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by C. Michael Hawn Eerdmans, 2003 318 pp.; $28, paper |
Soon after the Anglican diocese of New Westminster in Canada openly used a public liturgical service of blessing for a same-sex union in defiance of the statement of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, the Province of Nigeria excommunicated the Canadian diocese, noting in passing that whereas that diocese had but 5,000 members, the Province of Nigeria has 17 million Anglicans and perhaps is more representative of majority Anglican views than is the bishop of New Westminster. This event is an important reminder to the Euro-North American churches that they no longer represent the vast majority of world Christians. We are in the era of global Christianity, in which the older Western churches need to listen to the growing and vibrant churches of Africa, Asia, and South America. In his timely book on worship music from around the globe, Michael Hawn not only shows us the richness of cultural diversity (where "diversity" is not merely a fashionable slogan) but also shows how sung prayer may function to bring unity out of diversity, a unity that revels in the glorious multiplicity of God's creation.
Hawn, associate professor of church music at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, Texas, has spent much of his time not just in library research but in visiting and working with church musicians around the world. Highlighted in this book are Pablo Sosa (Argentina), I-to Loh (Taiwan), David Dargie (South Africa) and Patrick Matsikenyiri (Zimbabwe), and John Bell (Scotland). Hawn also discusses what he calls "the office of musical enlivener," taking as his example the Mennonite musician, Mary Oyer.
Hawn suggests that his book offers a "third way" in the worship wars that are roiling congregations in North America and Great Britain. Typically this conflict is framed as a choice between a "traditional" liturgy (reflecting the consensus which emerged among mainline Protestant churches after Vatican II) and "contemporary" worship (though often this is in fact a perpetuation of the 19th-century camp meeting/revival style, re-imaged using high-tech sound and video equipment). Instead, Hawn proposes a "spectrum-oriented" understanding of worship practice, with the full range of global Christian music as the frame of reference. In worship, Hawn believes, strangers and aliens become full citizens with the saints through music. Many will warm to his statement that "Welcoming strangers and aliens in worship requires an intentional process," but it should not be forgotten that all worshipers are "resident aliens" who here have no abiding city.
What does each of his selected musicians distinctively bring to the table? Pablo Sosa grew up in the Methodist church in Argentina. Before Vatican II and the interest in ecumenism, it was not always easy to be Protestant in an overwhelmingly Catholic culture. Sosa studied in Buenos Aires, at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, and Union Seminary, New York. This training has enabled him to serve as a pastoral musician, a contextual theologian, and an ecumenical liturgist, each role complementing the others. Many of his songs were written with specific local congregations in mind, and Hawn cites "El cielo canta alegría," written in 1958. The carnavalito style used in this song is derived from the huayño, a kind of Argentine folk jazz. A Gloria written in 1979 for a Christmas pageant was based on the cueca, a lively partner dance. But Sosa also writes hymns—and here he draws on Spanish-language Bibles, theological and devotional books of the 16th-18th century, and Spanish mysticism. As Hawn notes, the steadily growing Latino population makes it imperative for North American churches to use such resources.
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