Gobal and Local: Worship Music and the ‘Logophonic’ Principle,or Lessons from the Songhai

Introduction

There is an acute tension between gospel and culture in church communities around the world, between having a global identity as members of the wider Christian family and having a local identity as members of a particular society in a particular location and time. This is not new. The tension has existed in every Christian community since the time of Christ. One manifestation of this tension is in corporate worship, particularly in the music of a given church community. The church in Africa is a good example. In the past two centuries, many African churches received a body of music that was mostly Euro-American in style and content. Through song, new believers learned Christian teaching, adopted a new set of values and beliefs and came to stress their global identity. Western missionaries passed on their repertoire of songs, often excluding cultural expressions of music as inappropriate, and the church in Africa imitated foreigners and identified more with the worldwide Christian family. This body of music still holds considerable influence in Africa to this day.

A church that stresses its global identity, however, runs the risk of becoming irrelevant to the people in its cultural context. Its local sense of identity may get lost or suppressed, and it ceases to have much to say to the surrounding society or to the church at large. It does not have its own voice and has lost its appeal to outsiders. Of course, a church that emphasizes its local identity over its global identity can descend into syncretism and, paradoxically, it also loses its prophetic voice in society. Both local and global identities are essential for church vitality and growth. Each will continue to be in tension with the other, and no church gets the balance between the two completely right. Still, both identities must be maximized to the fullest extent possible (Walls, 2007b: 7–8).

The worship music of the Songhai church of West Africa illustrates this tension between global and local identities. The Protestant Christian community in Niger, especially in its songs, has put a particularly heavy accent on its global identity. It seeks to connect with the church worldwide and remain distinct from the local society. Corporate worship is often dominated by hymns written in North America in the 20th century or translated praise choruses from the dynamic Pentecostal churches farther south. Given the minority, oppressed status of the Songhai church in Niger, the desire to stress its outsider identity is understandable and even commendable. We who are ‘outsiders’ to the culture should not be quick to judge a tiny minority searching for an identity that distinguishes it from the society and gives it a sense of belonging.

At the same time, the Songhai church has had little appeal to people in the local context. Outsiders often view its largely foreign body of worship music as alien and discredited. Some Christians see Euro-American worship music as THE Christian music, and many young people in the church see traditional music as outmoded and irrelevant. There are few musicians writing songs for corporate worship, and even fewer who use local instruments or music styles.

Singing has been a part of the Christian church since its inception. It is an important part of the faith and practice of millions of followers of Jesus Christ. It is an important and defining part of corporate worship. Thus, it is startling that many studies of Christian communities around the world either do not mention worship practices or reference them only briefly. Anthropological investigations of various cultures and communities are hardly better, often devoting little space to an examination of worship practices (Witvliet, 2007: xvii). The study of worship, however, is important because of its prevalence in societies and Christian communities and because it reveals vital information about a community’s beliefs and practices and the values that order the community. It was for these reasons that I chose to research the worship music of the Songhai church and its related music culture in Niger. In the process, I discovered some valuable insights that may help others reflect on worship practices and values in various church communities. In this article, I want to suggest a possible way to resolve the tension between gospel and culture, between a local and global identity, that applies to the worship music of Christian communities around the world. I will introduce a tool I developed to evaluate the worship practices of Christian communities around the world. Before I do that, however, I need to introduce the Songhai peoples to my readers and deal briefly with the concept of worship as a theological issue.

The Context: The Songhai People and Their Music

The Songhai peoples have lived for centuries along the eastern part of the Niger River bend in West Africa’s Sahel region. They are an important ethnolinguistic group in the region, famous as the architects of one of Africa’s greatest kingdoms and civilizations, which rose to prominence in the 15th and 16th centuries. During this period, education and commerce flourished, and a vibrant artistic culture developed. The music of the Songhai civilization borrowed freely from North Africa and other West African states. It centred around two main traditional genres: praise singing performed by the historian/genealogist/bard known to scholars as the griot (Songhai: jesere) and ‘liturgical’ music associated with the traditional religion of the Songhai. Two other traditional genres were festive music and hortatory music, but the jesere had a monopoly on these as well.

Let me clarify what I mean by ‘traditional’. It is not simply the binary opposite of ‘modern’. In that case it would imply a strict dichotomy between ‘old’ and ‘new’, a type of either/or thinking about music: either a ‘primitive’ past or a modernized present. It might also give the impression that, before the advent of the colonial era, Africans lived in a static, ‘primitive’ present. In this paradigm, change only occurred as they made contact with and came under the influence of Europeans (Bohlman, 2008: 256–257; Manning, 1988: 184). This is a false dichotomy. My use of the term ‘traditional’ is not meant to imply any type of either/or ideology or praxis. Quite the contrary; ‘Traditional and modern worldviews complement each other, meld together, and also remain distinct in . . . Africa’ (Charry, 2000: 24, 27). Nor does the term mean that change did not occur before the 19th century or that Africans are or were in any way inferior to other peoples (Agawu, 2003: 182). Rather, African ‘traditions’ are valuable contributions to the world’s knowledge and historical database. I am using a term that other Africans and scholars have used to describe a way of life that has roots in African soil and is in many ways distinct from other traditions but in no way excludes or diminishes them. ¹

In using the term ‘traditional’, then, I am referring to what Brian Schrag calls ‘heritage traditions’. By this he means traditions that are older, more rural, more localized geographically and tend to emanate from particular ethnolinguistic communities (2010: 56). Taking Schrag’s definition as my point of departure, I would define ‘traditional’ Songhai music as that which existed in some form before the start of the colonial era, is produced locally by professional musicians brought up in the culture using locally made materials and is claimed by Songhai peoples as their own.

One aspect of a music culture is traditional instruments. There are 13 traditional Songhai instruments that have roots in the precolonial era and are still in use today. Five of these are membranophones or types of drums. Four others are idiophones, percussion instruments such as rattles and pounded gourds. The remaining four instruments belong to the chordophone (string) category (three types of lutes) or the aerophone (wind) category (one flute).

Traditional music was often the domain of the jesere, mentioned earlier. They were an endogamous class of people, meaning they generally married within their class and passed their knowledge only to their descendants. Most Songhai did not learn to sing or play musical instruments. Indeed, they felt it was beneath their dignity to do so. As a result, many Songhai today do not know their traditional music culture well and do not have a high regard for it.

Traditional Songhai music is directed to an oral culture and is a multisensory experience, but it has a particular aural dimension. It is something to be listened to, something to be heard and felt. In Western contexts, while music is aural, it is also understood as visual, printed in a book or noted in a score. This is not the case for the Songhai. The words sung by a jesere stand out more than the musical accompaniment or melody. The stories and genealogies he recites must be heard above the sound of musical instruments or songs.

Moreover, words have power. They carry weight and have an ill-defined, mysterious force (Hale, 1998: 120–121; Maiga and Maiga, 1978: 35; Olivier de Sardan, 1976: 18). That power may be translated into rich rewards for the jesere as he sings the praises of the listener, causing him to tremble with conflicting emotions of delight and fear. The listener may be so moved that he or she will offer the jesere a generous gift in compensation for his acclaim (Bornand, 2004: 101–102; MN ¹¹ ; MS2 ¹² ). In addition, the words of a musician may incite someone to acts of bravery, courage, perseverance and daring.

In North America or Europe, music is often framed, isolated and set off in a concert hall or on an electronic device. There is often a stark contrast between musician and audience. In many African societies like the Songhai, however, music is more participatory and intimately connected to daily life events. There is often a close correspondence between music and setting. Thus, instruments or song styles are usually linked to specific occasions or events. In Africa ‘A song is composed for a particular purpose and has no meaning apart from it’ (Whelan, 1983: 178). Or, as the late Mahaman Garba, the first Nigerien ethnomusicologist puts it, music has a functional character. One does not just play music. It generally has a social, ceremonial, ritual or entertainment role (1992: 102). In addition, in most African societies, music involves more than just the singing and playing of instruments. It is not just words and/or sound. Instead, it is an event which often includes dance, drama and audience participation (King, 2004: 297; Nketia, 1974: 206–217). The activities associated with music are an integral part of the music itself. Thus, music is more of a social event than a ‘concert’ or a ‘time of worship’.

The Concept: What Is Worship?

Thinking Theologically About Worship

If constructing a definition of worship is difficult, the formulation of a Christian theology of worship is even harder. There is disagreement amongst scholars and theologians over how to interpret the Bible’s teaching on worship. One reason is that during the Reformation, two opposing worship principles developed in the Protestant church. The first, the normative principle (sometimes called the adiaphoric or Hooker principle), states that whatever is not forbidden in the Bible is permissible in worship. It is strongly associated with the Anglican confession and Methodist and Lutheran churches. Its counterpart, the regulative principle, states that worship should include only what is clearly prescribed or described in Scripture. Presbyterians, Puritans, Baptists and those in the Anabaptist tradition often operate on this principle. Between these two polarities lie a range of beliefs about and practices of worship. For example, Michael Farley (2008: 592–602) points out distinctions of praxis and theology amongst those who hold to the regulative principle. Some, like John Piper and Timothy Keller, hold to a strict regulative principle which disallows anything not explicitly found in the New Testament. Others, like Robert Webber and Alan Ross, take a broader view, seeing theological principles stated or practised in the entire Bible as forming the locus of liturgical norms.

Another reason a theology of worship is hard to formulate is that contemporary usage of the word ‘worship’ includes several reductionist views of the word’s meaning. The first is that worship refers to a cultic practice – what many Protestants call the ‘service’ – separate from the rest of life. This creates a false dichotomy between the ‘sacred’ and the ‘secular’ in the life of the Christian as though worship and the spiritual were divorced from life. A survey I took in an American church asked the question ‘What is worship?’ Some respondents answered that worship ‘usher[s] us into God’s presence’, implying that the worshipper was not in God’s presence before coming to church. This attitude also leads to the idea that music is either ‘sacred’ or ‘secular’ even though the boundary between these two categories is fluid and changes with time.

The opposite of this attitude and other reductionist view of the word is that the church assembles not for worship, but for edification. Worship in this paradigm is mainly a private affair. If worship includes all of life, however, one could hardly exclude the congregational setting from the category of worship, even if the primary aim for assembling together were edification.

A third reductionist view equates a part of the liturgy with worship. This is especially common in churches where worship is equated with music. Biblical worship is more than just music and includes the entire liturgy. A variation of this view is that music is simply a preparation for the message to follow.

A final reason for the disagreement about a theology of worship is the different theological approaches to the Bible. Here are three of the most important ones. A systematic approach, which tends to look at the Bible as a whole, tries to synthesize and construct theology along topical and synchronic lines. What DA Carson calls ‘biblical theology’, on the other hand, tends to look at the Bible in fragments or books and takes a more detailed, diachronic approach (2002: 14–17). Both are legitimate ways to interpret the Bible, but they result in different approaches to the subject of worship. A third approach, narrative theology, looks at the Bible’s story line and ‘meaning’ but may ignore or distort propositional sections.

While there is not sufficient space in this article for a full discussion of the issue, a theology of worship should take into account several factors. First, it must be grounded in both Old and New Testaments. This is not to say that one should favour ‘biblical’ theology over ‘systematic’ or ‘narrative’ theology. Rather, it should be inclusive, bringing together the best scholarship from various theologies with their inherent contradictions.

Second, it must recognize that biblical worship is both human and divine. It is divine in its origin, focus and goal, but human in its response. By definition, both human and divine activity are necessary for worship to happen. While we may say that Christian worship begins and ends with God, without a human component, there can be no worship. Worship is a response to God – who he is and what he has done – ascribing to him all honour and worth because he is worthy. Mary MacGann puts it this way:

Christian worship is not only about God; more importantly, it is of God, and therefore a profoundly theological act. It is a living encounter, a fresh experience of God’s self-disclosure and self-communication, an emergent experience of God’s action within the community. (2002: 67)

Third, a biblical concept of worship must take into account all of life, not just the assembling of a community. For the Christian, there really are no sacred places or times. All of life is sacred, and all of life is an act of worship. Andrew Walls says that ‘Christian faith is embodied faith, embodied in thought as well as in living. It cannot be carried without a lifestyle that forms a casing for it’ (2007a: 32). This does not reduce the sacredness or importance of corporate worship. Rather, as one theologian puts it, ‘While all of life is worship, gathered worship with the body of Christ is at the heart of a life of worship. Corporate worship is intended by God to inform and elevate a life of worship’ (Hughes, 2002: 142).

Fourth, worship is structured with embodied rituals. These rituals are formal and organized and have various purposes. Even though one purpose of worship is edification, there are other purposes such as praise, proclamation and exhortation. These purposes are not mutually exclusive but overlap and interact with each other (see Ac. 2:42-47). In 12 of my 40 interviews with Songhai Christians, for instance, people expressed the idea that proclamation is one of the primary functions of worship music.

Fifth, worship must involve the whole person. It should balance intellect and emotion, head and heart. It needs to engage both thought and feelings and appeal to all the senses. John Piper states that intellectual worship based mainly on doctrine and theology produces dead orthodoxy and a church full of artificial admirers. Worship based almost entirely on emotion, however, produces frenzy and cultivates shallow thinking within the church. He concludes, ‘True worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine’ (1986: 81–82).

Finally, worship involves sacrifice. This is evident in the Old Testament, with its daily animal sacrifices, but it has echoes in the New Testament in passages like Rom. 12:1, where believers are admonished to offer their bodies as ‘living sacrifices’ as an act of worship. It is also stated in the Hebrews passage mentioned earlier.

The Issue: Song in Christian Worship

Song as an element of modern Christian worship has strong apostolic roots. While the New Testament reveals little about what singing looked like in the early church, it is clear that it was important (1Co. 14:15; Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16; Heb. 13:16). Throughout the history of the church and across diverse cultures, song has played a central role in worship. While it has taken on different forms and served various purposes, it has rarely been absent.

Like many churches in Africa, song plays an important role in the Songhai church; however, it has been slow to incorporate its traditional music culture into worship. Songhai Christians even fall behind neighbouring African cultures like the Hausa and the Gurmancé in embracing traditional music. While some Songhai told me all four of the traditional genres can be adapted for church settings, there is otherwise little evidence of the influence of Songhai traditional music in church. Most of the song tunes come from outside, and when they are in Songhai, the words are usually translated versions of tunes from French or English. Only one of the traditional instruments I identified, the gourd rattle, is used much in church. There are some very competent musicians in the church, but most of them are not schooled in traditional music and do not know how to play traditional instruments. Few have tried to compose new lyrics or melodies in a traditional style.

When I first set foot in a Nigerien church in 1984, I expected the congregational singing to be lively and upbeat, with much clapping, movement and dancing. To my surprise, we started off with a local rendition of the great hymn ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’, sung in the local language at about half-tempo with no musical accompaniment. The song seemed interminable, and though the congregants sang loudly, there was almost no movement. People seemed lifeless and detached from the music. There was a lack of expression and participation by the church members. To be fair, the youth and ladies’ choirs both used locally made rhythm instruments and moved to the beat of their songs, but the congregational singing seemed dull and monotonous, using tunes borrowed from the US or Europe.

During my years in Niger, I have seen this pattern repeated in many churches. They may occasionally be composed or arranged by a member of the community, but more often they have a Western tune set to an ‘African’ rhythm and style, with instruments like the jembe or an electronic keyboard for accompaniment. The words are usually translations from French or English. There are very few congregational songs composed by local people in a traditional style using traditional instruments.

Key Organizing Principles of Worship: Word and Sound

Two elements are important to song: word and sound. Following the paradigm of the traditional music culture, the Christian church in much of Africa places a strong emphasis on the lyrics of worship songs. It is a central, defining element of worship music. Jean Kidula reports from the context of Kenya that ‘words are more important than any other musical element’ (2013: 105). Felix Muchimba, a Zambian church leader, says that as long as Christ is glorified and people are admonished and educated, then what matters most is not the tune, but the lyrics (2008: 89). Likewise, while the whole musical event, including movement, participation, instruments and tune, is important to many Songhai believers, the words stand out to them.

During my research, Songhai Christian participants repeatedly noted the importance of song lyrics. While the entire worship event is important and all the senses are involved in worship, Christians put a special stress on hearing. According to Sathianathan Clarke, hearing is a characteristic emphasis of oral cultures, where sound is central to thought and communication (1999: 150). Songhai Protestant Christians, following the lead of their culture, place a strong emphasis on song lyrics. This high regard for words in songs is particularly striking. For them, words are often the most important concern in the choice of church music. They have special significance or power.

I have heard many Songhai make doctrinal or ideological statements about song lyrics which show how strongly they feel about them. For example, one pastor made the comment that ‘the [Songhai] love words, beautiful words. Well-crafted words are what interest them’ (HK ⁶ ). When asked whether the music or the words of songs were more pleasing to her, HM1 ⁷ immediately responded, ‘The words that it [the song] says’ (2015: 34:17-34:46). She went on to qualify her statement by saying that both music and words are pleasing, but it is the words that make a song meaningful. Another lady stated that the words of a song will show if it is suitable for church (MB2 ¹⁰ ). AB ² stated that it is not the tune, the chords, the sound or the rhythm that is important, but the words. Referring to the French version of the song ‘Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God’, he stated that it is well crafted, calms the heart and comes directly from the Bible (2013: 1:07:34-1:09:26). MB1 ⁹ said that he pays attention to the words, which to him are more important than the melody or the sound of the instruments (2012: 4:03-5:05). AZ ⁴ added that singing is essential in church ‘because the words that are used are used for God, to praise God, to worship God. . . . That is why we should weigh the words’ (2015: 1:15:50-1:16:27). When I asked the women at another church why the words of songs were so important, one stated,

Because it’s . . . through these words that we really see the greatness of God, and we learn about God. The words that are brought out, they really help us to see who Jesus is. It’s . . . not the melody. The melody says nothing to us, but the words which come out . . . that is what is essential. (HA3 in Women 2015: 11:31–12:09)

Some people have further stated that songs may express ideas and emotions that cannot be uttered in ordinary speech. This is one function of song (Corbitt, 1998: 118–119; Hatcher, 2001: 476; Saliers, 2007: 7–8). One of these hard-to-express ideas is God’s forgiveness and his love for people. MB1, commenting on the Songhai translation of the English hymn ‘No Not One’, said that this is important because love and forgiveness are rarely expressed verbally in Songhai culture (2012: 11:50-12:47). Some also shared that songs teach us about God and how we should respond to him (IH ⁸ ; MB2, 2012: 2:54-3:29). Others commented on the hope and the joy the lyrics convey to them, both in this life and in the one to come. For instance, the song ‘Come and Go With Me’, translated into Songhai, states how wonderful heaven will be with health, happiness, peace and the presence of God.

While words are important, without a particular type of sound, song would be little more than normal speech. Worship music is more than speech. It is a type of communication that speaks on several levels: cultural, semiotic and emotional, to mention only a few. Sound wedded to text communicates much more deeply than pure language. In addition, the way music communicates is also much different than language. Music calls to people, motivates them, creates a particular mood, expresses an emotion or sets a context. It is impossible to ignore sound as a key component of song.

The Tool: The Logophonic Principle

Ethnomusicologist John Blacking has described music in two ways: humanly organized sound and soundly organized humanity. Humanly organized sound emphasizes that music is a product of human behaviour and ideas. No other species can organize sound the way humans can. While each culture has its own way to define ‘music’, every known culture has some kind of special sound organized by members of the community (Blacking, 1973: 10). Soundly organized humanity looks at music a different way, suggesting that it is a part of cultural process and ‘expresses aspects of the experience of individuals in society’ (Blacking, 1973: 89). It has to do with how people relate to and communicate with each other. Music, then, while created by individuals, is a shared experience that is both influenced by and influences society.

Taking my cue from Blacking, I submit that there are two complementary ways Songhai believers look at worship: soundly ordered words and words soundly ordered. Soundly ordered words involve right belief or orthodoxy. Believers and churches amongst the Songhai want sound theology in the lyrics of their songs. If it is not in accordance with their interpretation of the Bible, they will not tolerate it in church. Because of the close association between song and language in the culture and in the Bible and the power associated with words, believers see soundly ordered words as one of the most important qualifications in the choice of worship songs. Many of the choruses and songs come directly from the Bible or contain biblical language or imagery. An example of this is the chorus, entitled ‘Gloire à Dieu Qui Est dans les Cieux’, which repeats the following two phrases over and over: ‘Glory to God in the highest. Everyone sing Hallelu, Hallelujah’.

Words soundly ordered involve the appropriate use of sound or a phonic orthopraxy. It includes both communal singing accompanied by music and messages spoken in a corporate church setting. It is how the church expresses its belief and theology. Song is central to worship for the Songhai, and most would say that some kind of musical accompaniment is an integral part of singing. It is a message encoded and embodied in sound, a sung sermon. For many, singing is almost more important than the sermon because it conveys a message in easily memorizable, attractive ways that link emotion, mind and body. Not only that, but sound makes connections with attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of the world. Don Saliers says that ‘spirituality has to do with sounding life before God’, and that music helps people make sense of the temporality of their existence in the transcendent elements of time (2007: 6–9). Roberta King states that music helps people process life (2008: 120). It helps shape and express one’s theology in ways that are concrete and less abstract. In addition, songs reenergize and renew the believer’s commitment to God and to fellow human beings. Not only does theology shape song but song shapes theology. It expresses belief, but it also becomes belief. Songs communicate theological meaning, but they also interpret Scripture.

These two related ideas, soundly ordered words and words soundly ordered, which I have combined under a single term the ‘logophonic’ principle are important organizing concepts in the liturgical theology of many Songhai churches. The logophonic principle, as I define it, is the bringing together of sound and word in such a way that both conform to Songhai Protestant notions of biblical principles and are judged by them as appropriate to worship in the context. In suggesting this organizing principle, I am not attempting to lay aside the normative or regulative principles. Rather, I am saying that these two principles do not mean much to Songhai believers in their context. In the Songhai church, all aspects of worship are centred on sounds and words. Both are important, and this contrasts with many churches in Europe or North America, where the Word is often seen as primary. The Songhai believers I have talked with see both elements as essential to meaningful worship.

Application of the Tool

This logophonic principle could help resolve the tension between gospel and culture in the area of worship music in three ways. First, applying the concept of soundly ordered words, churches and musicians could take a hard look at song lyrics to see if they conform to the principle of ‘orthodox’ belief and if they express the full range of biblical theology. They could further think about appropriate imagery and ideas in crafting song lyrics. In the Songhai context, for instance, it might be appropriate to use images from the natural world, from Old Testament narratives or from Christological themes in the New Testament (Balisky, 1993: 451–453). Christian musicians also need to practise their craft theologically. They need to study their faith deeply. Just as the jesere need to know their audience and the stories of their audience in order to praise them, Christian musicians need to know the theology and history of the Bible thoroughly and have a deep connection with their congregations so they can communicate the message faithfully in music and lead congregations to praise God. Musicians and churches could also examine the theology and nature of their song lyrics and determine what is important to them as believers and what makes up their global identity. They can then craft and use song lyrics in accord with their convictions and practice.

Second, having evaluated song lyrics under the lens of soundly ordered words, musicians and churches could then explore new ways of attaching appropriate sounds to words, using the principle of words soundly ordered. They must discern their local identity that allows them to speak to the people of their context and to contribute their unique insights and practices in music and worship to the global church. They could seek to match words with sounds that would appeal to a broad range of people both inside and outside the Christian community. Musicians in the church and in the culture could experiment with styles of music and instruments that come out of the traditional culture. They could mix traditional instruments with modern ones. They would not reject what they have already received (e.g. the jembe in the Songhai church), but they would investigate other possibilities within the local culture. In short, they would seek to embrace the context in ways appropriate to the contemporary world. In the context of Niger, this might mean trying to introduce some of the less controversial traditional instruments into worship, particularly the hourglass pressure drum and possibly the stringed instruments known as the moolo and the kuntiji. The moolo, in particular, is an instrument that is widely respected in the culture. I have heard it said multiple times that people are quick to attune their ears to a message accompanied by a moolo (AY ³ ; HA2 ⁵ ). In addition, one could experiment with more indigenous styles of song such as call and response, accented trochaic syllables and pentatonic scales.

There are other possible ways of applying the principle of words soundly ordered. The first would be to take Scripture passages and set them to music. Many churches in West Africa have used this technique as a way to take suitable text and craft appropriate melodies around it. The second is to create two kinds of songs. The first kind would be songs that are more lyrical and active, expressing the more subjective side of Christian experience. The second kind are songs that are more historical and systematic, expressing the theological and objective side of Christian faith (Corbitt, 1998: 176, 208). Of course, not all songs fit neatly into either category, with many containing elements of both, but the point is to intentionally craft songs that cover the range of Christian belief and experience. A third possibility is to put music and song into the context of the entire church liturgy just as an ethnomusicologist studies music in the context of the entire culture.

A third possible way to use the logophonic principle is to evaluate the worship theology and praxis. Here again, there is a tension between our local and global identities. The Word comes to us from outside, with symbols and elements that are foreign to our culture. The Word is then expressed in various mediums in worship. One medium that articulates the Word well in many contexts is song, a medium that is particularly useful, powerful and meaningful when expressed in local idioms. The goal, then, in crafting music for the church is twofold. On the one hand, sounds and words need to be intelligible and pleasing to participants, something that appeals to the local identity. On the other hand, the words and sounds need to take people beyond their culture and limited understanding of the Bible, connecting them to the church worldwide and informing them of their Christian identity. In short, worship music needs to be faithful to both gospel and culture, expressing both global and local identities.

There are at least four ways to create new songs in new cultural contexts. First, one can take an existing song from a foreign source and translate it or modify the words, using the same tune. This is a method that many missionaries used in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries. Since the church in Asia, Africa and Latin America has so many of these types of songs, however, I would recommend that it attempt to use other methods of song creation. The second method would be to write new lyrics for existing tunes. The tune would most likely come from the community, and one could either modify the words or create entirely new words for the song which fit the contours of the language and the context of the church. A third way to create new songs would be to write a new tune for an existing text. I witnessed this kind of music several times during my research. Once while observing the worship at the AGK, a small church perched at the edge of the Niger River in Niamey, Niger, a group of Chadians got up to sing a song from the traditional French hymnal, Chants de Victoire (Songs of Victory). Since I knew the song, I expected to hear a familiar melody. Instead, what I heard was a tune composed by a Chadian that fit the French words and obviously meant a lot to those who were singing it. At another church, the ladies’ choir sang a song out of the hymnal. The tune was not the Western one suggested in the hymnal’s appendix of suggested tunes, but a tune written by one of the choir members. This method of song creation needs more experimentation and use. A final way of creating songs would be to compose a completely new song with new lyrics and a new tune. This may be the hardest for many Christians to do, but it should be attempted, nonetheless.

Conclusion: Lyrics and Sound in Worship Songs

During my research on Songhai music, one important finding was a decided emphasis on song lyrics, both in the traditional music culture and in the worship music of the church. Wedded to acceptable genres of organized sound, words have particular power and meaning to the Songhai. For Christians, it is important that the song’s words conform to orthodox belief. In this sense, they are as important as the melody to which they are set. They look at sounds and, especially, words to express and shape their Christian belief and practice.

This discovery of the importance of words led me to identify a logophonic principle which could help guide Songhai believers in their worship. It is composed of two parts: soundly ordered words, or words informed by an orthodox belief, and words soundly ordered, or a phonic orthopraxy. While the Songhai apply both sides of this principle to worship music, they have put a heavy emphasis on soundly ordered words, on the gospel side of their identity. They have not fully realized the power of their cultural identity, putting appropriate sounds to words using the second half of the principle: words soundly ordered.

The logophonic principle could be applied outside the context of the Songhai people of Niger and Mali. It could be helpful a way for churches and musicians in other communities to evaluate their own worship practices. It might be a way to resolve the some of the tension between gospel and culture that arises in the domain of worship music. Perhaps it could be a tool that helps congregations and musicians find ways to express both their local and global identities. Since songs both teach doctrine and express emotions, bringing together head and heart, musicians and church leaders should analyse both the lyrics and the melodies and modes of accompaniment to determine their appropriateness in a given situation.

In conclusion, two comments are in order. Use of the logophonic principle does not de-emphasize the word. Rather, it enhances it. The principle can be used to evaluate words of both songs and preaching. Churches should take seriously not only the lyrics and meanings of songs and the doctrines taught in sermons.

Neither does use of the principle exclude the debate about the normative and regulative principles. It simply looks at worship from a different angle, one that includes a cultural component. One could choose a preferred form of worship based on these latter principles and still use the logophonic principle alongside it. For some cultures, however, the debate about the normative and regulative principles will not have much force or meaning. For them, acceptable biblical words tied to appropriate cultural sounds may be a more important consideration. In seeking to bring together their global and their local identities, they need to examine the lyrics of their songs using the idea of soundly ordered words and find their rhythm and melody in words soundly ordered.

The suggestions I have made will require thought and humility on the part of church leaders and musicians. Some churches may be ready to incorporate changes like these into worship, and some musicians may be interested in these initiatives. All of us, musicians, leaders and church members need to think through the factors that influence our choices of music and consider the pressures that the changing world around us has brought to musical choices. With good work in the areas of both sound and word, we should be able to craft music that would have unprecedented power in communicating the Word in our cultural context (Collinge, 2010: 20).