Multilingualism in Religious Musical Practice

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue focuses on multilingualism in religious musical practice. Drawing from Nathan Myrick’s concept of “musical caring” (Music for Others: Care, Justice, and Relational Ethics in Christian Music, Oxford, 2021), in which congregational music demonstrates care ethics “when it enables human flourishing”, “provides space for people to voice their needs…honestly”, and “preserves people in and restores people to just relationships with each other”, this issue seeks to explore the motivations for and approaches to multilingualism in sung congregational worship. Additionally, this Special Issue will build upon works such as Gerardo Marti’s Worship Across the Racial Divide: Religious Music and the Multiracial Church (Oxford, 2012) and Kathleen Garces-Foley’s Crossing the Ethnic Divide: The Multiethnic Church on a Mission (Oxford, 2007). We welcome the submission of original research from diverse disciplinary approaches, i.e., from historical musicology, religious and theological studies, applied linguistics, ethnomusicology, sociology of religion, anthropology, communication and media studies, etc. For example:

• Historical analyses of multilingualism in view of the Protestant Reformation or Vatican II;
• Ethnographies exploring multilingual congregational singing in a single local community;
• Sociological studies on the impact of urbanization, migration, or cosmopolitanization on language in ecclesial musical contexts;
• Relational ethics through multilingual congregational song.

Dr. Jeremy Perigo
Dr. John MacInnis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• multicultural worship
• multilingualism
• music
• justice
• care
• Christianity

Title: Multilingualism and interculture in the repertoire proposed in the hymnals from 2000 to today

Abstract: In the last twenty years the Baptist, Methodist and Waldensian churches in Italy have experienced an important season of migrations, mainly from South America, South East Asia and West Africa. This has led to a problem of sharing and mutual influence on the liturgical and musical level for the Italian churches that they had never experienced before.

This article intends to study the editorial proposals of hymnbooks published by the central bodies of the Baptist, Methodist and Waldensian churches in Italy. How many and which hymnals have been published from an intercultural point of view? Are the proposed repertoires transcultural? And how many and which languages were used in the publications?

These three Protestant denominations used different models for migrant churches: on one hand, the Methodist and Waldensian churches worked on an integration model, on the other, the Baptist churches worked on an ethnic church model; starting from this point we will also try to clarify how important it is to work on multilingualism and intercultural proposals in Italian hymnbooks and whether these are actually used by local churches.

The article, also using the methods of ethnographic field research, will be enriched by graphs which will show, for each denomination, which hymnographic repertoires were preferred and which vehicular languages were most used (and if this happened).

Abstract: The Harrist Church in Ivory Coast, West Africa, emerged from the ministry of Liberian William Wade Harris who baptized between 100-200,000 people during his eighteen-month evangelistic tour, 1913-1915. This story is full of linguistic complexities and anomalies. Harris himself spoke only English and his own local Liberian Grebo language. He was therefore compelled to work through English-speaking Ghanaian merchants knowledgeable of and conversant in local languages as translators in addressing the twelve ethnic groups who heard and accepted his message. Harris encouraged new converts to compose hymns in their own indigenous languages by transforming musical genres embedded in their local musical traditions. Additionally fascinating is that during this early colonial period, the twelve ethnic groups impacted by Harris' ministry lived in almost total isolation from each other and developed their own hymn traditions for thirty-five years (1914-1949), unaware of the existence of churches and worship patterns in neighboring ethnic districts. Only in 1949 did they suddenly become acquainted with the broader, multi-musical, multilingual reality of the Harrist movement. Since then, individual musicians and choirs from local congregations have gradually begun to sing each other's songs, even creating a national choir to learn and teach songs from various ethnic groups to the broader church. Clues for understanding and analyzing this complex multilingual reality will be gleaned from a handful of published documents of the period (1914-1949), from recorded testimonies of living witnesses to the events, and from 250 early hymn texts, composed by local musicians and transmitted orally in fixed form for four generations over the past century.

Title: ‘Singlish’ Love: On the Unique use of English Lyrics in the Original Songs of New Creation Church Singapore

Abstract: This article explores the way in which love is understood and expressed through the original lyrics of songs by New Creation Church Singapore (NCC) in comparison to original songs from Hillsong Church Australia (Hillsong) through the period of 2015–2020. While NCC has a multilingual congregation, reflective of the larger Singaporean society, it composes and releases original contemporary congregational songs (CCS) with English lyrics. Even though English is the primary language in Singapore, it is shaped by the languages spoken in homes (e.g. Mandarin, Malay, Tamil). Combined with the theological emphases of NCC, its CCS provide a unique lens into English as a common language of worship. This analysis is built on the hypothesis that although both corpora (NCC’s and Hillsong’s) are written in English, their expressions, and hence understanding, of love differ because of underlying linguistic, cultural and theological differences. This article will demonstrate that while the use of English lyrics is a unifying force for multilingual congregational worship, it is also not benign, but actively shaping Christian’s confession and associated theology and being shaped by wider multilingual contexts.

Title: Multilingualism in Nigerian Christian Congregational Music: Creativity, Hermeneutics, and Spirituality

Abstract: one of the major uniqueness of nigeria as a country is its multi-ethnicity and multilingualism. regardless of their attendant problems, with over 371 ethnic groups and over 500 languages, nigeria being the third linguistically diversified country in the world is an example of countries of unity in diversity. the objective of this paper is to do an ethnographic analysis of the creative practices, hermeneutical elements, and the implication of spirituality with respect to the role of multilingualism in nigerian christian congregational music with the purpose of highlighting relational ethics through multilingual congregational musicking. using socio-linguistics and ethnomusicology disciplinary approaches, and resting on unity in diversity framework of iruonagbe and egharevba (2015), the paper relied on first-hand experiences of the researcher as a worship leader, bibliography, internet and social media sources to gather necessary data. content analysis was adopted for the study. findings revealed multi-levelled organization of christian congregational worship services in local and ecumenical settings.  practices include the use of uni-lingual of indigenous languages or english language, bi-lingual, and multi-lingual forms of different mix, which include code switching. some of the problems created by nigerian multilingualism include supremacy contexts among the ethnic groups, and over-dependence on english language as lingua franca vis-à-vis its displacement of intended meaning and gradual supplanting of indigenous languages in urban contexts. the result of multilingualism in worship, however, is a highly creative linguistic communication, though interpretation and meaning may not be 100% accurate, and level of spiritual impact varies. the paper concluded on the note that despite its attendant challenges, multilingualism creates space for creativity, leaning of new languages, and enhances inter-ethnic tolerance and harmony in nigerian christian congregational worship.

keywords: nigeria; multi-ethnicity, multilingualism, christian music, christian worship

Title: “I thought it was beautiful; I just wish I could understand it”: Awkwardness, Cultural Justice, and the Dance of Multilingual Worship

Abstract: Crafting and leading multilingual worship is a difficult endeavor. Considerations include appropriate languages, switches between them, the availability of materials in each language (including musical repertoire, readings, and scripture translations), liturgical flow, the intricacies of licensing across linguistic barriers, and others.

This paper examines a particular attempt at crafting and leading multilingual worship: the chapel services for Perkins Course of Study School, a licensing program that gathers Methodist ministers over two weeks every summer. For the last several years, I have designed and led multilingual worship for this group, which includes participants who are bilingual and those who speak only Spanish or English. The data set from this group of approximately forty liturgies provides particular glimpses into the complexities of planning and leading multilingual worship, made even more so in the context of the DFW Metroplex’s unique standing at the intersection between its White, Black, and Latinx ethnoracial constituencies. The paper contributes to scholarly conversations about the motivations for and approaches to multilingualism in sung congregational worship.

Title: The Music of the Silent Exodus: Nunchi bwa-ing and Christian Musicking in a Second-Generation Asian American Church

Abstract: In 1996, Helen Lee dubbed the departure of second-generation Asian Americans from the non-English-speaking immigrant churches that they were raised in as the “silent exodus.” This nationwide phenomenon was taking place largely because first-generation churches failed to provide the second generation with culturally relevant care that would enrich their ethnic, national, and spiritual identities. Glory, the church of focus in this study, was founded by and is home to many silent exiles. In hopes of being an enriching church for second-generation Asian Americans, pastoral staff and leaders have created spaces within Glory for racial identity and faith to be in conversation with one another. However, in regard to the music of the church, they were stumped on what could be done to make it uniquely and proudly Asian American. This conundrum inspired a key question in this study: What is distinct about the way that Asian Americans worship God through music?

This study argues that the worship music at Glory Church is distinctly Asian American not by what is sonically perceived, but rather by what is physically performed and collectively experienced. The Korean-English, or Konglish, term nunchi bwa-ing (눈치 봐-ing) is utilized as a keyword that describes Christian musicking in a multilingual setting and foregrounds the Korean/Asian American worshiping body. This study concludes by looking forward and arguing that Asian Americans ought to amplify their worship music to the larger Contemporary Worship Music scene as it has the potential to be a powerful site of intergenerational healing. (Word Count: 247).