philippine culture today. Some of the contemporary Filipino folk songs are cases in point. One of the main features of such folk songs are triple rhythms, with an accented second beat, and minor modes, with frequent modulations to their tonic majors. Unfortunately hymns in this style were not included in this hymnal. “Sing with hearts” was originally a Kalinga folk melody from the northern Luzon. Kalinga songs are predominantly pentatonic in style; this one shows a combination of both old and new, in that it employs both

Contributions oF ‘AsiAn’ trAditions ��

3 and e flat in the first section. This section is usually sung in a fast tempo (M.M.= 100), with the accompaniment of bamboo buzzers (split bamboo tubes hit on the palm) on every beat interlockingly:

The verse is more lyrical, and in a slower tempo (M.M.=69), and frequently harmonised in thirds and sixths. “When Twilight Comes” is not a folk melody, but an original composition by Francisco F. Feliciano, director of the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music. The minor mode and the guitar accompaniment reflect the contemporary Filipino folk style. It is a lovely evening hymn that can deeply touch Filipino hearts.

Taiwanese Hymn

The text of “God Created Heaven and Earth” originally came from Amoy, China. It was set to an unknown folk melody of the Pi-po tribe, one of the Malayo Polynesian groups, who were the original inhabitants of Taiwan, but had long been acculturated to the Han way of life. The hymn has become a sign of national pride and identity as Taiwanese Christians. A bamboo flute accompaniment doubling the main melody or improvising a counter melody will greatly enhance the beauty of this song. It can also be sung as a canon, with the second part entering on the fifth pulse.

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C h A p t e r t e n

A survey oF texts And musiCAl styles in sound The bamboo (2000)

A Historical Preface1

Sound the Bamboo (published in 1990 and 2000)2 followed an earlier attempt to plant the Gospel in Asian soils. Niles led the

way with the EACC Hymnal, published in 1963 by the East Asia Christian Conference (EACC). The co-founder and first general secretary of the EACC, Niles edited a volume that consisted largely of his own hymns in Western musical idioms. Yet, these songs moved closer to the heart of Asian people. The EACC Hymnal was more popular in ecumenical than Asian circles, with four printings by 1966.

Niles attempted to unite Asian churches in ecumenical song using Western harmonisation in the style of the missionaries’ music, which was familiar to all countries. I-to Loh has attempted to highlight the distinctiveness of Asian churches through the incorporation of a wide range of Asian musical styles. In retrospect, Niles’s hymnological efforts only cracked the cultural pot (to use his metaphor) brought to Asia by Western missionaries. The 1990

1 Michael Hawn’s Foreword to Hymnal Companion to the Sound the Bamboo, ed. I-to Loh (Chicago: GIA, 2011), xv-xvi, extracted below, serves as a succinct historical preface to Loh’s exposition that follows. – ed.

2 Christian Conference of Asia, Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 1990, Trial ed. (Manila: The Christian Conference of Asia & The Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music, 1990); Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 2000 (Hong Kong: Christian Conference of Asia, 2000).

A survey oF texts And musiCAl styles in sound The bamboo ��

publication of Sound the Bamboo, under the general editorship of Dr Loh, broke the pot and reassembled the pieces in a way that gave a new shape to congregational singing for Christians throughout Asia and, potentially, to the rest of the world.

Sound the Bamboo represents arguably the most labour-intensive hymnal publication by one person in the twentieth century. Over three-fourths of the songs were recorded by Dr Loh “amid the traffic noise of busy streets, beside the village fire at night, in huts and homely settings all over the Asian region.”3 Dr Loh has generously given time to many Western musicians over the years, guiding them song-by-song through the pages of the hymnal. Virtually every hymn serves as an entry point for a story about the place and persons associated with the hymn, the various versions recorded, the selection of the text to accompany the melody, and performance suggestions for a more accurate presentation of the hymn. Loh’s heroic efforts in the collection, transcription, production, and revision of songs in the hymnal, along with the information in this companion, have few if any twentieth century hymnological parallels.

The collection of the songs was followed by countless hours of transcription, translation, and paraphrasing. It is doubtful that any hymnal published in the twentieth century has included so much material that had not previously appeared in print. Feedback on the hymns was sought from “musicians, theologians, poets and writers, pastors, liturgists, and other representatives of Asian churches, including women and youth.”4 The 1990 publication of the trial edition of Sound the Bamboo allowed for further input and cross-fertilisation of these hymns among the peoples of Asia.

In spite of a busy administrative schedule during his years as the president of Tainan Theological College and Seminary, I-to Loh made extensive corrections and modifications to Sound the Bamboo for a revised edition that was published in 2000. The executive editorial committee of the new edition remained the same as that of the 1990 edition: Francisco F. Feliciano (Philippines), James Minchin (Australia), and Loh as general editor. In the beautiful, slightly larger format of the 2000 edition, twenty-two countries are represented.

3 Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 2000, xi.4 Ibid.


The 2000 edition contains 44 languages, including English. Thirteen hymns were dropped from the original 280 hymns published in the 1990 edition. Forty-eight new hymns were added for a total of 315 in the 2000 edition.

Text in Asian Hymns

In analysing hymns, both the music and the original text should be taken into consideration. The main body of this paper will be on the analysis of musical styles as regards their rhythm, scale, melodic character and harmonic practices. However, before dealing with the musical aspects, one has to study the contents of the texts, their literary styles, theologies, and text treatment as well as the intricate text-tune relations. This can be achieved only if one is fluent in their original languages. Unfortunately, I am not a linguist, although I can handle about half a dozen languages. It is beyond my ability and the purpose of this paper to engage in a detailed analysis of the original texts. We could only work through translations. In fact, English translation is the only medium that can be understood and used internationally.

How then can we approach this problem? Hymn translation is a tedious and difficult task. Even if one is equally competent in both English and the original language of the hymn, it will still be a miracle to maintain the poeticism of the original form and perfectly match the original musical setting. This will be a challenge to all of us who have taken this task as our lifetime career. We could, in the meantime, analyse the hymns through the English translations.

Many of the hymns in Sound the Bamboo were written by lay persons and amateur writers, hence some of their Christian experiences may be limited, and the theological interpretations may be simplistic. Credit should be given to the imaginations and skills of the paraphrasers for enriching the contents of the hymns and bringing them into a deeper level of spirituality.

I will only briefly mention the general contents or themes of the texts so as to be able to concentrate on the musical aspects, particularly the ethnic character or ‘Asianness’ of these hymns. There are four general themes: Devotion and Personal Salvation, Christmas, Social Concern: Justice and Human Rights, and Images of God and Christ, as follows:

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1. Devotion and Personal SalvationDevotion and personal salvation are dominant themes in Asian hymns; the authors of the hymns contemplate God’s mercy for sinful humans, the redemption of Christ, the need for personal salvation by renouncing worldly things and seeking heavenly blessings. These are particularly prevalent in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka). This emphasis on devotional and personal salvation recalls the role of the gospel song in the nineteenth century missionary movement as a powerful medium for conversion and spiritual nourishment. The prevalence of these hymns may be a phenomenon common to younger churches whose ministry is largely confined to the inner circle of the church. Only a small number of such hymns found their way into our new CCA Hymnal.

2. Christmas HymnsThemes related to Christmas are a favourite topic for poets and composers all over the world. 17 hymns in Sound the Bamboo are related to this joyful season. In addition to the romantic description or the retelling of the nativity, there is the usual longing for the star, the light, the salvation and the urge to bring gifts. Images that are uniquely Asian and have not been heard of before are also used. A New Zealand poet, Shirley Murray, exhibits her maternal touch and spiritual perception to give Christmas new dimensions. For instance, in “Child of Christmas Story” (Sound the Bamboo No. 141), she writes:

Child whose baby finger, round our own is curled,Come to melt our hearts, and come to change the world.

She describes the “Upside Down Christmas” (Sound the Bamboo No. 143) in Asia, especially in a New Zealand context, where “snow is not falling and trees are not bare” as it is usually depicted in the West. Yet one can celebrate the Christmas, for

Right side up Christmas belongs to the universe,Made in moment a woman gives birth;Hope is the Jesus’ gift, love is the offering,Everywhere, anywhere, here on earth.


Another striking text that has never been found in any other Christmas carol challenges us to reconsider the real meaning of Christmas. If we are not mindful of the hungry children, the poet warns us, we are crucifying the newborn Christ on the Christmas tree! One cannot help trembling, and feeling chilled to the spine when singing these lines:

Son of poverty shame us till we seeSelf concerned, how we deny you,By our greed we crucify you on Christmas tree,Son of poverty. (Sound the Bamboo No. 144)

Responding to the Asian reality of poverty and the suffering of children, a Sri Lankan poet pleads to ‘Baby Jesus’ in Sound the Bamboo No. 273 “In the Coldness of Night”:

Little Master, hear the children everywhere cry out;You can feel for what they suffer, what they weep about:Huddled in their huts and clinging to their mothers’ breast,Rags they wear against the cold and cannot hope for rest.

3. Hymns of Social Concern: Justice and Human RightsHymns expressing Christian concern for human rights, poverty and suffering have received much attention among Asian poets since the late sixties, as evidenced in the large number of such hymns in New Songs of Asian Cities.5 This is even more so in the Sound the Bamboo. One can find 15 hymns in the section of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation. Innumerable other examples (though not directly from Sound the Bamboo) can be cited. For instance, the conflict and struggle between closing or opening our eyes to reality led a poet to question:

My God, why can’t you leave me be? Why shake me up this sight to see? (New Songs of Asian Cities,

No. 15).

5 I-to Loh, New Songs of Asian Cities (Tokyo: East Asia Christian Conference Urban and Industrial Mission Committee, 1972).


In their daily living, Christians are constantly faced with the dilemma of choosing between remaining faithful to Christian principles, or performing acts that discredit the Lord. One poet prays:

Make me brave; I would be salt and light,A witness true (Sound the Bamboo No. 254).

Reflecting human tragedies in India, a poet is perplexed and asks God,

Why should you create such bliss, Yet tolerate man’s evil?He laments,Status, caste, family pride keep the rich aloof,While poor women have no choice But sell themselves for food? (New Songs in Asian Cities, No.

27).

This vividly reflects one of the most serious problems – prostitution – in Asia today. Confronted with the devastating problems of human suffering in Asia, another New Zealand poet refers to Christ in a way unheard of in traditional hymns. He writes (in Sound the Bamboo No. 202):

“Jesus the beggar lives in the slum...suffering insults,Looking for work, all the world’s agony etched on his face,”

And then urges us to

“Fight against bondage and greed ...[By] living with people in every deed”

4. Images of God and ChristIn addition to the traditional images of God and Christ as Alpha and Omega, Guide and Leader, Bridegroom, Judge, King, etc., some of the new Asian hymns have addressed God or Christ as a Lover (Sound the Bamboo No. 36, 71, 220), Friend and Kindred (26, 55, 220), Healer and Health (55, 262), Noble One (162), Spring Wind (174), the Rice (190) and the Water (209), the Road and Map (230), Big Dipper [the Polar Star] (52). The feminine character of God is especially expressed in the terms Mother Hen (161), Mothering bird (222), Mother and Parent (18, 23, 26, 84, 181, 220). All these


indicate that Asian poets are beginning to liberate themselves from Western traditional views and are able to relate to God through their daily experiences.

In fact we can mention two other themes. Filial piety and respect for the elderly is an important cultural attitude in Asian society. One finds expression in the lyrics of a Chinese poet who writes, “One commandment teaching me to filial be.” He goes on to cite that Jesus, “Dying, he entrusts to John his mother there” (Hymns from the Four Winds No. 92).6

Another important theme is the feminine character of God. Although sexist language tends to be less problematic in Asian languages, some poets are still quite sensitive to this concern and have extended much effort to use gender-inclusive language. The feminine images of God listed above may be a break-through in Asian soil. For even on the Indian subcontinent that has traditionally addressed God as Mother (Sound the Bamboo No. 26), it is still almost inconceivable to use a feminine pronoun for God. Perhaps now it is gradually being accepted among Asian churches. Sound the Bamboo No. 181 “The God of Us All” uses vivid feminine images to describe God’s love:

The God of us all is our Mother,She teaches us her truth and beauty,She shows us a love beyond duty.

The Musical Styles of Asian Hymns

Asian music, hymns in particular, cannot be analysed by traditional Western methods of analysis. In fact, most cultures have different parameters in analysing their music. We begin with the general first, then to deal with the specific from the individual countries.

Most traditional Asian music is monophonic. Their beauty is contained in a single melodic line made up of individual pitches, ornamentation, timbre, and rhythm. Harmony, with the exception of some folk traditions like the Japanese gagaku and the Indonesian gamelan, is absent. However, because of the influence of the

6 Hymns from the Four Winds: A Collection of Asian American Hymns (Nashville: Abingdon, 1983).


missionaries and the Western educational systems, most Asian musical cultures have been affected, to varying degrees, by Western harmonic practices. For the analysis of Asian hymns, in addition to rhythm, scales and melodic characters, the harmonic aspect, if employed, must be considered as well.

The Beauty in Asian MonophonySome of the most typical and beautiful Asian hymns can be seen in monophonic settings. The beauty of the music is shown in the features of the indigenous styles: the unique quality of timbre and vocal production, the peculiar attack and decay, the minute detail of microtones and ornaments, particular idioms, motifs, melodic shapes and progressions, the intricate rhythms, their tension and relief, the intrinsic unity between text and tune, special instrumental effects, etc. None of these characteristics can adequately be described by signs, notations or words. All of these songs are beautiful in their own right. Only the native people or those familiar with the particular styles may be able to fully comprehend their beauty and values. Any attempt at alteration or harmonisation would only impair their beauty and integrity. The spiritual quality of the music communicates deeply with one’s soul. Some of the hymns represent the best of the ethnic styles. Any attempt in arranging or ‘improving’ them could only destroy their beauty or impair their integrity. Consider these examples from Sound the Bamboo:

• The contemplative and deep yearning in No. 70 “Jesus, Come Dwell within Our Yearning Hearts” from Bangladesh;

• Omission of the 7th, interchange between C and C# in No. 208 “Friends, Listen Humbly” from Nepal;

• The use of neutral thirds on Bb, and the lowered E in No. 270 “O God, Highest God” from Mizo, India;

• The neutral thirds, yodelling effect and ornaments in No. 209 “Come, Children, Men and Women” from Thailand;

• The deep spiritual quest for God’s mercy expressed in No. 120 “Have Mercy on Us” from Pakistan. Note especially its superb melody and well-constructed form:

a b a b c a a b aA / B / A


• Juxtaposition of two pentachords C and F in No. 206 “Oh Jesus Christ is the True God” from Khmer, Kampucha. Note the Phrase Structure: numerals = degree of the pentachord:

Initial tone Cadence/Final1. C 3 C 52. F 3 F 2 = C 53. C 5 F 54. F 1 F 2 = C 5

Rhythmic FeaturesRhythm in general, is less complex in East Asia than in South Asia. The polyphonic stratification of the Balinese gamelan and the Indian tabla (a pair of two drums) accompaniment probably represent the highest rhythmic density in Asian music, even though the main melody may be very simple.

No single description of a particular rhythm or rhythmic character can represent the general character of rhythm in a given country, let alone in all of Asia. We have, however, identified a few rhythmic features prevalent within certain cultures that may provide us with a picture of these unique characteristics.

For instance, triplets formed by an eighth note then a quarter note (3 5 3 2) are popular among the Kurukh of India, the Burmese and Koreans. But they all vary in their own way. The Kurukh use two pairs of such triplets to lead to quarter notes or other values, as seen in PUNA BINKO (Sound the Bamboo No. 133). This is further reinforced by the drum. The effect is an almost constant alternation between two rhythmic patterns. When singing a series of eighth notes, the Burmese are fond of shortening the first of the two (6 5 #4 3). This is quite prominent in their folk tradition, as exhibited in PHAYA SIN (Sound the Bamboo No. 57). Compound complex time marks one of the most typical rhythms of Korean folk traditions. They use the same pattern as above but reverse it immediately, showing very strong syncopation and rhythmic vitality (3 3 6 6). These two sets of patterns are frequently reversed again with variations. (2 · 3 5 3 3 [the first ‘3’ being 16th note]). HON-SHIN (Sound the Bamboo No. 75) and CHOO-SOO (245) are two fine examples.

Another feature of Asian rhythm is the complex rhythmic accompaniment of the tabla. Although we realise the importance of its role in almost all Indian music, the enormous complexity and the highly specialised skills for performance have prevented us


from notating them properly. We deeply regret for this shortcoming in omitting the tabla accompaniment for hymns from the Indian subcontinent. I will only refer to THIS EARTH (Sound the Bamboo No. 276) to show how the composer uses an additive rhythm of 3 + 4 in the entire piece. It is very refreshing to feel such a rhythm after singing and listening to so many songs in regular duple, triple or quadruple times.

Scales and Melodic CharactersA scale, or the consecutive enumeration of pitches that make up a melody, is an integral determinant of musical style. A style of music may be classified by the number of scale degrees and their intervallic relationships.

Three-tone Scale:Songs with only three notes create interesting and beautiful music. Both “Aso, Aso, Aso Ngane” (Sound the Bamboo No. 4) and FALAM CHIN (No. 61) are in C D E scale, but they vary in the use of initial and final, as follows:

STB Scale Initial Final Time Signature Country4 C D E C D Free time Papua New Guinea61 C D E E C 4/4 Myanmar

four-tone Scale:

STB Scale Initial Final Time Signature Country5 A C D E A A 3/4 Taiwan

five-tone Scales:The anhemitonic penta or five-tone scale without half steps is more common in Northeast Asia or the countries using the Chinese system (China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan), but it is also found in Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The following chart is self-explanatory.

STB Mode Scale Initial Final Time Country80 G(sol) G A C D E G G 2/4 China245 A(la) A C D E G E A 6/8 Korea102 C(do) C D E G A E G 4&6 Philippines242 D(re) D E G A C A D 4/4 Japan


Although some songs may employ the pitches in the same G A C D E or C D E G A groupings, the emphasis of a certain pitch hierarchy differentiates them from one mode to another. Likewise the use of different idioms makes the music of the same mode sound different.

The hemitonic penta scale or five-tone scale with half steps is popular in Japan and Indonesia, as in the following examples:

STB Scale Initial Final Time Signature Country201 E F G B C B E 4/4 Indonesia189 E F A B D E A 3/4 Japan

The first example is set in the Indonesian pelog scale, which features one large gap and two small intervals. The Japanese in scale shows more variety: a minor second, a major third and a minor third. While the description contrasting Japanese in and Javanese pelog may seem subtle, the ear instantly perceives the differences and country of origin.

Hymns written in a diatonic scale but with a flattened 7th degree, C D E F G A Bb C (1 2 3 4 5 6 7b 1), such as THEVARAM (Sound the Bamboo No. 10) from Sri Lanka, are quite popular on the Indian subcontinent. A changing 4th degree is also common in this region. For example, “Why O Lord” (Sound the Bamboo No. 251) from India uses fa when descending to mi or re, and fa# ascending to sol. This is a good example that shows one aspect of raga, an organising principle of Indian melodies to be discussed below.

The Indian octave is divided equally into 22 srutis, i.e. microtonal intervals. The actual sizes of intervals in a given raga depend on the number of srutis employed. Furthermore, the melodic intervals may change in ascending or descending order. Unfortunately no Western musical vocabulary can adequately describe the minute yet subtle tonal arrangements found in raga; hence the terms scale, mode, ornamentation, and mood, etc. are needed to explain the phenomena and meaning of raga. Hymns employing the raga concept suggest a rich resource still awaiting serious study and analysis.

Harmonic PracticesAll of us are fully aware of the strong influence Western music has in Asia. Many Asian hymn melodies are written in Western idioms. But we have also seen adaptations of existing folk tunes or imitations of traditional styles. There are also new innovations that bypass ethnic


features and boundaries and are integrated instead into international styles. Among all of these types of music, one thing prevails: Asian composers can hardly resist the fascination of harmonising their melodies.

Western HarmonyWestern four-part harmony, especially imitation of the Victorian gospel song style, is popular. These are already familiar to all of us so there is no need to examine any of them here.

Adopted Western HarmonyI have used this term specifically because some Asians have so adopted European musical styles and harmony into their repertoire that they have become part of their own national style. The result is that native people have cultivated a built-in instinct to harmonise any song with three chords: Tonic, Dominant and Subdominant. Such practices can be found in all parts of Indonesia, the Maoris of New Zealand, the Tongans and the Tahitians. All of them, however, have developed certain characteristics of their own. The Maori (See Sound the Bamboo No. 60) adopted the Western harmonic language as is, but their vocal production, known as open throat singing, is uniquely their own. The Ambonese (Sound the Bamboo No. 7) adopted the European chorus, but some of them prefer to drop the bass part, becoming three part choruses without what the Europeans regard as the most important part, the bass. Recently I have come across Burmese choral singing, in which only tonic and super tonic chords are utilised (Sound the Bamboo No. 61).

But an interesting phenomenon is that the chords in the three-part harmony are almost all in second inversion and in parallel motion. Although the Burmese claim that such harmonic techniques are of


indigenous origin, without further evidence, I can only suspect that this is probably another adopted style.

I would also like to add here that the style of contemporary Filipino urban songs and hymns, including such elements as triple rhythm, minor tonality and harmony, are also remnants of a style adopted from their former colonisers, the Spaniards.

Indigenous/Ethnic HarmonyThe indigenous harmonic practices of the tribal people of Taiwan were dealt with in my 1987 paper (A Glimpse at the Multipart Practice of Asian Music. See chap. 8). I will only briefly list a few techniques here: the free contrapuntal harmony of the Ami (Sound the Bamboo No. 99); the sectional canon of the Pinuyumayan (Sound the Bamboo No. 96); the reiterated drone of the Paiwan (Sound the Bamboo No. 182); the double-third singing of the Bunun (cf. Sound the Bamboo No. 190), and the parallel fourths among the Saisiat (Sound the Bamboo No. 121).

A few other hymns utilise simple harmonic techniques that are not necessarily from their own country, but may be found in other parts of Asia. For instance, a Moslem melody (Sound the Bamboo No. 98) from Southern Philippines is accompanied by a guitar with the gong effect. This is done by placing a matchstick near the bridge, and plucking the strings in various rhythmic patterns. The ‘chords’ are the combination of pitches D-A-d with the recurring As in between. The result is similar to the accompaniment of Asian Gongs and/or drums.

A survey oF texts And musiCAl styles in sound The bamboo ��5

Another Filipino melody (Sound the Bamboo No. 97) utilises ostinato techniques to emphasise its theme.

Contextual HarmonyThe following examples demonstrate what I call contextual harmony, in which harmonic techniques may grow out of native melodic material, are borrowed from other Asian traditions, or are the composer’s own innovations. Examples from various countries reveal the emerging Asian styles.

• ChineseThe beauty of Chinese melody depends largely on its lyrical flow. An effective complement for this is the use of an imitative counterpoint that de-emphasises functional harmonic progression. Occasional doubling of the melodic line and heterophony also reinforce this style. An example for this may be seen in the Chinese version of “Holy Night” (Sound the Bamboo No. 140). MEI-HUA SAN-NONG (Sound the Bamboo No. 93) shows another effective use of qin or zheng (zither) playing techniques to reinforce the flowing melody.


Contemporary and International StylesSound the Bamboo also includes a number of new hymns and settings that cannot be categorised under any one country or composer’s culture. In such a style, the music may show traits of a certain Asian culture; the harmonic treatment may be an imitation of a particular tradition, but it is innovative and with new interpretations. Sometimes, the composer utilises other contemporary techniques resulting in a style that is neither Asian nor Western. We have, therefore, put them under the category of contemporary or international styles.

A few examples may be cited here. The tune TOTOY (Sound the Bamboo No. 160) uses a motive from an Indonesian pelog scale but is developed in short phrases with very transparent guitar accompaniment.

In a lullaby “Sleep Through the Night, Beloved Child” (Sound the Bamboo No. 277), the composer uses a simple two-tone folk motive, but develops it into a five- to six-part chorus in contemporary harmony. The music is complex, striking and haunting, having the effect of a mother’s rocking of her baby. It is a powerful reflection on the contemporary tragedy of injustice inflicted upon the poor and powerless.

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ConclusionThis brief survey aims to give a bird’s-eye view of the emerging styles in Asian hymns. After decades of experimentation, Asian composers have begun to employ principles that have not only maintained characters of Asian melodies, but also gone further in embracing their beauty through contextual part writing. Although our methods vary, our objectives are the same – the utilisation of traditional and contemporary musical languages to communicate what the Gospel means to modern people. Theologically speaking, we are all searching for ways to confess our faith. Thus, the best of Asian styles seems to have emerged from the following approaches.

1. Indigenous: It is the adaptation of native melodies as they are, or the expansion of the potential of native materials and techniques to create new compositions which maintain authentic native styles.

2. Syncretic: Native melodies are harmonised in 4ths and 5ths, and are provided with additional lineal counterpoint. The general principle is to avoid the effect of traditional Western harmony.

3. Confessional: Hymns in this category are innovative, contextual as well as international. The native raw materials are utilised and developed with imaginations and artistic skills. The expressions find no national boundaries; they are confessions of faith born out of the deep conviction that God has spoken directly to them and through them.

It is good that we have found one aspect of unity in the universal church by singing the same (Western) hymns or composing in the same (Western) style. We, however, are convinced that God has also revealed and spoken to us Asians and through us in our mother tongues – the art and musical dialects that God has bestowed on us. It is our fundamental and highest duty to utilise these gifts and develop them to their utmost potential, so that we may be faithful stewards in witnessing our faith. In doing so, we may perhaps be worthy of joining the Psalmist to make joyful noises and sing new songs to the Lord and to the world – whether they are in Asian, contextual or international style.

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C h A p t e r e l e v e n

the signiFiCAnCe oF sèng-si 2009: the new hymnAl oF the presbyteriAn ChurCh in tAiwAn

Introduction: A Brief History of Taiwanese Hymnals

Hymnal publication under the aegis of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT) since its establishment 145 years ago began

under the guidance of William Campbell in 1900. He edited Taiwan’s first collection, which lacked musical notation and had nothing of Taiwanese origin in it. This collection was words-only in Han characters without music notations. Sèng-si 1926 was comprised of 192 hymns with staff notations. It included musical contributions from Taiwanese lowland aboriginal traditions. There were 6 selections, including the tunes TOA-SIA (God Created Heaven and Earth) and TAMSUI (God the Lord in Love and Might), but there were no hymn texts by Taiwanese people. Sèng-si 1936 (a provisional stencil edition) included 347 selections. When formally issued as Sèng-si 1937, it was shortened to 342 hymns. Its main contents were gospel songs from nineteenth century Euro-American repertoire. But it contained texts by three foreign missionaries serving in Taiwan: Hugh MacMillan, Marjorie Landsborough and Margaret Gauld and by five Taiwanese poets who together contributed 21 selections. Two Taiwanese composers contributed 3 tunes of their own and 2 more were by the collaboration of two missionaries. Sèng-si 1964 is more historically rooted, containing classic Euro-American hymns alongside gospel songs. It also contains 54 hymns and paraphrases by Taiwanese writers. These were added to 19 “local” works carried over from Sèng-si 1937, totalling 73 hymns of local origin, a full

the signiFiCAnCe oF sèng-si 2009 �05

13.95% of the contents of Sèng-si 1964. In addition, 15 local tunes joined the 5 carried over from Sèng-si 1937 to make up 3.82% of the tunes in Sèng-si 1964. Some of these tunes reflected a Taiwan flavour, a homeland context that began to emerge within the hymnody of this church. Nonetheless, in faith, theology, liturgy and music the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan continued to reflect pre-twentieth century Euro-American church traditions. In these matters, the church was non-conversant with wider ecumenical church trends, modernisation, multiculturalism or liturgical renewal. But, Taiwan’s hymnology was on the brink of a new historical era.

Century New Hymns, published in 2002, began to make up for these deficiencies. The new book had 130 selections from 35 different nations as well as 50 from Taiwan. In our original proposal for the new PCT hymnal, percentage-wise it was 40% Euro-American, 30% Taiwanese and 30% Third World. But acceptance of this kind of approach was not easily won from the majority of Taiwan’s Christians. Later revisions have brought the mix to 50% Euro-American and 25% each for Taiwan sourced and Third World sourced material. After 11 years of effort, and still not matching the ideals of the editorial committee, but close to the target, Sèng-si 2009 was officially released on Easter Sunday of 2009 with 650 hymns, including classical Western, Orthodox, Russian, Latin American, Caribbean, African, Middle Eastern, Asian, Pacific and Australian hymns from 75 nations and regions, as well as Taiwan materials from Holo, Hakka, Highland and Lowland Aborigines of all tribes.

Background of the Formation of Sèng-si 2009

The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan continues in the tradition of Biblical and Reformation faith. From early on it followed Euro-American models of separation from what was considered secular in order to have a steady and sanctified faith. In 1959 the American missionary George Todd came to Tainan to promote industrial evangelism. He called churches to open their doors, to enter society and to care for social issues. Afterwards we renewed our understanding of the necessity that “the Gospel is care for both spiritual and physical needs” (Luke 4:18); “love of God and love of neighbour” are not separate (Mark 12:30-31); and there should be “unity of faith and works” (James 2:22). These transformations, moved by the Holy Spirit, brought our church to care for the welfare of the


Taiwanese people, to face corrupt politics, violation of human rights, injustice and violence, to firm up the spirit of “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) and to “obey God rather than people” (Acts 5:29). Participation in national, social development and change led to the promulgation of the “Public Statement on our National Fate” (1971), “Our Appeal: Concerning the Bible, the Church and the Nation” (1975) and the “Declaration on Human Rights” (1977).1 At the time of the Formosa Incident (1979) many clergy and believers sacrificially endured imprisonment and suffering.

In Taiwan history it was the first time that Christians engaged in this sort of strong, open witness. These acts of faith were behind the 1985 “Taiwan Presbyterian Church Confession of Faith,” strongly asserting the sovereignty of God, rootedness in this land and holding hands with the church universal in Christian witness. But these faith reflections lacked one thing: hymns of care for social justice. We began to be conscious of not repeating, imitating or copying the hymns and liturgies that were formulated in the pre-twentieth century Euro-American context. The collection, compilation, writing and editing of new hymns became our immediate concern. Since we confessed: “We believe in God, the creator and ruler of human beings and all things, the one true God. He is Lord of history and of the world. He judges and saves… we believe the church is the fellowship of God’s people, universal and rooted in this land, identifying with all of its people…,” we should sing hymns that are in accordance with this kind of faith. Therefore, 24 years after the 1985 Confession of Faith was adopted, the Church finally published the new hymnal as a belated confession of faith in song.

Foundation and Principles for Compiling the New Hymnal

The Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church in TaiwanSèng-si 2009 is based in The Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (1985) and is edited accordingly. Through the hymns, we turn to all people of Taiwan and to the church universal in proclamation that:

1 “Introduction: Social Justice and Peace Making,” The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, accessed 2 November 2011, http://www.pct.org.tw/english/enWho_int_Soc.htm.

the signiFiCAnCe oF sèng-si 2009 �0�

• We believe that God is “the Lord of history and of the world.” We can find imprints of God’s revelation, his acts, and dealing with the whole humanity throughout the history of humankind. We find them in the Bible, in ancient records, and even in contemporary times. All are precious faith resources. At all times and in all places God’s people have testified to God’s mighty acts in their songs, helping one another to enter into a deeper union with the creator of all things, the Lord of history. Through hymns we celebrate and learn the divine nature of God, the authority of God, and we help one another to experience the love and power of the Eternal God. Through hymns, the characters of the Bible stories and their relationships with God are told, we are made one with them in faith, and we are connected with the church throughout its history.

• We believe that “the church is the fellowship of God’s people.” It is universal. There are two terms for ‘people’ in Chinese. One of them bai-xing, from Chinese imperial legacy, is derogatory. It contradicts with the understanding of God’s love for all people of the world, regardless of race, skin colour, position or basic faith. We have been careful not to use that term, but we use zi-min (children-people). We also feel that our church should not be confined to use only the Euro-American canon of Church music. This leads us to widen the space and make use of the music of the world. We include churches of all confessions: Orthodox, Protestant, Roman Catholic and all streams. In this way we seek to translate the truth of Christ and the roots of all Christian faith, singing praises from every corner of the world. We come to understand the hymns of other people, hear their testimony, join in their struggle and experience ourselves as part of the universal church, the people of God, the fellowship of Christ. This deepens our understanding of the nature and meaning of the church and shows us the body of Christ as one that carries the heavy burden of mutual support and concern.

• We believe that “the church is rooted in this land, identifying with all of its inhabitants,” because the incarnation and redemption of Christ was “once for all.” Christ is Lord for all peoples, including all of Taiwan’s people, who are


also made in the image of God. We believe that God’s image and incarnation can also be found in Taiwan’s land, people, cultures, languages, ideologies and customs. All of these are valuable resources for proclamation of faith. We neither deprecate nor reject their expressions of faith, but with respectful attitudes come to appreciate and learn from them, putting down roots in this land to enable us to identify with all of its inhabitants. Our knowledge, wisdom, faith and spirituality can then be more mature, until all of Taiwan’s peoples can live together as one body, united in Christ.

• We believe that “God has given human beings dignity, talents and a homeland… the arts and sciences, and a spirit which seeks after the true God.” Therefore God has given Taiwan’s people dignity, equality and human rights, and given each a culture, arts, music, creativity, and talents, all of which, if utilised with sincerity and as genuine expression of faith, could become resources for spiritual development, and to witness God living and acting in our midst. Therefore, every tribe and ethnic group ought to utilise their unique gift of creativity to interpret their faith that would move their compatriots to draw near to God. Sèng-si 2009 includes 155 texts and 129 tunes from Taiwan sources. Even so, we are not completely satisfied. We hope to create more new songs and not denigrate God’s honourable gift to the peoples of Taiwan.

So the logic, purpose, and theology behind the editing of Sèng-si 2009 was to praise “the glory of God the Creator,” to proclaim “the grace of Christ the Redeemer,” to bear testimony to “the power of the Spirit the Comforter,” to experience “the mystery of the Triune God,” to strengthen “the fellowship of the peoples of God” and for the expectation of “the realisation of the Kingdom of God.”

The Editorial Principles of Sèng-si 2009The hymnals previously used in Taiwan were based on the post nineteenth century Western hymns. In 1993, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan appointed an advisory committee to screen new hymns. At that time, they accepted this writer’s proposal that our new hymnal should include hymns that are historical, contemporary, diverse, ecumenical, contextual and

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liturgical, so that it would be consistent with our 1985 Confession of Faith.2 Those points became the principles for editing the new hymnal.

• Historical: Throughout 2,000 years of church history, God has been revealing himself in all times and in all contexts. Classical poets and theologians all interpreted the faith under their contexts, and musicians set these interpretations to their ethnic musical forms. Thus, hymns were created in all places, languages and cultures for giving thanks and praising the loving, creative and saving power and mystery of God. These crystallisations of historical beliefs have become part of the common memory and heritage of the world’s Christians today. We cannot neglect them.

• Contemporary: God’s revealed truth in Jesus Christ is not limited to a single time. God’s revealed truth is not restricted to the cultural milieus of nineteenth century Euro-American churches. God was, is and ever will be God. God today is neither confined within nor fenced out of revelation to the peoples of the Third World. God lives and breathes with us in today’s complex, conflicting, disorderly and frightened world. God struggles with us as we struggle and rejoices with us as we rejoice. Contemporary composers and poets must reflect the situations of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century contemporary world, including the spirit of technological development. Our faith and worship cannot be disconnected with today’s context.

• Diversity: The world is home to sundry and diverse ethnic cultures, art forms and musical styles. The cultures, arts and musical forms of all people reflect God’s creative abundance and mystery. The Holy Spirit’s gifts are multiform and multiple. Through the application of these gifts, people create hymns that exemplify what was written by the Psalmist: “Sing a new song to the LORD” (Ps. 98:1). Around the world, peoples of all places using all sorts of unique arts cause us to reflect on the height, depth, breadth and length of God’s wonder and glory.

2 See “Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan,” The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, accessed 2 November 2011, http://www.pct.org.tw/english/enWho_con.htm.


• Universality: The church of Christ is a universal church. Although we have interpreted the church differently for 2,000 years, dividing denominations on understandings of faith, order, biblical authority and other matters, yet there is one thing that we affirm no matter where we stand. Each manifestation of the church has a portion of the truth, mixed in with its own particular errors. We trust in the mercy of God who forgives human weakness and stubbornness. God leads and moves us by the Holy Spirit, enabling different churches around the world to sing praises, share the faith, and interpret Christian life through different forms of worship and liturgy. In this way all ecumenical churches around the world are deepened in unity and widely able to demonstrate the love and providence of God. Therefore, liturgy and music include all sorts of media to enable Christians of all nations to sing praises, experience each others’ gifts, grow in unity and progress mutually.

• Contextual: The incarnation is God’s act, some 2,000 years ago, of taking on human form (Phil. 2:6-8) as a male Jew with all of the concrete and cultural characteristics that accompany such an identity. But because this Gospel, the power of God, came through the elected people of Judea, has been spread through Samaria and Jerusalem to all corners of the world (Acts 1:7), it is therefore not a Euro-American cultural artefact. It can be celebrated and interpreted in all of the languages and cultures of humanity. It can be communicated according to the multiple cultural, musical, artistic and imaginative forms available in Taiwan, so that all peoples of this nation can understand, identify with and appropriate this good news. Therefore, our new hymnal includes traditional poetry, art and music from all of Taiwan’s peoples and cultures, as well as contemporary expressions from current cultural, social, political, economic, academic and technically complex contexts to testify to the penetration of the Gospel into this land. These types of expressions were lacking in hymnals produced in previous mission contexts where nineteenth century Western colonial understandings of incarnation prevailed. We have emphasised the importance of being rooted in this land, and identifying with all of the peoples of this nation, without

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this, our statement and understanding of incarnation would be deceitful.

• Liturgical: In worship from the reading of the Bible, we heard God’s Word and revelation to us. We sing historical and ecumenical hymns that interpret their understanding of the scriptures and their life experiences, which also facilitate our spiritual growth. Liturgy needs more than great hymns of praise. Short sung responses suitable for every stage of liturgy strengthen its effect. Thus from the call to worship, prayers of thanksgiving, praise, confession of sin, proclamation of the word, fellowship, intercession, dedication and offering, blessing and sending forth, each act of singing and worship has an aspect of encouragement, contrition, comfort, healing, or renewal associated with it. In Presbyterian churches there has been little formality about liturgy, and liturgical music is rarely used. But to strengthen the liveliness of worship, to help believers move from too much emphasis on reasoning to some emotional satisfaction, and to restore equilibrium, the contents of the new hymnal include many contextual and ecumenical short songs or responses that can enhance the spiritual atmosphere of worship and strengthen the life of the congregation.

The Sources, Compiling and Special Features of Sèng-si 2009

SourcesIn line with the principles described above, the editorial committee of Sèng-si 2009 retained 369 selections from Sèng-si 1964, among which 24 have been set to new tunes. More recent material: 17 selections from 1985 New Sèng-si I, and retranslations of 32 selections from the 1998 New Sèng-si II, and 104 items from the 2002 Century New Hymns was added. Further supplementing came in the form of 128 new compositions or translations from other sources, making a total of 650 hymns and liturgical responses for the final form of Sèng-si 2009. Of those 650, fully 155 texts and 129 tunes are works of Taiwanese or Taiwan-based foreign missionaries. However, 27 texts and 5 tunes published in and before 1936 editions were anonymous; whether they were related to missionaries or Taiwanese authors is unknown, hence they were not classified under the “Taiwan”


category. This writer joined the editorial committee in 1998, and became chief editor of the final edition. The selections were made as follows:

• Sourced from “A List of Ecumenical Hymns in English Language” selected by over a dozen scholars from North America, with an eye to interdenominational and ecumenical sensitivity.3

• Sourced from Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 2000, hymnal of the Christian Conference of Asia, for typical Asian and Pacific material.

• Sourced from liturgies of the World Council of Churches and other ecumenical conferences and from ecumenical seminars on music and liturgy, especially Eastern European, Northern European, Latin American and African contemporary materials.

• Sourced from various Taiwan ethnic groups: Aboriginal and Hakka materials to supplement the predominant Holo group. Further, sourcing the ‘worship and praise’ repertoire and adding newly composed hymns.

Editing of Sèng-si 2009 began in 1981, and it took 28 years. Four different committees worked on this project. We were objective in the selection of hymns that would meet the needs of different age groups, but the result was less than ideal. As in the history of compiling hymnals of any country or denomination, there were usual tensions in between preserving tradition and promoting contemporary forms. In post-modern Taiwan, the over-veneration of Western cultural values, and the ambiguity of our Taiwanese self-identity, made it even more difficult to put roots of faith into local soil. Becoming contemporary with the culture and people around us affirms the Reformation principle of ever-renewing roots of faith. Through new Sèng-si 2009, we hope that our congregations can become open to learn these historical, contemporary, global and local hymns as the body of Christ in praise, testimony and confession.

3 See Michael Hawn, “The Tie that Binds: A List of Ecumenical Hymns in English Language Hymnals Published in Canada and the United States Since 1976,” The Hymn 48:3 (1997): 25-37.


Sèng-si 2009 Editorial HistoryThe editorial committee work began in 1981, and the following supplements were issued:

1985 New Sèng-si I: Includes 60 hymns. Thirty-five are translations of Western materials, 5 each from Africa and Asia, 6 from Taiwan, 8 from China and one from Israel. Due to the lack of promotion, these were taken up by very few churches.

1998 New Sèng-si II: Includes 72 selections. Twenty-six are translations of Western materials, plus 7 each from China and Asia, and 25 from Taiwan. The contents include 7 songs for special occasions. But defective editing and multiple errors, resulted in the collection’s being withdrawn.

2002 Century New Hymns: Contains 130 hymns from 35 countries, including 50 hymns from Taiwan. A set of CDs and a Companion were also produced. A Taiwanese and English edition was published in 2007 and a Mandarin edition in 2008.

Sèng-si 2009: 650 selections from 75 nations.

Special features of Sèng-si 2009Arrangement: Sèng-si 2009 is arranged according to the Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. This is intended to emphasise hymns that express rootedness in this land, love for this homeland, ecumenical unity, justice and peace.

Terminology: To respect Jewish traditions and to refrain from using the term ‘Jehovah’ for the name of God (Exodus 20:7), the new hymnal uses “The High Lord” to represent the term “Jehovah” found in hymns translated in previous generations. (This term is often represented in English using all upper case letters LORD to render the Hebrew tetragrammaton). But, even though the explanation has been clearly made, it has met with some resistance.

The AMEN: Originally church hymns did not all end with “Amen.” In the 1850s in the Church of England this was added because of a misinterpretation of the medieval practice. After that it became a general usage. In Sèng-si 2009 the historical usage has been restored


in line with contemporary ecumenical trends. The Amen remains on doxologies, hymns of praise to God as Trinity and with hymns that are direct prayers to God.

Multicultural Contents: Sèng-si 2009 presents a breadth of musical styles. In the past we only sang Western traditional hymns, but Sèng-si 2009 takes us on a tour around the globe: to appreciate Northern European elegant tunes, Latin American passionate songs in minor modes with guitar accompaniment, African antiphonal songs with harmonies, and lively complex rhythms, Middle Eastern mystical tunes, and Asian lyrical unison singing with ornaments. Through Sèng-si 2009 a congregation can come to experience music of many nations and be transformed through the use of the rich forms and sounds of all of God’s people. Moreover, a congregation in Taiwan can sing the praises of God through forms of this land and its many ethnic groups, experience the polyphony and contemporary forms of all. In this broad space we sing songs that help us experience the joy of God’s people and all of their variety joined together in the mystery of unity in Christ.

Retention of Original Form: Tunes have not been re-harmonised, but left to sound much as they would in their home settings. In this way the sound of what is sung helps a congregation to experience the beauty of text-tune relationship intended by the composers. Some hymns have been provided with brief notes on background and suggestions for how they might be used, that churches might understand and perform.

Romanised Taiwanese: To enable congregations to sing Taiwanese correctly, hymn texts in Chinese characters are paralleled with Taiwanese in Romanised orthography. The use of characters has also been standardised. It is consistent with our policy that maintaining the Holo language is of foundational importance in Taiwan.

Other-than-Hymn-Contents: Sèng-si 2009 also contains 81 prayers and faith reflections, many in the form of short poems. 26 of these were written by local poets. Church artists from Taiwan also offered 81 simple line drawings, some of which accompany the theme of the hymn on the facing page. These are intended to aid church members during times of silent meditation. They make use of arts apart from

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songs to give space for the Holy Spirit to work and draw believers more deeply into the experiences of faith and renewal.

Practicality: Sèng-si 2009 is practical, academic and purposeful. It can therefore be conveniently used by congregations and for researchers to reference. Sèng-si 2009 comes with pertinent information and 20 indexes: Taiwanese, English and the original first line, tune name, meter, author, composer, year of work, nationality, cipher notation of first phrase, topics (with major and minor divisions) and scriptural reference etc. Each hymn is accompanied with the tempo and prelude markings. Some performance notes are added for proper rendition. All this information is intended to aid congregational awareness of proper singing in liturgical as well as ecumenical contexts. We are currently preparing a Companion, an accompaniment edition and a CD recording.

Integrity: The text and tune of hymns are designed for use in the worship of God and for interpretation and testimony of faith. All materials are the products of Christian wisdom, but respect for international copyright norms is upheld. The editors strove to obtain international and local copyright permission from all legal holders of rights and have paid copyright fees as a matter of professionalism and integrity, taking responsibility for our work as a faithful member of the global village.

A Birds Eye View on Text and Music of Typical Taiwanese Hymns

The Indices at the end of Sèng-si 4 show that the hymns and tune come from 75 separate nations or regions. Of which, 155 texts and 129 tunes are from Taiwan. The Aboriginals together contribute 19 texts and 32 tunes; Hakkah, 8 texts and 6 tunes; and Holo, 128 texts and 91 tunes.

Contextual Examples of Taiwan Texts and TunesAlthough many Taiwanese still mimic Western styles when writing hymns, and even hymn content fails to manifest any Taiwanese

4 Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, Seng-Si (Taipei: Presbyterian Church in Taiwan General Assembly, 2009), 1123-1204.


contextual connection, yet already there are a few aspects of content and style that have a Taiwan flavour to them. They exhibit the concern for the contemporary context, thereby showing the result of the development of contextualisation of theology in Taiwan.

Han poetry texts present cadences and modulations of tone, even and oblique tones, parallelism, anaphora, reiteration, anadiplosis and such. Some of these features cannot be properly translated or interpreted into poetic English.

Note for example Hymn No. 116 by Chhòa Chèng-tō “The Word Became Flesh in the World,” with many “double adjectives” in the original Taiwanese:Tō-chiân-jio' k-thé lâi chhut-sì, Chhú lâng hêng-siōng chòe pi-bî,Koat-toàn kiâ n ǹg Kok-kok-tha; Kok-kok-tha-soan toān-hûn lo·,

(Stanza 1) (similar to anadiplosis)[At his birth a manger low, at his death a glory show Decisively walked to Golgotha, Golgotha’s lethal road.]

Bông-bông soan-iá loān kha-po·,Têng-têng sè-sū jiáu sim-pho, Tîm-tîm sı' p-kè ap keng-thâu, Chūn-chūn chhìn-kōan tı' t-tı' t lâu

(Stanza 2) (all with double adjectives)[Vast the distance he traversed, to save humans, all perversePressed down by the cross he bore, pierced by nail and by thorn.]

Kiù-sio' k kha-jiah po·-po·-kiân, po·-po·-kiân chhut Chú ê thiàn (Stanza 3) (double adjectives and anadiplosis)[Walk Salvation step by step, step by step walk out his love.]

Hymn No. 509, “Holy Jesus Lived on Earth” by N g Bú-tong uses the antithesis device:

Tiàm tī kang-chhiún hōan ki-khì, Ná chún Pó-lô chit po·-pî n, Chı' t bīn ūi lâng bô. hok-lī, Chı' t bīn ūi Chú thoân tō-lí.

(Stanza 2) (anaphora)[Like Apostle Paul made tents, we now work in factory production lines,On one side we serve humankind, on the other witness God.]


Bô-lūn chhái-ku' t tī khòng-khi n, Á-sī chhut-hái khì thó-hî,Chòe-kang lô-tōng sī sîn-sèng, Siāng-sî ūi Chú chòe kiàn-chèng.

(Stanza 3) (similar to parallelism)[Though on land our dig mines, or draw nets upon the sea,Ev’ry job is sanctified when we witness for God.]

Tē-ūi bô hiâm koân á kē, Sin-súi put koán chió á chōe,(similar to parallelism)

Tiong-sêng chīn chit Chú hoan-hí, It-chhè seng-oa' h sìn-khò I. (Stanza 5)

[From this earth both high and low, whether rich or poor, all know,Faithful service cheers the Lord, so depend upon God’s word.]

The sayings of the sages are enshrined in Hymn No. 490 “Youthful Years are Like the Sun” by Gân Sìn-seng:

Liân siàu chheng-chhun ná jı' t-thâu kòa tī jı' t tiong-tàu,Chú ê thiàn-thàng khî n ho· tiâu, Chù-sîn khòan bo' k-phiau

(Stanza 1)[Youthful years are like the sun, hastening towards noon.If you shine out for the Lord, you won’t fear the dark.]

Liân siàu chheng-chhun ná hoe-lúi, Hông chhun i chiū khui,Chú sù chhun-hong chhe sù-kùi, Chhin-chêng tn g-lâu-chúi

(Stanza 2)[Young years, can be like a flow’r, opening in the Spring.Spring breezes liven the four seasons, familial love crowns the years.]

Liân siàu chheng-chhun ná pó-chio' h, Bô bôa bōe tiā n-tio' h,Jîn-seng keng-giām bô tè chioh, Po·-po· tio' h tin-sioh;Chhì-liān sī hé khûn sī to, Kho·-lān ná chio' h-bō (Stanza 3)

[Young years, can be like a jew’l: polishing required.Hard things are not out for loan. They must be endured.Troubles are refiners’ fire. Trials can make us shine.]

Chheng-chhun it khì put chài hôe, Choán-gán hòa sêng hoe,Kong-im lân ēng kim-chî n bóe, Hi-to· khang liû pe' h (Stanza 4)


[Young years do not come again. Blink your eyes, they’re gone.Treat them as a precious thing. Idleness won’t pay.]

Hakka Songs preserve distinctive sound features like adding non-lexical syllables, such as in Hymn No. 497 by Chhṳ n Kien-chûng:

Kin-pai (yâ) Song-ti (yâ) yû chu -(a) fi (ô nâ ai yô) Fûn-phe' t san-ok (lî lòi) yû chu -(a) fi (he yô) Min su-(yô)fi(yô) yû chu -fi

[Worship (ya) the Lord God (ya) is wis- (a) dom. (yo na ai yo),Discern evil (li-loi) is wisdom (he yo) very (yo) bright (yo) is wisdom.]

and, Hymn No. 37 “God the Father gives Increase” by Fam Pín-thiâm:

Thiên Fu Song-ti su fûng-ngièn, Kâ-kâ fu-fu seu-lièn-lièn;Fûng-thiàu-yí-sun hó kâng-thièn, Koet-thai-mìn-ôn sàng (ya sàng) lo' k-yèn (yô nâ ôi yô yô tû yô)

[God our Father gives increase, so that all may live in peace. By the rain that’s come at last, Paradise is in (is in) our grasp yô nâ ôi yô yô tû yô]

Aboriginal hymns use abundant non-lexical syllables, as in the Refrain of Hymn No. 311 “Thanks and praises to Lord Jesus Christ” (Paiwan song):

Ma lji ma lji ti yi-su sa-ma, ma lji ma lji ti yi-su sa-maSa tje ka na ma te ve te velj, sa tje ka na ma te ve te velj(Hai ya na i yu in, hai ya na i yu in, i ya u hai yan.)

The non-lexical syllables are used as reflections of what have been or will be sung, thus having multiple meanings according to their context.

Hymn No. 320 “O-hoa-he, Beat Drums, Dance, Make Music Praising God on High,” a Siraya song by Bān Siok-koan, makes generous use of non-lexical-syllables:


Worship God above us all. Jesus blessings on us fall.Small or great our work may be, we perform diligently.Meet the future day by day, honestly along the way.]

Ho' k-bū, jîn-kûn tio' h tì-ì, Khiā-ke chòe lâng hó chhù-pi n,Tâu-chu nā-sī ū êng-lī, Hôe-kui siā-hōe chō hiong-lí;Hòng-gán sè-kài sim-heng khoah, Kun lâu Tâi-oân ki-hio' h thòan,Khî n-tiâu sìn-gióng Chú ōe chhiâ n, Oa' h chhut kiàn-chèng hó miâ-sian.

[In our service, we’re sincere. To our neighbours we are pure. If investments profit back, hometown poor will know no lack.Though the world is very wide, in Taiwan our roots abide. Ardent faith in Jesus Christ, clearly shows forth from our lives.]

The next hymn comes from the 1994 Mission Assembly Theme Song “Walking as Those Who’ve Gone Before” (No. 556)

Goān sèng-kok lîm-kàu choân Tâi-oân, Ho· siā-hōe seng-thài tit pó-choân,Kiâ n kong-gī hô-pêng tiōng jîn-koân, Ta' k cho' k-kûn hô-bo' k kàu éng-oán.

[Come Holy Spirit to Taiwan, renew our social mission long,Justice and peace and human rights, for all the people in your sight.]

Choán sî-tāi gûi-ki chiâ n khè-ki, Lâi tiông-kiàn sim-lêng bo' h iân-tî;Chòe tōe-chiū n ê iâm lâi tiâu-hô, Chòe sè-kan ê kng ta' k-ūi chiò.

[Times change and crises come and go, renew us spirit here below.Salt of the earth that flavors all, light of the world upon us fall.]

Chú, goán tan tī chia, chhe-khián goán, Chiong kìu-un chin-tō lâi piàn-thoân;Goān Siōng-tè chí-ì tit sêng-choân; Hō. ki-tok hok-im kiù Tâi-oân.

[Lord here you find us, send us now, Salvation’s truth to spread aboutOn earth as heav’n your will be done, May Jesus’ Gospel save Taiwan.]


Third, N g Bú-tong’s Hymn No. 518 “May God Bless this Taiwan our Home” (No. 518):

Siōng-tè sù-hok Tân-oân kok kéng, Tang sai lâm pak bí-lē hong-kéng;Chhun hā chhiu tong chúi-siù-san-bêng,Le' k-sú iu-kiú jîn-kia' t-tōe-lêng.

[May God bless this, Taiwan our home,East West South North, peak to sea foam.Seasons all four, harvests providefruit of justice and, righteousness.]

Sù goán hiong-tho· bu' t-sán hong-sēng,Hong-tiau ú-sūn ngo·-kok-hong-teng;Cho' k-kûn hô-hâi kiōng-chûn tông-êng,An-ku-lo' k-gia' p seng-oa' h an-lêng.

[Land is small, but, farms yield plenty,Winds blow, rain falls, things grow gently.Races unite, as one peoplehapp’ly to live, calmly to dwell.]

Goān goán koan-oân chun Chú bēng-lēng,Lāi gōa chèng-tī chèng-gī kong-pêng;Ka-têng siā-hōe bô khí hun-cheng,Choân-bîn siū-un hióng-siū thài-pêng.

[May we live by, God’s commandments, home and overseas, if we’re sent.All the peoples on this island, stand united, ‘gainst all vi’lence.]

Goān Chú tō-lí tò-chhù thong-hêng,Lâm-lú ló-iù chòe Chú ha' k-seng;Chiàu Chú hoat-tō. chun-thàn Sèng-keng;Sù goán Tâi-oân bān-tāi chhiong-sēng.

[May Christ’s Gospel flow as water, to Taiwan’s each, son and daughter.May God’s commands be our hearts’ laws, may Taiwan know peace without pause.]

• Pressing on towards ethnic harmony, Hymn No. 524 by Ông Cheng-bûn:

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Chú Ki-tok, Lí thiàn-thàng chhui-pek goán, Ho· goán thang choh-bāng,Thang choh-bāng, thang choh-bāng,Bāng-kì n iā-chéng bōe liáu-kang,Ki hio' h bō.-sēng gâu tōa-châng; (Stanza 3)

[Jesus Christ, it’s your love, drives us on. Makes us dare to dream.Dare to dream, Dare to dream, Dream of sowing seeds around. They will sprout in fertile ground.]

Chú Ki-tok, goán kài-hān Lí phah-phòa,Kà goán tio' h san-thiàn.Tio' h san-thiàn, tio' h san-thiàn,Cho' k-kûn bô koh hun lāi gōa,San-hô san-thiàn, hok móa-móa; (Stanza 4)

[Jesus Christ, come and break our hard shells. Teach us how to love. How to love, how to love, May all races find in you, unity and love that’s true.]

These textual and musical expressions of faith from the contemporary Taiwan context can be understood as demonstrations of contextual theology.

The Contemporary Significance of Sèng-si 2009

Free from the Bondage of “The White Flesh Incarnation of the Christian Faith”For over a century most ecumenical churches, including the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan have lived enclosed in a culture derived from white, Euro-American forms of liturgy, style, theology, music and other forms of mainstream presentations of the Christian Faith. This writer presented a paper in a conference of the World Association of Chinese Church Music in 1987 (see Chapter 5), commenting on the phenomena that many Chinese and Asian Churches were like ‘bananas,’ yellow on the outside and white on the inside; they all subscribe to ‘translated theology,’ all theological thinking was translated from Western theologians; they all use ‘second-hand liturgies’ based on nineteenth century and earlier


Western styles, and “carbon-copied music,” not just that which had been produced with a photo-copy machine, even newly composed music were written and harmonised in styles imitative of Western models. Sèng-si 2009 rebels against that entrapment, including the art, music, faith expressions and cultural forms from 7 continents, 75 nations and regions, and a breadth of variety that leads people to break out of the White skin shell and open themselves up to the breadth of God’s creation. In this way, users of Sèng-si 2009 give glory to God in many styles, behold Christ incarnate as a human in many forms, and recognise all peoples, suffering and rejoicing with them all. Set free from imprisonment in White skin, the people of Christ find Christ in yellow skin, black skin, brown skin and red skin, yet all at the same time being the one true Christ.

Develop Contextual TheologyThrough use of mother tongues and local music, the faith of Taiwan’s peoples in their own idioms is expressed. Sèng-si 2009 includes 155 texts and 129 tunes of Taiwan origin, from over 14 different ethnicities including Hakka, Holo, New Resident (Chinese) and Aboriginal styles, folk songs and new compositions. There are a few new hymns, as discussed earlier, which give a particular ‘bird’s eye view’ of life here. Through the use of mother tongues of many peoples we see the beauty of poetic expression, including non-lexical syllables with multiple meanings and differing meters to demonstrate the context of each ethnic group in expression of joy, sadness and the concerns of life. The contemporary challenges and drives of each group are expressed abundantly and in various musical languages. This is the basis and foundation of contextual theology in Taiwan. Christ’s Gospel is already rooted in this land; it bears fruit in many forms of expression.

A Warning of the Consequences of GlobalisationIn the 1960s Taiwan began to transform from an agricultural to an industrial nation. Our agricultural technique, information resources and industrial development are already global in reach. Taiwan corporations produce 60% of the notebook computers used in this world. But our misery is found in our status as a political orphan nation. Nonetheless, we are an important member in the global village. Reflecting on past values, seemingly lost, our ecology, seemingly ruined, and the wasteful lifestyles of most people in


contemporary Taiwan, we cry out with loud voices to citizens of the entire world regarding the environment and the crisis all around us. Hymn No. 515 “Green the Wild Fields, Blue the Sky” appeals to the need to safeguard this ‘paradise’ on earth.

Stanza 3: Tōe-kiû seng-thài siū phò-hoāi,Tho·-khùi ai-sian chha' k sim-hoâi,Kang-hô tiòng-to' k hî-lūi sí, Khong-khì ù-jiám lâng tài-pī n.

[What will pierce our hardened hearts, and impose a sharp rebuff?Land and forests, seas and air – will their ruin be enough?]

Stanza 4:Lán tio' h kak-chhí n koh lı' p-chì,î-hō. khoân-kéng thàn chit-sî,Khûn-khiām chiat-iok thin chu-goân,Lí góa lo' k-hn g tit pó-choân.

[Join, all people of good will, while there’s time live modestly,Guard each trace of paradise, keep alive things heavenly.]

Science and TechnologyHymn No. 562, “Science Drives the Age of Space,” humbly recognises human limitations and cries out “Revere the Lord, Obey God’s Might”:

Stanza 3:Bāng-lo· thiau-chiàn ha' k-sı' p goân-lí,Chhiú-ki liân-kiat sî-khong kū-lī;Tiān-náu thêng-sek jı' t-jı' t ōan-sin,Nái-mî cheng-bı' t èng-iōng bô chīn.Sui-jiân hióng-siū kho-ki sêng-chiū,Lâng pì n lo ·-lē, sòng-sit chū-chú;Î-sı' t khì-koan, ho' k-chè tōng-bu' t,Sió-sim î-ho· chhòng-chō thian-lu' t.

[The web has changed the ways we learnand phones in hands all barriers spurn.The cyber world’s a growing field so deepest secrets are revealed.


But success has come at great cost, independence may have been lost.Organ transplants, animal clones, lure us from nature’s laws and homes.]

Stanza 4:Ú-tiū Chú-cháin choân-lêng choân-tì,Sù-hok jîn-lūi, chok-ûi kî-ī n;Kho-ki, jîn-bûn, gē-lêng it-chhèTōng-le' k chi goân chhut-tùi Siōng-tè.Oa' h-miā goân-thâu, ún-ba' t ê Chú,Put-toān khé-sī chhòng-sin un-sù;Chān goán khiam-pi chai goán kài-hān,Kèng-ùi Siōng-chú, sūn-ho' k Chú koân.

[But God, who knows all and is free,has granted creativity.All science, poetry and art in God’s provision have their start.High above the source of all life, God still loves us and knows our strife.Help us, O Lord, Saviour and friend, That we may serve our Sovereign.]

Witness to Christian UnitySèng-si 2009 includes 75 nations’ hymns and liturgical responses for use in worship. These overcome boundaries of ethnicity, culture, nation, religion, doctrine and liturgy. Christians in Taiwan do not lack appreciation for the forms of music of many peoples, local and overseas. Through the use of the materials in Sèng-si 2009 they can experience the mysterious depths of Eastern Orthodox traditions, the lively melodies of the Middle East, Unison singing from South Asia, and fresh and lively rhythms from Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition, there are intricate complex celebratory materials from Africa. These offer a variety of Christian witness that unifies. Singing each others’ music puts into conversation Christians around the world. We worship with one heart, share the grace and the Gospel of Christ, and find unity and maturity with each other.


Assessments and Challenges

Last of all, we must examine Sèng-si 2009 and question it on the basis of the contemporary context of Taiwan. Although Sèng-si 2009 contains Tayal, Sediq, Bunun, Saisiat, Tsou, Thao, Paiwan, Pinuyumayan, Amis, Tao, Siraya, Holo and Hakka new hymns, and ‘worship and praise’ form of songs favoured by younger generations, the collection still lacks certain kinds of hymns. In departing from treasured forms, we have met opposition to some of the newly written or newly translated contemporary hymns, or to the re-setting of familiar hymns with different tunes. Speaking frankly, we still lack hymns that reflect our faith in depth; we lack materials that show the Taiwan context in terms of struggles for justice, peace, human rights, and freedom. We need hymns that proclaim a witness of the Gospel to our own people in the forms of music that are ethnically congruent to them. We have organised a few hymn-writing seminars and have called for submissions of new hymns, but they left us far from our goal of getting hymns rooted in this land but carrying a universal message. We have already laid the foundation for deepening our root in Taiwan as well as linking with the ecumenical world. But this writer hopes for deeper penetration and more diversity in the development of hymns for our church to be more matured and stronger. It is an ideal, which faces five challenges, as enumerated below:

1. There are Too Few People Equipped to do the JobThough we have a few Taiwanese poets and composers, we still fall short of producing ideal hymns.

• Hymns must be rooted in Biblical truth and in concrete

living experience with deep theological reflection. Many poets offer verses, but few offer depth. Our church lacks poets who can master the Taiwanese language. Other poets often write, but without a sense of poetic structure which is suitable for hymns.

• We still need more works that reflect our unique Taiwanese musical styles. Hymn tunes should be lyrical, simple and easy to sing, the music carries the meaning and imagery of the text with artistic beauty. This is not an easy task. We have plenty of composers in our church who are keener on composing larger choral or instrumental pieces that could exercise their creative gifts without having to consider the


limitation of the congregation. We still need more works that reflect our unique Taiwanese musical styles.

• We have called for and selected some ‘worship and praise’ type of songs, but their theological content and musical quality are below our expectations. We realised that we can never satisfy those who only yearn for such kind of songs.

2. There are Too Few Translators of Taiwanese HymnsThe fact that only a small number of translators and the editorial committee members were involved in the editing of this hymnal indicates the lack of translators in our church. We need more capable hymn translators to translate not only from English, but also German, Japanese and many other Asian languages into Taiwanese and Mandarin. The oppressive educational policy of the government, as well as the general disrespectful attitude to the Taiwanese language has resulted in the limited ability to handle Taiwanese with poetic beauty. We are concerned that without proper education and training, the beauty of Holo language and literature will be in danger of being lost.

3. The Difficulty of Identifying with the Music of TaiwanFor 145 years the Christian church has been taught to praise God through the use of Euro-American hymns. The great majority of our musicians who have been trained in Western music denigrate any music that does not follow Western forms. We are distant from our homeland music. The foreign regime and the church all look down on Taiwanese music, and the general public also failed to define what Taiwanese music is. Most people regard Western influenced or Japanese style popular music as ‘Taiwanese folk song.’ This sort of ignorance and disrespect for our own music makes it difficult to root local church music in this land. In recent years the society has come to grudgingly respect the voices of the cultures of Taiwan and to call for a reinvigoration of a Taiwan cultural identity. This has some impact on the churches, where things change slowly. They still have difficulty appreciating music harmony that has gone beyond their familiar traditional Western idioms. Nonetheless, Aboriginal hymns have been welcomed, and this must be both noted and appreciated.


4. The Need to Break Through the ‘Worship and Praise’ stylesThe youth and churches who are keen on ‘worship and praise’ styles of music need to broaden their repertoire to include songs from historical, contemporary, and indigenous sources, and to integrate them properly into their liturgical contexts, so that their voices might combine to attain the praise of God through unity of hearts and voices (See Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 5:19).

5. Opening the Door to the Music of the Third WorldIn general, Taiwan’s academic and ecclesiastical organisations have been musically dominated by Western musical forms for over 140 years. Taiwan’s people have come to understand a few Western classical and contemporary popular musical styles. Interest in local music has waned. In fact, the lack of interest is not just about this homeland, but the musical heritages of the 3rd world, of Asia, Africa, the Pacific, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean are generally neglected. Though as Christians we affirm that God’s Spirit indwells all churches of the world and praise of God is rightful in every tongue and idiom, yet we do not strive to hear voices apart from those of Europe and America. Now that 25 % of the selections of Sèng-si 2009 are from the 3rd world, opening the door of Taiwan’s churches to musical and cultural expressions from places that we have not previously heard, this also brings potential problems.

• Some hymns in Asian-style come with intervals and harmonies with which Taiwan’s Christians are unfamiliar. People feel these are difficult to sing and unpleasant to hear. Some pianists are unable to resist the temptation of re-harmonising them into Western styles. This has in fact impaired the integrity of the ethnic styles. We need to break out of our imprisonment in Western styles and must learn to respect and appreciate the music of all groups, not merely following an outdated Western musical aesthetic.

• Because most Taiwanese Christians are accustomed to Western traditional chords (do-mi-sol, sol-si-re, fa-la do), the rhythms and harmonic intervals of African music are not particularly difficult. These simple, short, repetitive forms suited to the use of drums soon become familiar and are easy to imitate. Congregations accept African tunes more easily than Asian music. That many churches have accepted and begun to sing African hymns is something


that we should affirm. It only takes a bit of time to develop skills in percussive rhythms to give Taiwanese people an impression of the African image of God, and to join them in their worship.

• Latin American hymns are lively and have a harmonic quality similar to minor keys in the West. Many can be accompanied by both guitar and percussion instruments, which are easily available in Taiwan. Taiwan’s people receive these gladly. Beyond teaching the syncopation rhythms, though, the task in Taiwan is to get churches to accept guitar and other instrumentation accompaniment to give life to their music.

Conclusions

• When turning to God and singing new songs, Christians should praise the Lord, and extol God’s holy name (See Ps. 96:1). Our Taiwan Presbyterian Church Sèng-si 2009 respects this sovereign, powerful and universal Christian spirit, equipping congregations to sing new songs extolling God’s name in world through use of the praise songs and hymns of the peoples of 75 nations. Through songs, the people and writers of Taiwan are able to join with Christians around the world in praise of God’s glory.

• Christ-centred worship in the spirit of Christian faith interprets the Gospel through the hymns that are used. Our church music and musical education must be grounded and centred here. St Paul wrote, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and counsel one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude to God in your hearts” (Col. 3:16). The contents of Sèng-si 2009 fulfil this mandate.

• Typically in churches, one should avoid unduly ecstatic praise music that is overly emotional and promotes irrationality. In this way, we seek to conform to the reminder of St Paul, “I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind” (1 Cor. 14:15).

• The ecclesiology of the Christian Church as one body teaches us not only to serve and educate all nations, whether we use our own local music or the hymns of all


nations, but that we must also promote the actualisation of the faith in forms suitable for moving communities. Because poets exhort, we sing songs to praise God, to affirm that God rules the world through justice. All peoples must face the Lord (See Ps. 96:10-13). With this in mind, we must respect the will of God and establish justice and truth with our compatriots and with our neighbours. To this end, we turn to God in song; the use of music would not be rejected or judged. The prophet Amos declared, “Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:23-24). This can be our rallying cry.

This is the true theme of the 1985 Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, and it has been fleshed out and incarnated in Sèng-si 2009. “To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever!” (Rev. 5:13).

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C h A p t e r t w e l v e

i-to loh: liFe And inFluenCes

Lim Swee Hong

We have paid a heavy price to be Christians. It would appear that when we choose to be reconciled with God, we become alienated from our culture and if we choose to be culturally grounded we risk being alienated from God. Sadly, the majority of our churches appear to have this implicit attitude.

I-to Loh1

This statement, by Dr I-to Loh, in his Keynote Address at the 9th Bi-Annual Conference of the World Association of Chinese

Church Music in 1988 clearly defines his life-long vocation and passion for the contextualisation of church music. Born into the family of Taiwanese Presbyterian pastor, Loh Sian-chhun (駱先春) (1905-1984) and Ang Bin (洪敏) (1909-2002), I-to (維道) literally translated “To maintain the Way or sustain the Way (Logos)” has readily lived up to his name in the field of church music. This was most illuminating at a Music Tribute organised by the Center for the Study of Christianity in Asia in June 2011, a research unit within Trinity Theological College, Singapore, to honour Loh for

1 I-to Loh, “Contextualized Music in Worship: My Mission,” Theology and the Church 2, no. 1 (1994): 132.

i-to loh: liFe And inFluenCes ��5

his contribution to Asian hymnody. Glowing tributes by ecumenical bodies such as the World Council of Churches and the Christian Conference of Asia, as well as by prominent church leaders and former students were read out in honour of him.2

These praises paid tribute to a person who took the path least travelled. A path, as in the words of American President John F. Kennedy once said about going to the moon, “… and do the other things, not because they are easy - but because they are hard! Because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone and one we intend to win!”3 Indeed it is this persevering attitude with a purposeful sense of mission to incarnate Christian song in Asia that defines the life and ministry of I-to Loh. Through this essay, I provide a glimpse of the circumstances and personalities that shaped Loh and influenced his contribution to the advancement of Asian indigenous church music. Suffice to say, Loh has been instrumental in putting Asian indigenous church music on the world’s stage and facilitating its acceptance globally.

The story of I-to Loh began in 1936. He did not have a comfortable childhood. From the onset, he faced much hardship growing up in the midst of the Japanese occupation of Taiwan and the subsequent difficult political climate with the arrival of the exiled Kuomintang administration from the China mainland. In the midst of this, Loh had the opportunity to accompany his father and witness the pioneering work of Sian-chhun reaching out to the Ami and four other tribes of Taiwan.4 These circumstances, particularly the evangelistic efforts of his father, as well as the tribal sonic landscape left a deep impression on Loh and became the kernel of his ministry.

When he was 16, Loh participated in a Christian summer camp. It was this occasion that Loh recalled committing himself to Christ and desiring to take on the vocation of full time Christian ministry as a pastor. For him, this is a decisive step to walk in his father’s

2 See http://sg.christianpost.com/dbase/culture/1372/section/1.htm, accessed 7 September 2011. A copy of the Music Tribute programme, including written accolades, is available at Trinity Theological College website, www.ttc.edu.sg/csca/loh-i-to.pdf, accessed 7 September 2011.

3 John F. Kennedy, Rice University speech on 12 September 1962.4 See the brief introduction on Loh Sian Chhun at http://thetaiwanese.

blogspot.com/2010/02/rev-dr-loh-sian-chhun.html, accessed 20 September 2011.


pioneering footsteps. Loh eventually was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan on 23 October 1968. He would work out his vocation in a lifelong devotion to the musical culture of indigenous peoples.

The Epiphanic Moment

Upon graduation from high school, Loh chose the path less travelled by applying directly to read theology at Tainan Theological College instead of proceeding towards a secular degree. Loh came under the tutelage of Isabel Taylor and Kathleen Moody. At that time, Isabel served as the Secretary in the Hymnal Committee that was compiling the 1964 Sèng-si (聖詩), a hymnal of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan.5 Taylor was impressed with Loh’s strong innate musical ability. Taylor made him her assistant for the hymnal project. Loh was so outstanding in his work that upon his graduation from the College, he became a teaching assistant at the College and subsequently became music editor of the project. His musical prowess was not lost to the two missionaries. They had recommended him in 1961 as a suitable candidate for faculty development to Shoki Coe, who was at that time Principal of the College. Coe then approached the denominational leadership to have Loh appointed as a faculty in the church music department.6 This appointment launched Loh into the realm of church music. Earlier in 1960, Taylor asked him to translate an African American Spiritual musical, Passion Play, by Marilou Taggort into Taiwanese so that the musical can be performed. In the process of translation, it dawned on Loh that the Passion Play was originally for African Americans, and it was natural to use “Negro Spirituals,” so for Taiwanese to understand and appreciate, the music should use “yellow spirituals” So he translated all the seven “Negro Spirituals” into Taiwanese and set them to melodies that reflect Taiwanese folk styles. This was an epiphanic moment for Loh when he discovered the power of local music to convey the emotional significance of the text. In recalling about his setting of “Jesus Walked that Lonesome Valley” to the Taiwanese wailing

5 I-to Loh, ed., Sèng-si (聖詩): Official Hymnal of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (Tainan: The Church Press, 1964).

6 Tainan Theological College subsequently changed its name to Tainan Theological College and Seminary.

i-to loh: liFe And inFluenCes ��

song “Khau-tiau-a” (哭調仔), Loh remembered that there were two reactions. He elaborates,

Deeply moved, a friend of Hui-chin commented that she never would have thought it was possible to experience that strong emotional connection to Christ’s passion through local music. On the other hand, a faculty member asked why I resorted to using a Taiwanese lament song when Western music was already so beautiful and appropriate for use.7

Such mixed reactions to Loh’s nascent effort of musical creation foreshadowed the reception for his life long vocation in church music.

The Preparation

Shoki Coe sent Loh to Union Theological Seminary, New York, for further training in church music from 1964-1967. It was here that he learned motif-based compositional technique that was to become his signatory style for his musical effort. Even more significant was the opportunity he had to take a course on Ethnomusicology at Columbia University. This music course strengthened Loh’s appetite for future training in music that was to begin in earnest in 1974 when he had the opportunity to take up a course of study during his sabbatical year. He had two choices: either conducting or ethnomusicology, Loh chose the latter and headed to the University of California, Los Angeles. Though he intended to study for a year as a special student, Loh caught the eye of Mantle Hood, the Director of the Ethnomusicology department, who encouraged Loh to pursue doctoral studies. Loh took up Hood’s advice and applied. He was successful in his application and after some years graduated with a PhD (Ethnomusicology) in 1982. His stint at UCLA enabled him to flourish and grow musically as he came to learn of the world of non-Western music.

7 I-to Loh, “Yellow Spirituals to Asianized Church Music,” in Theology and the Church 25 no. 2 (2000): 400.


The Harvest Field

During his time at UCLA, Loh met his long time friend Jonah Chang, Executive Director of the National Federation of Asian American United Methodists. Chang asked him to undertake a project of creating an Asian American songbook for United Methodists, Hymns from the Four Winds.8 This work was unique as it was the first non-Western project of the United Methodist Church that contributed Asian songs into a broader musical repertoire that eventually formed the United Methodist Hymnal in 1989.

The songs in Hymns from the Four Winds drew from Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Filipino as well as Taiwanese hymns, among them were some of Loh’s compositions in the United States, the 1964 Sèng-si (聖詩), as well as the New Songs of Asian Cities of the East Asia Christian Conference (EACC).9 These efforts of collecting songs ultimately prepared Loh for a monumental task that lay ahead of him; that of preparing a new hymnal, Sound the Bamboo, for the Christian Conference of Asia that superseded the East Asia Christian Conference. Yet, this would not have come about if not for Chang’s role in facilitating Loh’s next phase of teaching and research ministry as a United Methodist missionary to the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music (AILM) located in Manila, Philippines.

Loh’s twelve-year sojourn in the Philippines launched his legacy as a teacher and researcher. For it was here that the monumental work, Sound the Bamboo, was conceived and painstakingly produced. Loh’s presence at AILM as the academic dean provided him the opportunity to recruit students from all over Asia and shape the curriculum; enabling the school to be the pre-eminent institution for Asian church music research and training during his tenure.

In 1994, Loh concluded his residential stint at AILM and relocated to teach at Tainan Theological College and Seminary (TTCS). Within a year, he was appointed President of the institution and held that position till he retired in 2002. In that same year of 1995, Loh was made a Fellow of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. He remains the only Asian to be given that prestigious award in the field of church music.

8 I-to Loh, ed., Hymns from the Four Winds: A Collection of Asian American Hymns (Nashville: Abingdon, 1983).

9 I-to Loh, ed., New Songs of Asian Cities (Tokyo: East Asia Christian Conference Urban and Industrial Mission Committee, 1972).


His tenure at TTCS enabled that institution to make significant contribution to the advancement of leadership training in the field of worship and church music with a strong Asian tradition-focused approach. His presence in his homeland also contributed to the momentum of developing local expressions in Christian worship. Thus it comes as no surprise that during his administration, TTCS was known as the “singing seminary” with a holistic approach in theological education.

At the same time, Loh continued to undertake groundbreaking research that promoted the scholarship of Asian church music to the wider Church. He worked with various ecumenical bodies. These included the Global Praise Working Group of the United Methodist Church, the Christian Conference of Asia, the Asia Alliance of YMCA, and the World Council of Churches. These partnerships enabled him to advance the use of indigenous Asian church music materials in regional and global meetings, leading to their use beyond Asia. At the same time, his essays laid out the need and direction for the contextualisation of worship expressions in Asia.10

Since his retirement from TTCS in 2002, Loh has not slowed down in his ministry of advocating Asian church music.11 He served as the editor for the new hymnal of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan 2009 Sèng-si (聖詩) as well as single-handedly writing the Hymnal Companion to Sound the Bamboo: Asian Hymns in Their Cultural and Liturgical Contexts.12 Presently he teaches regularly in several prominent institutions such as Chung Chi Divinity School, Hong Kong, Tainan and Taiwan Seminaries, Sabah Theological Seminary in East Malaysia, Trinity Theological College and Methodist School of Music in Singapore. In 2010, he was appointed Honorary Fellow for the Centre for the Study of Christianity in Asia, Singapore. He has also embarked on writing a hymnal companion to the 2009 Sèng-si (聖詩).

10 For an in-depth discussion about Loh’s research and thoughts on the contextualisation of church music, see Swee Hong Lim, Giving Voice to Asian Christians: An Appraisal of the Pioneering Work of I-to Loh in the Area of Congregational Song (Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr Müller, 2008), 40-89.

11 For additional information, see C. Michael Hawn, Gather Into One: Praying and Singing Globally (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 101-102.

12 I-to Loh, ed., Sèng-si (聖詩) (Tainan: TCP, 2009); Hymnal Companion to Sound the Bamboo: Asian Hymns in Their Cultural and Liturgical Contexts (Chicago: GIA Publications, Inc., 2011).


The Fruits

Scripture tells us “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit” (Luke 6: 43-44). Drawing on this scripture to examine Loh’s contribution, we must certainly marvel at the handiwork of God through Loh’s life and ministry. In the three decades that Loh has been teaching and writing, he has shaped countless lives. Well-trained scholars in many parts of the Asia and beyond are also marked by his influence. Many of his former students from AILM and TTCS are in key posts to continue his advocacy work in Asian church music for the twenty-first century.13 His groundbreaking paradigm for the contextualisation of Asian church music has also been enlarged to encompass the practice of church music worldwide.14 The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan now has a credible hymnal that can inculcate growing awareness of a multi-cultural Christian world with its wide-ranging musical expressions. His monumental work, Hymnal Companion to Sound the Bamboo: Asian Hymns in Their Cultural and Liturgical Contexts, made Asian church music and its performance practices accessible to churches worldwide.

Equally important, Loh’s compositions consist of prophetic messages to churches worldwide. Take for example the text of “Hunger Carol” by Shirley Erena Murray that Loh lends his compositional skill to:

Child of joy and peace born to every race,By your star, the wise will know you, East and West their

homage show you,Look into your face Child of joy and peace.

Born among the poor on a stable floor,Cold and raw, you know our hunger, weep our tears and share

our anger,Yet you tell us more, born among the poor.

13 A list of Loh’s former students can be found in Swee Hong Lim, Giving Voice to Asian Christians, 190-191.

14 This paradigm was first proposed by Loh in 1990. See I-to Loh, “Towards the Contextualisation of Church Music in Asia,” Asian Journal of Theology 4, no. 1 (1991): 293-315. See Swee Hong Lim, Giving Voice to Asian Christians, 140-187 for further development of this paradigm.


Every child needs bread till the world is fed:You give bread, your hands enable, all to gather round one

table,Christmas must be shared, every child needs bread.

Son of poverty shame us till we see Self-concerned, how we deny you, by our greed we crucify you On a Christmas tree, Son of poverty.

Here, Loh intended his musical setting, “Smokey Mountain” to remind people about the injustice of Christmas celebrations in parts of poverty-stricken Asia.15 Indeed for Loh, his creative process is grounded in fulfilling the greater goal of illuminating the realm of God and to do so by rooting its expression in Asian soil. By this approach, Loh has made room for the creation of an Asian Christian identity in music making; one that enables the Church in Asia to raise its voice and sing its unique song in the worship of God.

To end, through his life-long service to the Church, Loh has lived up to his personal name of “sustaining the way.” Indeed, Loh summed up his own ministry with these interesting words,

D. T. Niles, the founder of the Christian Conference of Asia, once said that the work of evangelism is like being a beggar. Whenever the beggar discovers a place that can provide nourishment, that person immediately informs other beggars about that location. I am like that sort of a beggar. …Once I discover any good works, I would document them, help their creators network with others, and even attempt to publish these works…So my calling remains – to still be the “Beggar of Asian Music,” continuing my effort in visiting Asian countries, encouraging the development of hymnody and other church music expressions…16

Loh’s dynamic spouse, Hui-chin, has played a key role in Loh’s ministry. She has been an enabler, a collaborator in all of Loh’s

15 Loh, Hymnal Companion to Sound the Bamboo, 370. 16 I-to Loh, “Utilisation of the Incarnated Music for Worship: My

Mission,” Lam-sin Sin-hak 2, no. 1 (1994): 127-128. Also quoted in Swee Hong Lim, Giving Voice to Asian Christians, 188-189.


pioneering undertaking and a full partner of his ministry. Together, they embarked on a path less travelled and cut through obstacles that would have stopped the fainthearted in their tracks. They laid a new path for others to follow, and to experience the joy of worship in ways that cultural identities are affirmed. For me, this is the most significant gift Loh bequeaths to Asian churches. It is a legacy that he will long be remembered for.

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published worKs oF loh i-to1

I: Musical Works

1.1 Hymn CollectionsSèng-si. Taipei: General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan

(PCT), 2009.Shiji Xin Shengshi (世紀新聖詩). Taipei: PCT, 2008. Mandarin edition.Se-ki Sin Sèng-si. Taipei: PCT, 2007. Taiwanese and English edition.道成肉體佇台灣 / Logos: To-chia"- Jiok-the ti Tai-oan. Taiwan Church

Anthem, vol. 1, co-edited by Tony Liu and Yajing Hwang. Tainan: Tainan Theological College and Seminary (TTCS), 2007.

世紀新聖詩 / Se-ki Sin Sèng-si (Century New Hymns: Supplement to the Official Hymnal of the PCT). Tainan: Taiwan Church Press (TCP), 2002. With 3 compact discs.

Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 2000. Tainan: TCP, 2000.萬民頌讚 / Ban-bin Siong-chan (All Peoples Praise). Tainan: TTCS, 1995.

Recording of 4 compact discs, 2001.歡樂歌頌第一集: 環球聖詩 (Rejoice and Sing I: Hymns from Around the

World). Tainan: TCP, 1992.萬族讚美第二集: 環球聖詩 (All Nations Praise II: Hymns from Around the

World). Tainan: TCP, 1991.Thousands of Songs Full of Praise: Twenty Hymns from South Asia

Subcontinent. Manila: Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music (AILM), 1990. Audio cassette recording only.

Rak Phra Jao, Rao Pen Thai (The Love of God Sets Us Free): A Collection of New Thai Hymns. Manila: AILM, 1989. With audio cassette recording.

1 This compilation brings up to date Lim Swee Hong’s “Comprehensive Bibliographic List of I-to Loh (Up to 2005)” in his dissertation “Giving Voice to Asian Christians: An Appraisal of the Pioneering Work of I-to Loh in the Area of Congregational Song” (PhD diss., Drew University, 2006), 247-258. The Chinese are in traditional script, in line with Loh’s preference. – ed.


Asian Songs of Worship. Manila: AILM and WCC, 1988.Kristus Sundaring Bali (Christ the Light to Bali): A Collection of New

Balinese Hymns. Manila: AILM, 1988. With audio cassette recording.萬族讚美第一集: 環球聖詩 (All Nations Praise I: Hymns from Around the

World). Tainan: TCP, 1988.Songs of Our People. Hong Kong: Asia Alliance of YMCAs, 1987. Enlarged

edition 1991.客家頌主之歌 (Hakka Songs of Praise). Tainan: TCP and AILM, 1987. With

audio cassette recording.向耶和華唱新歌：中文及台語頌讚曲集 (Sing a New Song to the Lord:

Anthems by Chinese and Taiwanese). Tainan: TTCS and AILM, 1987. With audio cassette recording.

A Festival of Asian Christmas Music. Tainan: TCP, 1987. With phonograph disc and audio cassette recording. Mandarin edition.

African Songs of Worship. Tainan: TCP and WCC, 1986. With audio cassette recording.

群山歡唱 (Let the Hills Sing). Tainan: Taiwan Presbyterian Press, 1986. With audio cassette recording.

禮拜樂章第二集 (Liturgical Music II). Tainan: TCP, 1985.A Festival of Asian Christmas Music. Manila: AILM and New Day Publishing

Co., 1984. With phonograph disc and audio cassette recording. Hymns from the Four Winds (Asian-American Hymns). Nashville: Abingdon,

1983.New Songs of Asian Cities. Tokyo: East Asia Christian Conference Urban

and Industrial Mission Committee (EACC-UIM), 1972.教會頌讚: 聖誕專輯 (Kau-hoe Siong-chan: Christmas Anthem). Vol. 2.

Tainan: TCP, 1972.教會聖歌集: 教會頌讚曲 (Kau-hoe Seng-koa Chip: Church Anthem). Vol. 3.

Tainan: TCP, 1970.聖詩 / Sheng-shih (Official Hymnal of the PCT). Tainan: TCP, 1969.

Mandarin edition.教會頌讚 / Ku-hoe Siong-chan. Vol. 1. Tainan: TCP, 1968.教會聖歌集 / Kau-hoe Seng-koa Chip. Vol. 2. Tainan: TCP, 1968.聖詩 / Sèng-si (Official Hymnal of PCT). Tainan: TCP, 1964.

1.2 Liturgical Music SettingsMisa Syukur / 感恩禮樂章. Incorporated in 歡樂歌頌第一集: 環球聖詩

(Rejoice and Sing I: Hymns from Around the World). Tainan: TCP, 1992.

禮拜樂章第一集 (Liturgical Music I). Tainan: Tainan Theological Seminary and Tunghai University Music Department, 20 July 1973. 35 pieces.

Missa Brevis / 聖餐禮樂章. In Mandarin, 1965.

published worKs oF loh i-to ��5

1.3 Choral Works時代的先知 (Prophet of the Time). Cantata in Three Movements, 1975和平人君聖誕清唱劇 (The Prince of Peace Christmas Cantata). Tainan:

Tainan Theological College and Seminary, 1968A Cycle of Psalms. Choral work in fulfilment of the Master of Sacred Music

degree requirement, Union Theological Seminary, 1966禧年清唱劇 (Centennial Cantata), 1965受難劇 (Passion Play of Seven Choral Pieces), 1961, revised 1970

1.4 AnthemsThe God of Us All Is Our Father, SSA or SATB, 2004Khan-chhiu lai siu-ho’ Taiwan, SATB, 2004When God Is a Child, SSA, 2002Welcoming the New Year Together with the Spring Wind, SAB, 2001Appalachian Wedding Prayer, solo with keyboard and viola, 2000In the Bulb There Is a Flower, SATB, 2000Star Child, SATB, 2000If God Is for Us, Who Is Against Us, solo with ti-tsu, 1999Hunger Carol, SAB with accompaniment. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994)Watch the Bush of Thorns, SSA, 1993God’s Way Is the Best Way, solo with flute, 1992When Love Is Found, SATB with flute, 1992I Come with Joy to Meet My Lord, SAB, 1991Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, SATB, 1987Hau Chhin Ko, SATB with flute, 1986The Morning Praise, arr. SATB, 1986The Gracious Father, arr. SATB, 1986Sing a New Song to the Lord, SATB, 1985I Know that My Redeemer Liveth, SATB, 1984In Christ There Is No East or West, SATB, 1981Cry out with Joy to the Lord, unison with accom. 1980Who Is He in Yonder Stall? Augsburg, 1973Down to Earth as a Dove, SATB, Garliard, 1972Midnight Stars Made Bright the Sky, arr. 1969Just as I Am without One Plea, arr. SAB, 1969Li Khoa", Goa Siat-lip Li, SATB, 1969Cast Your Burden on the Lord, SATB, 1968Suffer Little Children to Come to Me, SATB, 1968O Lord on High We Pray Thee Guide Us, Duet, 1966God Created Heaven and Earth, arr. SATB, 1966Away in a Manger, Duet, 1964Infant Holy Infant Lowly, SATB, 1964


1.5 Hymn Texts and Tunes(* denotes original text and tune by Loh; # harmonisation; name of lyricist in parenthesis)

Over 100 hymns (texts and/or tunes, originals or arrangements), acclamations and liturgical responses have been composed. Many of them appear in the official hymnals of the Episcopalian, Presbyterian, United Methodist, Mennonite, Unitarian, Adventist and Christian Reformed Churches in the United States. They are also included in hymnals or collections of songs in Taiwan, Asia and Europe, and in WCC, CCA and other ecumenical worship resource books. Other compositions include over dozens of Organ Preludes, Fantasias, Fugues, Chinese instrumental pieces, children’s songs and school songs. Over 300 hymns and anthems have been translated from English and other languages into Taiwanese and/or Mandarin.

The following is a partial listing of Loh’s compositions:

*Not for Tongues of Heaven’s Angels, 2011Look in Wonder (Shirley Murray), 2011Many Streams Become One River (Rusty Edwards & Miriam Samuelson),

2011Would You Require What Cannot Be? (Charles Wesley), 2010How Shall I Now Repay the Lord? (Ps. 116, Christopher Webber), 2009The Song of Moses, 2009God Our Help and Constant Refuge (Ps. 143, Fred R. Anderson), 2009Lord, Why Have You Forsaken Me? 2009Rejoice In the Lord, O You Righteous (Ps. 33), 2009Lord, Hear My Prayer and Attend My Suits (Ps. 143), 2009*Thai-khong si-tai kho-hak beng-chin, 2007*Yesu sanshang bian xingxiang, 2007Come Now Lord Jesus (Murray), 2007CAROL OF THE LEAST CHILD (Murray), 2006*Tai-oan-lang ah, Li tioh keng oah-mia, 2006Jin-ai, ng-bang, sin-sit e Chu (Wang Chen-wen, adap. Loh), 2005 *Sabah Theological Seminary Anthem (Thu En Yu and Loh), 2005*Siong-siong tiam ti Chu hoa”-hi, 2005God, If Your Grace Does Not Reside in Us (Murray), 2004Let Our Earth Be Peaceful (Murray), 2004Mit allen meinen Sinnen (Carola Moosbach), 2004*Toa thai-iong, chio chhai-hong, 2004All Who Live and Serve Your City (Erik Routley), 2003How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sound (John Newton), 2003Jesus, Remember Me, 2003

published worKs oF loh i-to ��

We Humans Build to Frame a Life (Ruth Duck), 2003Stranger, Standing at My Door (Murray), 2002God’s On Our Side (Andrew Pratt), 2002How Shall We Find You? (Murray), 2002The God Who Formed Us in the Womb (David Alexander), 2002Touch the Earth Lightly (Murray), 2002A Hymn of Human Rights (Kaan), 2001Christ Is Alive! Let Christians Sing, 2001*Kam-sia Chu su bin-chu cheng-ti, 2001O Lord, Enlarge Our Scanty Thought (tr. John Wesley), 2001*O Lord, Wash my Feet, 2001We meet as Friends, 2001O Lord, Our Sovereign (Wren), 2000Seng Pe Siong-te tiam thi”-teng (Phoa” To-eng), 2000*Ia-so lin-bin lang, 1999*Siong Chu koan-ai ban-bin chu-bok, 1999Come, One and All (Ps.49), 1999#God, We Praise You for this Lord’s Day (Zhao Zichen), 1999In the Bulb There Is a Flower (Natalie Sleeth), 1999*Ki-tok Sim-chi choe goa oah-mia / The Form of Christ My Banner Be

(Shoki Coe), 1998Sound A Mystic Bamboo Song (Bill Wallace), 1998Christ, You Meet Us (Wren), 1998Living in the World that Suffers (Wren), 1998The Time Has Come, 1998There’s a Spirit in the Air (Wren), 1998This We Can Do for Justice (Wren), 1998To Break the Chains (Wren), 1998When Believers Break the Bread (Wren), 1998Broken the Body (Murray), 1997The Church Is Like a Table (Fred Kaan), 1997God of the Bible (Murray), 1996God Who Made the Stars of Heaven (Ruth Duck), 1996No One Has Ever Seen God, 1996*Keng-ui Ia-ho-hoa, 1996*Lord We Praise You, Great Creator, 1994MIND SET OF CHRIST (Murray), 1994Siong-te Su-hok Tai-oan kok keng (Ng Bu-tong), 1993*Soa”-ia chhi”-chhui hoe hun-hiong (Green the Wild Fields…), 1993*Find from Nature Proof of God’s Grace, 1992Spirit Who Broods (Murray), 1990Search Me, O God, 1990Christ Is Our Peace (Murray), 1990


#Holy Night Blessed Night (Shi Qigui), 1990Loving Spirit (Murray), 1990Hope for the Children (Douglas Clark), 1990The Rice of Life (Andrew Fowler), 1989*Lord, We Thank You for this Food, 1989Although a Man, Yes Mary’s Son (Bill Wallace), 1989In Nature As in Jesus (Bill Wallace), 1989Child of Christmas Story (Murray), 1989Child of Joy and Peace (Murray), 1988#God Has Formed the Church to Be (Lin Tiing Chang), 1987#Winter Has Passed, the Rain Is O’er (Wang Weifan), 1987#God Be Praised at Early Morn (Wang Dawei), 1987*Lan tioh keng-pai Chu Siong-te, 1987*Ki-tok-to’ ah, Sia”-su thi-khau?, 1986Jesus Christ Sets Free to Serve, 1985Chhi-phe ho’ he sio / Watch the Bush of Thorns (Chun-ming Kao), 1985#O Bread of Life for Sinners Broken (Timothy T. F. Liu), 1981The God of Us All (Ron O’Grady), 1980#For the Beauty of the Earth (Folliot S. Pierpoint), 1980#Fount of Love Our Saviour God (Yang In-liu), 1980*Let All Nations Praise the Lord (Ps. 117), 1980LIVING IN CHRIST WITH PEOPLE (Ron O’Grady), 1980#God Created Heaven and Earth, 1962, 1980#Make a Joyful Noise, All the Lands, 1979Sing We a Song of High Revolt (Fred Kaan), 1972#Praise the Lord, All Nations (Ps. 117, David Fu), 1972THE RAPE OF THE LAND (Kaan), 1972DOING GOD’S WORD (Kaan), 1972The World Is Upside Down (Esther Rice), 1972*LORD OF ALL WORLDS, 1972For the Bread Which You Have Broken (Louise Benson), 1961, 1970Light of the Word, Salt of the Earth (John Ti" Ji-giok), 1968#Chi-chun Siong-te chi jin-ai, 1964#Who Is He in Yonder Stall? (Benjamin R. Hanby), 1963#God the Lord in Love and Might, 1962Seng-kia” Ia-so tiam toe-chiu” (Ng Bu-tong), 1962Siong-te su-hok Tiong-kok tak seng (Ng Bu-tong), 1962#Christ Fulfils the Law of Old, 1962#Thi”-Pe goan tai-ke choe-sia” (Loh Sian-chhun), 1962Goan ta” ti Chu seng-tian (Loh Sian-chhun), 1961Jesus Walked that Lonesome Valley (Negro Spiritual), 1961

published worKs oF loh i-to ��

1.6 Folksong ArrangementsSu-siang-ki, 1994, revised SATB 2003Liam Chhan-ni, 1994 (original)Ku Chhio Pih Bo Boe (original in folk style), SSA, 1993Sai-pak-ho’, SA, 1981Da Yueliang, Xiao Yueliang, SATB, 1971Sin Bang Chhun Hong (original), SATB, 1970Fengyang Hoagu, SATB, 1970Hong Pinguo, SAB, 1969Xiao Lu, SATB, 1968

II: Literary Works

2.1 MonographsHymnal Companion to Sound the Bamboo: Asian Hymns in Their Cultural

and Liturgical Contexts. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2011.世紀新聖詩：導唱本 (Companion to the New Supplement to the Official

Hymnal of PCT). Edited by Loh I-to and Lin Yichuan. Tainan: Church Music Committee of PCT, 2003.

教我頌讚：追求適況的教會音樂 (Teach Us to Praise: In Search for Contextual Church Music). Tainan: TCP, 1991. Revised edition, 2002.

“Tribal Music of Taiwan: with Special Reference to the Ami and Puyuma Styles.” PhD diss., UCLA, 1982.

Folk [Tribal] Music of Taiwan. Ethnodisc Journal of Recorded Sound 9-10 (1978). Audio tape recording.

Fukienese and Hakkah Music of Taiwan. Ethnodisc Journal of Recorded Sound 6-7 (1977). Audio tape recording.

東海大學民族音樂學報 (Tunghai Ethnomusicological Journal) 1 (1973).

2.2 Articles in 神學與教會 (Theology and the Church: Theological Journal of TTCS)

(* denotes that the article is in Chinese)

*〈本本土化教會音樂（聖詩）的發展與後殖民台灣 (The Development of Contextual Church Music (Hymns) and the Post-Colonial Taiwan,〉The Shoki Coe Lecture. 130th Anniversary of Tainan Theological College and Seminary. Special Edition of Theology and Culture. (2006): 165-185.

“Revisiting Ways of Contextualization of Church Music in Asia.” 30, no. 2 (2005): 450-474.

*〈亞洲基督教禮拜中之象徵表現 (Symbols and Symbolic Acts in Asian Worship).〉28, no. 2 (2003): 271-283.


*〈音樂，禮拜與神學的初步對話 (Preliminary Dialogues Between Music, Worship, and Theology).〉28, no. 1 (2003): 157-175.

*〈以音樂做處境的神學：以「及春風做伙迎接年冬」為例 (Doing Contextual Theology with Music: An Example from ‘Welcoming the New Year Together with the Spring Wind’).〉27, no. 2 (2002): 209-215.

*〈「有關公義、和平與創造之整全性主題的聖詩簡介」(Introducing Hymns Related to Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation).〉27, no.1 (2002): 129-149.

*〈教會音樂與民俗音樂：台灣教會會眾聖詩之尋根 (Church Music and Ethnic Music: In Search for Roots of Congregational Hymns in Taiwanese Church).〉26, no. 2 (2001): 290-330.

*〈向耶和華唱新歌(四)：從恆春到「地球村」 (Sing A New Song to the Lord (IV): From Heng-chun to Global Village).〉26, no. 1 (2001): 1-19.

*〈向耶和華唱新歌(三)：從「黃人靈歌」到亞洲化的教會音樂 (Sing to the Lord A New Song (III): From ‘Yellow’ Spirituals to Asianized Church Music).〉25, no. 2 (2000): 398-427.

*〈向耶和華唱新歌(二)：鄰音，鄉音與怪音 (Sing to the Lord a New Song (II): Neighbouring Tones, Native Tones and Strange Tones).〉25, no. 1 (1999): 32-53.

*〈向耶和華唱新歌(一)：普世教會音樂觀 (Sing A New Song to the Lord (I): Trends of Church Music in the Ecumenical Churches).〉24, no. 2(1999): 153-164.

*〈音樂，禮拜與靈命更新 (Music, Worship, and the Spiritual Renewal).〉24, no. 1 (1998): 83-103.

*〈以何「禮」「拜」誰？略談今日台灣基督長老教會禮拜的問題 (Using What ‘Ritual’ to ‘Worship’ Whom? A Discussion on the Current Practice of Worship in the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan).〉23, no. 2 (1998): 55-66.

*〈從音樂立場看‘敬拜讚美’ (Views on ‘Praise and Worship’: From Musicological Perspectives).〉23, no. 1 (1997): 1-14.

“Resources on Asian Music, Worship and the Arts.” 22, no. 2 (1997): 59-81.

*〈神學院的音樂教育 (Church Music Education in Theological Seminary).〉22, no. 1 (1996): 47-56.

*〈神學教育往走？台南神學之展望 (Whither Theological Education? The Prospect of Tainan Theological College and Seminary).〉21, no. 2 (1996): 146-157.

*〈「讚美」乎？「獻詩」乎？ (‘Praise’ or ‘Offering of Music’?)〉21, no. 1 (1996): 67-76.

*〈藉「道成肉身的音樂」禮拜：我的使命 (Utilization of the Incarnated Music for Worship: My Mission).〉南神神學 / Lam-sin Sin-hak (subsequent name change to 神學與教會 / Theology and the Church) 2, no. 1 (1994): 113-132.

published worKs oF loh i-to �5�

*〈亞洲傳統音樂之多聲部應用的素描 (A Glimpse at Multipart Practices in Traditional Asian Music).〉18 (1990): 1-2, 55-78.

2.3 Articles in Other Periodicals and Magazines(* denotes that the article is in Chinese)

*〈台灣基督教長老教會新《聖詩》的誕生：釘根本土與放眼普世的信仰見證 (Birth of the New Hymnal of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan.〉Kau-hoe Kong-po / 教會公報, May 2009.

*〈與文化對談的崇拜：禮儀與音樂的進路 (Worship in Dialogue with Culture: Directions in Liturgy and Music).〉In神是我們的神：聖樂與牧養發現之旅. Ed. Angela Tam, 168-185. Hong Kong: Alliance Bible Seminary, 2008.

*〈台灣基督教長老教會新《聖詩》編輯：理念與實踐的挑戰 (Editing the New Hymnal of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan: Ideals and Practice).〉新使者 / The New Messenger 102 (October 2007): 12-19.

“In Search for Asian Identities in Asian Hymns: An Overview of Texts and Musical Styles in Sound the Bamboo.” Cultural Encounters: A Journal for the Theology of Culture 1, no. 2 (2005): 89-110.

*〈重尋臺灣教會唱詩的共同記憶：「咱著來吟詩」 (Re-Searching the Common Memory of Hymn Singing in Taiwanese Church: “Lan tioh lai gim-si” / O Come Let Us Sing).〉Kau-hoe Kong-po / 教會公報 , February 2005.

*〈心靈重建：從台灣族群民歌中尋回台灣魂 (Spiritual Reconstruction: In Search of the Taiwanese Spirit through Folk Songs of the Ethnic Groups in Taiwan).〉道 / Dao: Taiwan Theological Journal 7 (2002).

*〈「唱歌的教會」之覺醒 (Reawakening of the Singing Church).〉Kau-hoe Kong-po / 教會公報, August 2001.

*〈短歌長思 (Long Thinking on Short Songs).〉Kau-hoe Kong-po / 教會公報, August 1993.

*〈三段式禮拜儀式之再思 (Reconsideration on Three-Part Liturgy).〉新使者 / The New Messenger 63 (10 April 2001): 8-10.

“Transmitting Cultural Traditions in Hymnody.” Church Music Workshop: Practical Tools for Effective Music Ministry 4, no. 3 (1994): 1-7.

“Contemporary Issues in Inculturation, Arts and Liturgy: Music.” The Hymnology Annual 3 (1993): 49-56.

“Toward Contextualization of Church Music in Asia.” The Hymnology Annual 1 (1990): 89-114. The article also appears in Asian Journal of Theology 4, no. 1 (1990): 293-315.

*〈「亞洲基督教禮拜中之象徵表現」（上）(Symbols and Symbolic Acts in Asian Worship: I).〉Kau-hoe Kong-po / 教會公報, 10 July 1988.

*〈「亞洲基督教禮拜中之象徵表現」（下）(Symbols and Symbolic Acts in Asian Worship: II).〉Kau-hoe Kong-po / 教會公報, 17 July 1988.

252 In Search for aSIan SoundS and SymbolS In WorShIp

2.4 Dictionary Entries“Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal.” In Dictionary of Hymnology, England,

forthcoming.〈禮拜 (Worship).〉 In 台灣神學辭典 (Taiwanese Theological Dictionary),

forthcoming.〈敬拜讚美 (Praise and Worship).〉 In 台灣神學辭典 (Taiwanese Theological

Dictionary), forthcoming.“Asian Christian Music.” In A Dictionary of Asian Christianity, ed. Scott

W. Sunquist, David Wu, and John Chew, 569-574. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.

“Symbols and Symbolic Acts in Asian Worship.” In The Complete Library of Christian Worship: The Ministries of Christian Worship, ed. Robert E. Webber, 7: Resources for Evangelism, Pastoral Care and Other Related Ministries of Worship, 217-221. Nashville: Star Song Publishing Group, 1994.

“Hsu Tsang Houei [Life and Work of].” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. George Grove, and Stanley Sadie, 8, 751-752. London: Macmillan, 1980.

“Taiwan [Music of].” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. George Grove, and Stanley Sadie, 18, 529-533. London: Macmillan, 1980.

�5�

bibliogrAphy

See “Published Works of Loh I-to,” pp. 243-252 above, for references to Loh I-to’s works.

普天颂赞 (Hymns of Universal Praise). Hong Kong: Chinese Christian Literature Council Ltd, 1977.

Baumstark, Anton. Comparative Liturgy. Westminster: Newman Press, 1958.Chen, Hongwen. 马偕博士在台湾 (George L. Mackay D.D. in Taiwan).

Taipei: China Sunday School Association, 1997.Christian Conference of Asia. Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 1990. Trial

ed. Manila: The Christian Conference of Asia & The Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music, 1990.

———. Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 2000. Hong Kong: Christian Conference of Asia, 2000.

Chupungco, Anscar J. Cultural Adaptation of the Liturgy. New York: Paulist Press, 1982.

Coe, Shoki. Recollections and Reflections. Edited by B. Anderson. 2nd ed. New York: The Rev. Dr Shoki Coe’s Memorial Fund, 1993.

Davison, Archibald T., and Willi Apel. Historical Anthology of Music. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1946.

East Asia Christian Conference. E.A.C.C. Hymnal. Tokyo: AVACO, 1964. Garfias, Robert. Music of a Thousand Autumn: The Togaku Style of Japanese

Court Music. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975.Hawn, C. Michael. “The Tie That Binds: A List of Ecumenical Hymns in

English Language Hymnals Published in Canada and the United States since 1976.” The Hymn 48, no. 3 (1997): 25-37.

———. “Sound of Bamboo: I-to Loh and the Development of Asian Hymns.” In Gather into One: Praying and Singing Globally. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003.

———. Foreword to Hymnal Companion to Sound the Bamboo: Asian Hymns in Their Cultural and Liturgical Contexts, ed. I-to Loh. Chicago: GIA, 2011.


Hood, Mantle, and Hardja Susilo. Music of the Venerable Dark Cloud. Los Angeles: Institute of Ethnomusicology, UCLA, 1967.

Jiang, Yuling. 圣诗歌：台湾第一本教会诗歌的历史渊源 (Seng Si Koa: The First Church Hymnbook in Taiwan: Bibliography Investigation of the Primary Source). Taipei: Chinese Christian Literature Council, Taiwan, 2004.

Kierkegaard, Søren. Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing: Spiritual Preparation for the Feast of Confession. 2nd ed. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938.

Kim, Chi-ha. The Gold Crowned Jesus and Other Writings. Ed. Chong-sun Kim and Shelly Killen. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1978.

Kishibe, Shigeo. The Traditional Music of Japan. Tokyo: Ongaku No Tomo Sha Corp, 1984.

Koizumi, Fumio, Yoshihiko Tokumaru, and Osamu Yamaguchi. Asian Musics in an Asian Perspective: Report of Asian Traditional Performing Arts 1976. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1977.

Kunst, Jaap. Music in New Guinea: Three Studies. 2nd ed. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967.

Leaver, Robin A., James H. Litton, and Carlton R. Young. Duty and Delight: Routley Remembered: A Memorial Tribute to Erik Routley (1917-1982): Ministry, Church Music, Hymnody. Carol Stream, III.: Hope Pub. Co, 1985.

Lee, Archie. “圣经中的崇拜 (Worship Traditions in the Bible).” In 基督教会崇拜的重探. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Christian Institute, 2003.

Lim, Swee Hong. “Giving Voice to Asian Christians: An Appraisal of the Pioneering Work of I-to Loh in the Area of Congregational Song.” PhD diss., Drew University, 2006.

Malm, William P. Nagauta: The Heart of Kabuki Music. Rutland: C. E. Tuttle Co, 1963.

———. Music Cultures of the Pacific, the Near East, and Asia. 2nd ed. Prentice-Hall History of Music Series. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1977.

Morton, David. “Polyphonic Stratification in Traditional Thai Music.” Asia Pacific Quarterly 1, no. 3 (1971): 70-80.

———. The Traditional Music of Thailand. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. Seng-Si. Taipei: Presbyterian Church in Taiwan General Assembly, 2009.

Presbyterian Church USA. The Presbyterian Hymnal: Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Songs. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990.

Rong, Zhai. 弦索十三套 (Xuan Suo Shi San Tao). Vol. 1. Beijing: Renmin Yinyue Chubanshe, 1985.

bibliogrAphy �55

Routley, Erik. Church Music and the Christian Faith. Revised ed. London: Collins Liturgical, 1980.

———. The Music of Christian Hymns. Chicago GIA. Publications, 1981.Routley, Erik, and World Council of Churches. Cantate Domino: An

Ecumenical Hymn Book. New ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Shorter, Aylward. Toward a Theology of Inculturation. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1988.

Takenaka, Masao. God Is Rice: Asian Culture and Christian Faith, The Risk Book Series. Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1986.

White, James F. Introduction to Christian Worship. Nashville: Abingdon, 1980.

Yeow, Choo Lak. Doing Theology with Cultures of Asia. Singapore: ATESEA, 1988.

Yeow, Choo Lak, and John C. England. Doing Theology with People’s Symbols & Images, ATESEA Occasional Papers. Singapore: ATESEA, 1989.

�5�

About the Author And Contributors

About the Authorloh I-to, born in 1936, was a former president of Tainan Theological College and Seminary (1995-2002). He received MDiv from Tainan Seminary, SMM in Union Seminary New York, and PhD in UCLA. He taught Asian and Global Church Music, Ethnomusicology and Worship at Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music in Manila from 1982 to 1994. From 1967 to 1973 and 1994 to 2003, he taught at Tainan Theological College and Seminary.

He was a consultant and music and worship leader in many ecumenical assemblies and seminars. He was the first non-Caucasian to be awarded Fellow of the Hymn Society of North America and Canada in 1995, and was the recipient of the Global Consultation on Music in Mission’s 2006 Award.

Loh I-to lectures and publishes widely. He has composed over 100 original hymns and anthems, and compiled over 20 collections of hymns, including Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 2000. After retirement from the presidency at Tainan Seminary in 2002, he edited the New Taiwanese Hymnal Seng-si (2009), and published the Hymnal Companion to Sound the Bamboo: Asian Hymns in Their Cultural and Liturgical Contexts (Chicago: GIA 2011). He has also been an itinerant visiting professor of worship, Asian and global church music at seminaries in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and other countries. He is honorary fellow of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in Asia, Trinity Theological College, Singapore.

About the Author And Contributors �5�

About the Contributorsmichael nai-chiu poon is the Director and Asian Christianity Research Coordinator of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in Asia, Trinity Theological College. He serves as a member of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission for Unity, Faith and Order, and an Anglican member on the Anglican – Roman Catholic International Commission. He is an Anglican ordained minister and an honorary canon of Saint Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore.

lim Swee hong is the Assistant Professor of Church Music at Baylor University, Texas. He advocates the contextualisation of Christian worship and church music practice. He co-chairs the worship committee for the 10th General Assembly of the World Council of Churches. He contributes to various scholarly reference works and journals, such as the Oxford Handbook on Methodist Studies, the Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization, the International Journal of Community Music, and the Church Music Quarterly. His compositions are published by Hope Publishing, GIAMusic, GBGMusik and are found in several denominational hymnals.

other titles in the CSCA CHRISTIANITY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA SERIES

No. 1Issues of Law and Justice in Singapore: Some Christian ReflectionsEdited by Daniel K.S. Koh and Kiem-Kiok Kwa

No. 2Christian Movements in Southeast Asia: A Theological ExplorationEdited by Michael Nai-Chiu PoonContributed by Simon Chan, Charles Farhadian, Roger Hedlund,Michael Poon, John Roxborogh and Andrew Walls

No. 3Church Partnerships in Asia: A Singapore ConversationEdited by Michael Nai-Chiu Poon

No. 4Christian Mission and the Test of Discipleship: The Princeton Lectures, 1970By Shoki CoeEdited and Introduced by Michael Nai-Chiu Poon

Documents

In Search for Asian Sounds and Symbols in Worship