While we're at it, pastor, there are a couple of other ideas about what the church ought to sing when gathered together that might be worth thinking about. Approaching one of those questions might start with this seemingly simple question:
Whose church is it anyway?
We're not talking about the buildings or grounds (so calm down about the presbytery, Presbyterians), we're talking about the people who gather in those buildings, or in homes or gyms or whatever facilities may be procured for the purpose.
If, even in that case, your answer is very specific and localized, we need to talk. The answer is of course that the church is Christ's. (That is the obvious theological answer, right?)
Now, given that, who does Christ count as the church?
Surely even the most inward-turned of y'all mainline pastors out there can't possibly answer that only your little flock counts as the church. The church of Jesus Christ is not monochromatic, not by a long shot.
So why should our song sound like it?
It is high time, if not well past time, for the song of the church to sound like the church and especially like the whole church. The time when it was acceptable for the church to sound exclusviely British or German in its congregational song, if there ever really was such a time, is over.
Here let me be even a little more provocative. I like spirituals quite a lot, and there's a decent amount of hymnody derived from the black gospel tradition that is spiritually provocative and enlivening no matter how white and square your church is. In this case, though, even that song tradition is not what I'm talking about. I really am urging upon you and your congregation the strong desirability, the need even, to sing music that is generated by cultures outside of the United States. More African than African-American, for example. Or South American. Or Asian. It is time for our vocabulary of congregational song to acquire some passport stickers.
A few reasons:
1. We spent so long largely exporting/forcing our congregational song upon other cultures, some of which had distinctive musical traditions not very much like ours and which therefore suffered a bit of subconscious misconception: you have to sing these American hymns to be Christian, or at least part of the church. Not that anybody said so explicitly (although you can't rule that out, I fear), but this batch of songs in a style and manner quite outside the indigenous traditions of many mission fields became a hoop that had to be jumped through.
"Amazing Grace" is a fine hymn, but it should never be confused with a mandatory song to sing in order to pass some Christianity test.
The undoing of this regrettable bit of exportation is still an ongoing process in some corners of the world. Part of that undoing process, inevitably involves fully renouncing the sense of privilege and priority that led us American Christians to export that idea, no matter how inadvertently. Learning to expand our musical vocabulary is one concrete step in that direction.
2. Our perspectives could stand to be broadened. The Christian experiences of sisters and brothers in the continents of South America and Africa in particular (and parts of Asia as well) were informed (to use a very soft-pedaled word) by a much longer, more sustained, and far harsher experience of colonial occupation and exploitation than anything the United States experienced. (African American and Native American peoples would be exceptions to this, of course. Also, the nations of the Caribbean and Central America would also be included here.) That colonial exploitation was far too often sustained and supported by the church, while we're at it. To say the least, those experiences result in far different perspectives than hymns produced by the colonializers. It's entirely likely our perspective could use some serious reorientation, and the songs of the peoples who were on the business end of that history might at least be a start.
3. "Listen," you say, "my congregation (your congregation? have you already forgotten the intro above?) isn't up for this. We're just simple folk, basic Americans, and this is beyond us."
Don't be dense. Do you not realize that this is exactly the point?
We don't get to sit it out. We here in the US, who have basically either stood by as the church worked itself into a fever pitch of "Christian nationalism" or have actively participated in it at times, don't get to exempt ourselves from opening our ears and minds to the world we were so accustomed to bullying. If anything, such a mindset makes it all the more necessary. "Your" congregation isn't yours, unless you mean it to be an island completely cut off from any other larger part of the church (in case you have a deeply misguided idea about "the church" not to mention who exactly you're worshiping). If you are at all part of the larger church, and not cutting yourself off from it, then you need, for your own sake, to be singing the song of the larger church. It's way past time for us in the US to step off that soapbox from which we issued decrees to the rest of the world about how to be church, and this is just a small step in that direction.
Again the reversibles apply: not everything that is sung should be borrowed, and not everything that is borrowed should be sung. Discernment and scrutiny still are required. Also applicable is the instruction to use your church's choir, if you have one, to help the congregation learn such music. And again, a good hymnal may be useful for accessing a basic repertory of such global church song.
One other point, that may prove to be an unpopular opinion: don't let a lack of any "indigenous" supports to the music be a reason not to sing it. If you have African or Cuban drums or a Korean flute, and someone who can play them, great, but don't be prevented from singing the song of the whole church by their lack. Sing anyway, as best as you can.
So yeah, sing something old, and sing something new, and sing something "borrowed" (not a great term, but you get the point) -- outside of the borders of the United States. Don't be a separatist. Sing with the whole world of God's children, in every place where the church is planted, and remember who we are and whose we are, and remember that we're not the only ones who can say that.
Another note: much of this was covered in this article, perhaps in a more formal and polished manner.
C. Michael Hawn is one of the most prolific and useful writers and scholars on this subject. Go get some of his stuff to follow up.
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