Contextualization is complicated: A case study of contextualized worship arts in Mozambique

Mozambique’s musical context: multi-cultural migration and missions

If you were to listen to the city of Beira, Mozambique on a Sunday morning, you would hear an assortment of sounds—beating batuques, ¹ clapping hands, strumming guitars, dancing feet, and singing voices—all raised in resonant celebration. Music serves as an audible clue leading to the discovery of the complex historical, spiritual, and cultural interactions that have formed the sonic-scape of today’s urban worship context in Mozambique.

Unlike some isolated cultural groups in Africa, the peoples of Mozambique have been multicultural and linked to the broader global marketplace for centuries. “From Bantu-speaking farmers and fishers to Arabic traders, Goan merchants and adventuring Europeans, Mozambique has long been a crossroads of cultures” (Fitzpatrick, 2007). This dialectic between diverse cultures (and religions)—due in large part to its geographic location on the Indian Ocean—has indelibly marked the land and its people.

As Mozambique’s “second largest city,” ² Beira has historic significance as a land bridge connecting the African interior to the world. Urban migration in the late 1800s from the surrounding hinterlands formed unique cultural characteristics. Unlike other Mozambican cities, Beira does not have a distinctive monolinguistic-cultural identity; it has been said that the mother tongue of Beirenses (habitants of Beira) is Portuguese. This stereotype is indicative of a cultural identity widely influenced by the surrounding global reality.

Beirenses encounter not only a multiplicity of languages, but also a plurality of religious traditions. Mozambican authorities estimate that there are currently more than 300 registered Christian denominations in Mozambique today, including the Roman Catholic Church, mainline Protestant churches, Evangelical churches, African Initiated Churches (AICs), and Pentecostals (Massicame, 2001: 410). When one considers the adherents to all the religions, one could say that to be Mozambican is to be religious; and to be religious is to worship.

Though over half of Mozambicans are Christian as a result of decades of mission efforts, a mission history of a largely non-contextualized gospel is blatantly obvious in current worship praxis. Many songs sung in churches are imported rather than locally composed. Even the majority of “indigenous” songs come from neighboring countries. Some, like “Mwari Wakanaka” (God is Good), are theologically shallow due to a limited text load. Others, such as “Alvo mais que a Neve” (Whiter than Snow), clearly demonstrate a lack of critical contextualization, using poetic vocabulary and images that are non-existent in the tropical climate of Mozambique.

Western hymns and McWorship

The missionaries said our music called the devil!

McGann, in her essay entitled “Exploring Music as Worship and Theology,” argues that “Worship is always contextualized” (2002: 16). She contends that ritual patterns are locally expressed in particular multidimensional contexts—social, historical, cultural, political, and familial. These dimensions “affect how a community addresses God, how God is perceived to act, how persons relate to one another as body, and how they situate themselves in the larger world and Church” (16). How are these dimensions expressed in Beira today?

Mozambique is a country whose evangelical Protestant missionary influence has a short history, ³ and whose Catholic presence has been plagued by its historical connection to Portuguese colonial ambitions. Early mission efforts sought to replace “heathen” ways of life with a Christian way of life—packaged in Western culture, ecclesial forms and theology. “Western missionaries did not bring a naked gospel, but one dressed in their own clothes and shoes” (Kunhiyop, 2008: 360).

A history of homogenizing missionary influence is clearly evidenced in many aspects of the music event of a worship service in Beira—from the types of songs sung to the instruments used, the church architecture, dress, and even the performance style of worship leaders. This is patently clear in Western-initiated churches, which still sing the Western hymns brought to Mozambique by founding missionaries. Most of these hymns have been translated into either Portuguese or other local languages.

Direct translation is problematic in many ways (King, 2009: 95–100). First, direct translation can destroy the meaning of the text. Many languages do not fit the meter or melody—leading to profound deviations from the original lyrics or tune, or a distortion of the message. Second, hymns may have inappropriate content—including theological concepts that are not currently understood. “Alvo mas que a Neve” (Whiter than Snow) uses symbols that have no contextual equivalents (neve—snow) and poetic vocabulary (alvo—in common parlance means “goal” but can also signify “white” in poetic prose).

Finally, the foreign music style can be unpleasant, distasteful, or simply just foreign. Though many hymns have been “Africanized,” or “adapted,” Western features remain in control (King, 2008: 57–78). Krabill’s chapter “Encounters: What Happens to Music When People Meet,” quotes Nketia, maintaining that “translated hymns—though perhaps more fully understood than those remaining in a “foreign” language—are often little more than “short-cuts,” “temporary stop-gaps,” and in any case “from the point of view of their art, not the best” (as cited in King, 2008: 73).

For the older generation of believers in Beira, hymns, though foreign, remain deeply meaningful as they are the first songs they learned as young believers. However, many youth don’t know the hymns—nor care for the musical style. Since most hymnals have nothing more than the words, hymns are threatened by extinction within a generation.

In a recent discussion with me, a pastor bemoaned the fact that his church seems to have no fogo (fire) in their worship. I asked him to describe fogo. “Fogo is the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit, when you can see and feel God’s presence in people’s faces, in their actions, in their joy and in their dancing” (Meyers, 2013–14). I then invited him to identify a song his church sings that has fogo and one that does not. He selected “A Mão de Deus é Poderoso” (The Hand of God is Powerful) and “Careço de Jesus” (I Need Thee Every Hour) respectively. Thus, he indicated that an ‘indigenous’ song had fogo and a Western hymn did not.

He further explained, “I know that this hymn has good theology, good content, but my congregation doesn’t know how to melgulhar [dive into] the text” (Meyers, 2013–14). While theologically rich, Western hymns feel foreign and don’t connect to Mozambican hearts. Conversely, nossa música (NM)—an “indigenous” song form, though it conveys “simple” theology, engages people and ignites a passionate response to God. The necessity to reach both the affective and the cognitive dimension through worship music is clear.

Evangelical mission efforts and the rise of Pentecostalism in Mozambique in the early 1990s are manifest in the use of Portuguese songs. This song style, particularly accepted by jovens (youth), is also “foreign,” though more proximal rhythmically to Mozambican popular music. With increased access and exposure to MTV and YouTube, jovens have embraced this song style as their own. However, this style feels particularly “foreign” to the older generation of Christians.

The fact is, there are very few songs sung in Beira churches that are locally composed. Even NM is largely imported music from neighboring Malawi, Zimbabwe, or South Africa and then sometimes translated into local languages. NM feels closer to “home” musically (for both generations of believers), but likely has not originated in the city. Regional variations in NM confound the issue of contextualization. Though the music may have originated in another locale, it has been locally appropriated and recontextualized. It is clear that people have made NM their own.

This is actually a point of debate among Mozambicans themselves, as Mozambique has always been a cross-road of cultures—nowhere more evident than in music. There are those that take the position that Mozambican music is only that which uses styles and rhythms that are accepted as being “Mozambican.” Others hold the view that “culturally acceptable Mozambican music” is that which is composed by a Mozambican—irrespective of the style and rhythm of origin.

Whether or not music is “foreign” or Mozambican, the use of either Western hymns or Portuguese songs unfortunately excludes a slice of the congregation. NM, on the other hand, while it can also be argued as “foreign,” has become Mozambican, embraced by all. “Let’s sing nossa música; it really gets the congregation going!” (Meyers, 2012–13). NM’s ubiquitous presence across denominational lines attests to its ability to engage the entire congregation.

Traditional Mozambican instruments are rarely used—due either to missionary condemnation or to appropriation and imitation of contemporary worship bands. One church clearly articulated historical missionary influence on the rejection of traditional instruments. When I asked a worship leader and research partner why Beira churches use Western instruments, he replied, “It is complicated. Early missionaries duplicated their home churches and made Xerox copies here. They told us our culture is sinful, that we can’t use our language and our instruments to call God” (Meyers, 2013–14).

This stands to reason—one “calls” a new god with different instruments. Yet the devastating legacy of devaluing and discrediting Mozambican musical heritage, inculcated by early missionaries, continues in the attitudes and behaviors of Mozambican youth. “I adore Jesus Culture, their music really helps me worship,” reported one joven (Meyers, 2013–14). As songs are imported (or imposed in new church plants), so are the instruments to replicate not only the lyrics but also the musical style.

History still plays a significant role in what music is played and what instruments are used in Beira churches today. The largely non-contextualized historical mission strategy, particularly in relation to music, further exacerbated by globalization, has saddled Mozambican believers with a foreign worship style, making it difficult to fully engage in a transformational worship experience. Churches are splintered into generational factions articulated along musical preferences, impeding unity and communal growth.

Critical contextualization

Without contextualization, people will not connect to Christ in a way that moves their hearts. Faith will feel foreign.

While definitions of contextualization abound, ⁴ the essential goal remains, “to frame the gospel message in language and communication forms appropriate and meaningful to the local culture and to focus the message upon crucial issues in the lives of people” (Lingenfelter, 1998: 12). This is a narrow road—a path that lies between syncretism and an uncritical embrace of Western Christian culture—a road that leads beyond contextualization to a more global “metatheology.” ⁵

There are perhaps as many approaches to contextualization as there are definitions. These methods vary, in part, due to their view of the roles of biblical text and context. I would argue, along with Moreau, that both text and context are critical and that effective contextualization must encompass a complete transformation of the individual and their context. “Scripture should penetrate every aspect of society and transform every part of culture. All church life and Christian living should reflect scriptural truth in clear and compelling ways. Contextualization must be comprehensive” (Moreau, 2006: 284–85).

While contextualization in theory is appealing, it can also run amok, particularly by the third and fourth generation of believers, becoming an inert “holy huddle.” Indigenization, without the necessary counterbalance of a missional vision, can lead to syncretistic stagnation and even church death. In contrast, a church focused on “other-worldliness” seeking obedience to Christ and the Scriptures can miss connecting to local realities. The balance lies in the tension between what Andrew Walls describes as the “indigenizing principle” and the “pilgrim principle” (1982: 97–99).

This low view of culture differs from earlier anthropological missiologists. Culture is not merely neutral, but actively working to “squeeze people into its mold” (Lingenfelter, 2012). I concur with Lingenfelter in advocating not just a transference but a transformation of culture by first recognizing our own cultural prison and the cultural prisons of others, and by then leading a pilgrim life of submission to one another in Christ (1998: 176).

Contextual worship arts are, by nature, holistic. When people worship, they sing their doctrine, they reflect how they think about the world and how they should live. Singing collectively, they show their sense of “togetherness” in repeated symbolic actions of their faith, and they sense the presence of God. Worship, finally, is expressed in artistic form. It is, as King argues, our “sung theology” (King, 2008: 117–18). There is an ongoing musical dialectic between content and context.

Pop music, postmodernity, and power

Musical appropriation sings a double line with one voice (one line is admiration the other is appropriation).

Urban dwellers are faced with a befuddling complexity of competing ideas and identities, epitomized by the dizzying array and proliferation of musical options. Timothy Taylor, in his seminal work Global Pop: World Music, World Markets, argues that “nothing better exemplifies this new world . . . and the changes in it than music, for the very malleability of music makes possible local appropriations and alterations . . . resulting in all kinds of syncretisms and hybridities” (Taylor, 1997: xv). In fact, pop music is so globally ubiquitous it has resulted in what Simon Frith calls a “universal pop aesthetic” (Frith, 1989: 2).

It almost goes without saying that worship music in a city church is most often a type of pop music phenomena, and a product of its urban environment. Music sung in churches is meant to appeal to the entire congregation; specifically performed to elicit “audience” participation, affirming their faith through song. Resources and technology available in the urban context, the effects of globalization, impact what songs are sung and how they are performed.

Early ethnomusicological fieldwork provided a sampling of the entire repertory of the music of a given culture—seeing it in its entirety as a system. “This same approach was not, however, followed in studying the music of the cities. The reason is, no doubt, that the musical ‘system’ of a city is far more complex, defying quick comprehension” (Nettl, 1978: 8).

Nettl suggests instead that urban ethnomusicologists should focus on analyzing the cross-pollination and hybridization of music genres—a unique characteristic of urban pop music. This is particularly true in Beira, where nossa música (our music)—itself a hybridity—is the most popular genre of church music in the churches studied. ⁶

Postmodernity and increasing urbanization have wrought significant social changes. Manuel states,

For many, the changes . . . are accompanied by considerable alienation, exploitation, and impoverishment. As such, the creation of a new social identity assumes a crucial rather than incidental role . . . [P]opular music may serve as a powerful and meaningful symbol of identity, functioning as an avenue of expression and mediation of conflict. Popular music . . . may serve as a metaphor for the creation of a distinctive world of common meanings and shared cultural ideologies on the part of the new urban classes. (1988: 16–17)

The rapid growth in cities often brings together members of distinct ethnic and linguistic origins. Popular music plays a mediating role, forming and expressing the reorientation of social identity that inevitably occurs in the urban environment. In the church setting, music not only mediates between people, but also between the congregation and God; it is a liminal bridge between humans and the Divine.

Popular music is always a music form in flux, caught between many worlds. Roberts contends,

In reality the issue of “authenticity” is largely irrelevant in popular music . . . some of their most “typical” styles are the result of cross-fertilization from overseas . . . long-term examination of any area’s music suggests an ebb and flow between indigenous and foreign influences. (1979: 23)

This is certainly true in the context of Beira. While admirable, a rigid attempt to create “authentic” indigenous hymnody may well be unappreciated, and could be yet another form of foreign worship oppression.

While Hiebert briefly outlines as one of the “stress points” the nature of the shape of the relationship between missionaries and nationals (1994: 147), he omits the underlying issue of power and positionality. Ministry is rarely a level playing field, and the “bi-cultural bridge” upon which interpersonal cross-cultural relationships are formed is often slanted in favor of the missionaries. ⁷

The challenge is to not only to apply comprehensive contextualization to theology, missiology, and ecclesiology but also to critically reflect on the wider urban culture itself. What does it mean to be a Christian in Beira? How does a Beirense uniquely worship God? Defining a music-culture identity is an important part of composing contextual worship music in the city of Beira, Mozambique.

Globalization and contextualization

Ott, in his article on globalization and contextualization, states,

Churches of the majority world are experiencing, in addition to the already disorienting influences of globalization, a tsunami of relationships, workers, programs and agendas from Christians abroad . . . often enthusiastically and uncritically adopted. Western ways can appear cosmopolitan and forward-looking in comparison to seemingly backward and narrow traditional ways. (2015: 47)

The deluge of global Christian forces has reached Beira’s shores. The focus of contextualization is less about finding “redemptive analogies” and “functional equivalents” and more about helping Christians in “managing the barrage of outside influences and discerning their real value for their local situation” (Ott 2015, 47).

Globalization significantly impacts contextualization. Particularly in the city of Beira, where “local identity is strongly ambiguous and highly hybridized” (Kwan, 2004: 62), there is no clearly fixed culture with which to dialogue. While I continue to advocate for inclusion of traditional arts in worship praxis, I recognize that “people are now participating in different realities at the same time—there is multiple belonging” (Schreiter, 1997: 26). Globalization has hybridized local Christian identity in Beira.

The globalization of missions highlights the need to reconfigure “how” mission is done. Ott suggests that there are four implications for expanding contextualization models stemming from this cultural hybridization.

Hospitality—a way through the muddy waters

Schreiter states that “Globalization is . . . a quest for the bridges between the global and the local” (1993: 83). Though I agree, the bridge is slanted. “Western churches may acknowledge in theory that they have much to learn from Majority World brothers and sisters, but in practice a spirit of superiority generally prevails” (Ott, 2015: 54). How does one fight against “missional neo-colonialism” on the one hand, and “syncretistic stagnation” on the other in worship?

Particularly in the context of a worship service, I contend that the priority remains the performance of music that speaks from the heart of local believers in a local church community to the heart of God. It is what Cherry defines as “convergence worship,” that is, “the combining of the historical and the contemporary at every level of worship to create maximum opportunities for engaging worshippers with the presence of God” (2010: 248).

My main concern is not whether or not music is “foreign” or Mozambican, but whether or not the local body of believers can authentically connect with God’s presence in worship through a particular song style. Furthermore, a local body should look past the formation of its own contextual identity to embrace those outside the four walls of the church. Christians the world over must move beyond consumerism to hospitality, considering how to welcome others into the transformational presence of God.

Missio-musica

In liturgy (worship), God acts to empower the church for mission.

An important yet often neglected area of missiology is the significance of worship. John Piper, in his book Let the Nations be Glad!, argues that worship is in fact “the ultimate goal of the church (not missions)” (1993: 11). Bevans and Schroeder further develop Piper’s contention by stating, “The church is most the church when it is assembled for worship . . . to encounter God at the center is to participate in God’s life at the boundaries; to participate in God’s boundary-crossing mission is to be drawn always to the center” (2004: 362). One cannot be missional without being in communion with God through worship, and, one cannot worship without also being drawn into the rhythm of God’s missional heartbeat.

These authors make a compelling case for the interlocking dependence of worship on mission, and mission on worship. Yet many churches and mission agencies still divorce one from the other, impoverishing both their missional impulse and their worship. Worship must resume its rightful place on center stage, and once again become the main focus in churches, in seminaries, and in the lives of believers.

The question remains, What type of worship is needed? Is it simply enough to proclaim Scriptures and sing the songs we’ve always sung, to continue to repeat the hymns missionaries brought along with the gospel? I contend that it is not. Becoming a Christian is not equivalent to cultural genocide vis-à-vis musical forms (Masa, 1975: 157). Rather, the gospel reaches into new contexts, transforming people and cultures, inspiring “new songs” that, in turn, evangelize others (King, 1999: 2, 3).

In today’s reality, “everyone is a scatterling, everyone is displaced . . . left without a stable home or identity” (Taylor, 1997: 181). This global displacement puts all of us “on the road” and in contact with each other in new ways. We are all pilgrims and co-creators. These interactions give us an opportunity for creative collaboration. It is as we walk, worshipping together, as “companions of the road” ⁸ that we begin to see true transformation occur.