Abstract
The relationship between arts and mission has been a particularly troubled one. Today, many believe that Christian mission has too often dismissed, demeaned, or even destroyed local arts expressions around the world in an effort to impose the West's imperial project of “The 3 Cs”—Commerce, Christianity, and Civilization. But a new conversation is emerging that examines more closely the intersectional relationship between arts and mission when they are understood and carried out in more fruitful and healthy ways. In this introductory article to the April 2024 issue of “Transformation,” five conversation areas between the arts and mission are explored: Biblical roots, creative expressions, mission history, cultural influences, and worship practices. Subsequent articles throughout this issue of the journal then illustrate the five conversations in more detail.
Introduction
In 2019, Indian professor Jacob Joseph—a current faculty member at South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies (SAIACS), Bengaluru, India—published a searing assessment of the ongoing Western influence on the arts in Indian worship practices (Joseph, 2019). Addressing issues as far-ranging as Westernized worship music, posture, language, preaching, architecture, attire, and global media marketing (CDs, DVD, and on-line resources), Joseph named the desperate need to develop indigenous worship forms for the Indian church. In the opening paragraph of the book's Preface, Joseph set the stage for his in-depth critique to follow: Contextualization is a topic that has been discussed in the Christian theological circle for a long time. Numerous papers and seminars have been conducted on this topic but in reality, contextualization is one of the least practiced theological concepts. And worship in India is moving towards even more westernized worship. On one hand several mainline denominations continue to worship in the same pattern that has been existing for many decades without much change. On the other hand, Pentecostal and Charismatic churches incline towards contemporary trends in worship imitating Hill Songs or other contemporary artists. Although theologically we are convinced of the need of contextualization of worship, practically nothing is happening in the local congregations except for a few isolated attempts in certain independent congregations (Joseph, 2019: xv).
Arts are one of the first places one can detect the church's commitment to indigeneity in worship patterns, pastoral care, architectural designs, and mission strategies. The long-lasting effect of artistic choices made by faith communities is enormous for a church's self-identity and for its perception by external observers both near and far. Local arts expressions are foundational in every culture. They communicate cultural priorities, embedded values, heart desires, and societal concerns. “Oral traditions house their library of cultural and value-centered information, not in buildings or in books in shelves, but in songs, poems, dances, dramas, stories, visual arts, and other expressive mediums. These cultural traditions, when accessed appropriately, function as an effective bridge for an oral tradition's comfortable movement towards new innovations which are entering their life context” (Saurman, 2010).
Incremental progress, despite a troubled past
The relationship between arts and mission has been a particularly troubled one. As I have noted elsewhere, “many young people today and virtually all secular academics are quick to claim that Christian mission has too often dismissed, demeaned, or even destroyed local arts expressions around the world in an effort to impose the West's imperial project of ‘The 3 Cs’—Commerce, Christianity, and Civilization” (Krabill, 2023: 8). Even in those instances where local artistic expressions have been retained and tolerated, Western arts have often been elevated, given special status, and promoted over local ones. Commonly employed terms for arts of European origin such as “fine arts” or “high culture” imply that some arts are better than others, superior in aesthetic content, quality, and performance, and perhaps even closer to God's plan and desire for humanity. In many parts of the world, Western arts expressions have long played the privileged authoritative role of defining, shaping, and judging local arts, labeled condescendingly as “folk arts” and thus as inferior, incompetent, and a grade below the Euroarts standard of excellence (Krabill, 2023: 8).
To be fair, there has been some movement in missiological circles toward a healthier posture regarding the arts in recent years. The Evangelical Missiological Society has for several years structured an arts track in its annual seminar offerings. The American Society of Missiology featured arts and mission as its conference theme in plenary presentations and seminar sessions during its June 2023 annual meeting. Chicago's Moody Bible Institute chose an arts and mission theme for its student mission's conference in February 2024. The Mission Commission of World Evangelical Alliance created a special double edition of its journal, Connections, in 2010 focused on “Arts in Mission.” The International Orality Network devoted two issues of its journal, Arts and Orality, in 2016 to arts and mission-related themes. The Mission Frontiers journal has featured arts and mission in three-year installments (August 1996, September/October 2014, and September/October 2023). And the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies in its Transformation journal is presenting a series of articles on arts and mission in this April 2024 issue of the journal.
Fuller, more in-depth missiological treatments of the arts are also beginning to emerge in book-length published works (Beattie and Soh, 2022; Farhadian, 2007; King, 2019; King and Dyrness, 2019; King and Tan, 2014; Krabill et al., 2013; Moon, 2017; Moreau, 2018; and Smith, 2021). But these are largely academic treatments that will require serious effort and considerable time to trickle down into training programs for church leaders and cross-cultural gospel communicators before eventually entering the life-blood of worshiping faith communities around the world. In the meantime, they remain, according to Jacob Joseph, “an academic exercise in seminaries and other academic circles, rather than a reality within the church” (Joseph, 2019: 134).
One effort to move beyond the walls of academia and train an international cadre of ethnoarts specialists for the creation of local arts expressions in the church has been the work of the Global Ethnodoxology Network. This has been carried out through three primary activities—networking (active website at worldofworship.org, free email newsletter, members-only email forum with several hundred global associates, web-based Virtual Library of resources, participation in regional and global gatherings); training (two popular courses—Introduction to Ethnodoxology and Arts for a Better Future, which to date has trained over 1200 workshop participants from more than 60 countries on five continents); and resourcing—two large volumes, a Handbook (Krabill et al., 2013) and a training Manual (Schrag, author, Krabill, gen. ed., 2013; 2024 2nd ed.), in addition to an academic peer-reviewed journal, Ethnodoxology: A Global Forum for Arts and Christian Faith (artsandchristianfaith.org).
In this issue, arts and mission find common ground
According to John Franklin, the arts can assist us in carrying out the missional task through the hospitable character they naturally provide. “Art at its best,” says Franklin, “reaches into the deep places of our humanity. We are often drawn to art in ways we are unable to explain. Because of its power to move us and to inspire us, art is capable of bridging our differences” (Franklin, 2010: 6). This is of particular importance, he adds, in many places in the world where Christian mission is perceived as coercive, rather than invitational; imperialistic, rather than vulnerable; and culturally insensitive, rather than respectful of others. Might art serve to diffuse the cultural shock so common in our missional work? Could the arts soften the hard edges of our sometimes preachy style? Could the arts provide openings for exploring the big questions of human existence—which are essentially theological questions, questions with spiritual import? Art is certainly capable of bridging our differences and helping us to see what we as human beings hold in common (Franklin, 2010: 6).
Arts and mission—when done well—share more common ground than is sometimes imagined. In this April issue of Transformation, we will explore five areas of common interest through five articles pointing us in the direction of the intersectional relationship taking place in this emerging conversation. We will call these “biblical roots,” “creative expressions,” “mission history,” “cultural influences,” and “worship practices.”
Biblical roots
The Hebrew Bible—referred to by most Christians as the Old Testament—is replete with artistic forms designed to assist God's people in their life, worship, and witness. Emily R. Brink (2013: 9–12) categorizes these aesthetic norms of beauty and excellence in three ways: what we hear (singing, music, and proclamation), what we see (architecture, furnishings, dress, and decorum), and when we move (pageantry, drama, and dance). Abundant detail is dedicated in the biblical text to the designing, creating, equipping, and maintaining of worship spaces, furnishings, times, feasts, rituals, garments, instruments, artists, composers, songs, and liturgy (Krabill, 2019: 28–30). Mission—for the Hebrew people—would happen when the nations of the earth would physically ascend God's holy mountain, enter Yahweh's house in Jerusalem, join joyfully in Israel's worship by culturally embracing the established rituals, singing the songs of Zion, and learning of God's ways (Micah 4:1–2).
At this point in the history of God's people, mission and arts find common ground and are, in fact, inextricably intertwined (Moreau, 2018: 150). Collin Cornell, in his article on “Art on Mission with the Tabernacle Builders” in this April issue of Transformation, introduces us to one of the pivotal moments in this story when God informs Moses of his desire and ultimate purpose to dwell bodily in a Holy Place and in the midst of his newly formed and liberated people. To do so, God declares, “I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts” (Exodus 31:1-5, NIV). From this divine initiative for an earthly dwelling place, Cornell expands our definition of mission by asserting that we, as God's covenant partners, are subsequently invited to make this world a fit home for God and for other creatures.
Creative expressions
Central to equipping God's people for mission is the biblical narrative—the church's grounding and guide. From the opening verses of the biblical story, we are presented with the activity of a Creator God that sets the tone for everything to follow. “From the very beginning,” writes Erwin Raphael McManus (2014: 10-11), “the Scriptures describe God as an artist. At his core, God is an artisan. On the seventh day, he rested not from his work of engineering or his work of teaching or his work of administrating, but from his work of creating. […] Six times it was good enough to describe creation as good. But […] it was only when God created us that he upgraded the compliment and said not only that it was good, but it was very good. […] Our story begins with a kiss, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, God pressing against us. We begin when God exhales and we inhale. This is the level of intimacy and synchronicity for which we were always intended. While all creation declares the glory of God, we humans bear the image of God.”
Based on these foundational observations, McManus makes four declarations: To create is to be human. To create is to fulfill our divine intention. To create is to reflect the image of God. To create is an act of worship (2014: 9–10). These statements serve as a launchpad for God's people to claim and reclaim their creative essence and embrace their calling as stewards of the artistic gifts and talents given them. Not surprisingly, this sense of participation in the divine creative process unleashed a flurry of artistic expression from the earliest pages of the biblical story on through the history of the Christian movement (Krabill, 2019: 28).
In 2010, the Lausanne movement held its third Congress on World Evangelization, this time in Cape Town, South Africa. The statement emerging from the gathering was called, The Cape Town Commitment: A Confession of Faith and a Call to Action. Embedded in this confession is a short statement about “Truth and the Arts in Mission” (Cameron, 2023: 130–131): We possess the gift of creativity because we bear the image of God. Art in its many forms is an integral part of what we do as humans and can reflect something of the beauty and truth of God. Artists at their best are truth-tellers and so the arts constitute one important way in which we can speak the truth of the gospel. Drama, dance, story, music and visual image can be expressions both of the reality of our brokenness, and of the hope that is centered in the gospel that things will be made new. In the world of mission, the arts are an untapped resource. We actively encourage greater Christian involvement in the arts.
In this issue of Transformation, author Xiaoli Yang describes the life of prolific hymn composer, Lü Xiaomin, a rural Chinese Christian woman who, without any formal musical training, has over the past 30 years composed more than 2000 Chinese hymns currently sung in faith communities across China and in Chinese communities around the world. In her chapter, “Canaan Hymns: Towards a Decolonizing Missiology of the Chinese Church Movement,” Yang demonstrates how the arts and mission work together in Xiaomin's hymns to become a hallmark of contemporary Chinese Christianity.
Mission history
“There was nothing distinctive about the earliest Christian art,” writes mission historian Andrew F. Walls, “except its subject-matter: it brought no style, form, or technique that was not already employed in pagan Roman art” (Walls, 1996: 173). Eleanor Kreider illustrates this brilliantly in her description of early catacomb paintings, bas-relief sculpture, signet rings, images of doves, fish, ships in full sail, anchors, and hero and biblical stories clad in the iconography of Greco-Roman culture (Kreider, 2013: 26–27). But by 1500, says Walls, when imperial Western Christendom was establishing prolonged connections and relationships with cultures and religions in southern continents, “Christianity was geographically more concentrated in Europe than at any time before or since. […] By 1500 European Christianity possessed a coherent, largely homogeneous artistic tradition. Art was, generally speaking, Christian art” (Walls, 1996: 174).
Through the colonizing impulses of the 16th–19th centuries, the mighty force of European cultural hegemony was felt throughout Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The impact of European social, economic, political, and religious influence in the Philippines, as described by Ed Lapiz, could be repeated in virtually every part of the world: Christianity came to the Philippines together with colonization. Catholicism came with the Spanish Conquest in the sixteenth century, and Protestantism came with American occupation of the country in 1899. Successful evangelization was often measured by the destruction of indigenous culture. The God of the Bible was presented as a Western deity who could only be pleased with Western cultural expressions—in architecture, language, or music. Liturgy had to conform to Western aesthetics. Indigenous culture was judged as demonic in a way that was very colonialist and oppressive (Lapiz, 2010: 7-8).
In this issue of Transformation, author Susangeline Y. Patrick, explores one small part of this story in the 16th–17th century nuanced and complex attitudes and practices of Franciscan friar missionaries and Indigenous artists in Mexico working to transform the perceived local idols into Christianized sacred icons. According to Patrick, the missionaries’ inability to regulate the synthesized Indigenous Catholic visual piety led to the eventual embrace of cultural and religious diffusion.
Cultural influences
In its Prolog to the Lausanne Occasional Paper, “Redeeming the Arts” (2004), the authors make this rather startling assertion: “Art, in and of itself, cannot transform; only Christ can transform the human condition.” They go on to say, With that clarification as context, we can show that the arts allow for diversity as they “witness” in verbal and nonverbal ways to the truth about the human condition and incarnationally “show” God's redemptive purposes. They can also draw people to Christ when linked to acts of compassion and service. The arts enable cross-cultural and cross-generational communication and contextualization. Social and economic barriers can be overcome through collaborative art making, and arts used in therapies can invigorate health and healing (Lausanne Occasional Paper, 2004: Prologue).
Ultimately, mission and the arts are best when they work together at the transformational task of God's reconciling mission. As Beattie suggests, “Bringing about genuine transformation requires both missional understanding and thoughtful artistic practice that draw deeply on the power of the arts to challenge how people view their daily lives in order to invoke the possibility of change and point them in the direction of the kingdom and the God who sustains it” (2022: 28). This often happens most effectively through the softer, gentler nudging of the arts when they “speak to our need to move beyond prose and step into the world of the poetic, of image, metaphor, drama, movement—all ways of communication expressing more than we can say” (Franklin, 2010: 7).
The powerful, transforming impact of incorporating local arts in the life of the church is seen clearly in the music selected and employed by faith communities for nurturing believers and equipping them for service and witness in the world. This question is developed more fully in this issue of Transformation by author Lim Swee Hong in his article, “Let Us Sing to God: The Value of Asian Congregational Songs for Liturgy and Mission.” He ends his reflections with the clarion call that if Asian Christianity wishes to move beyond its reputation as a Western-imported religion, this should be not only of liturgical importance, but a missiological priority for the Asian Church in the years ahead.
Worship practices
When Yahweh liberated the Hebrew slaves to begin their long journey toward becoming God's people and a “light to the nations,” God commanded Moses to announce to Pharoah, “The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert” (Exodus 7:16 NIV). What a fascinating mixture of mission, worship, and the arts as God commissions and empowers Spirit-filled artists to build a divine dwelling for his residence among them.
Beattie describes the eternal dynamic that transpires between worship and witness. “Christian faith begins in worship,” he says, “but when expressed in human lives, it pushes Christians out to witness to God's purposes of redemption and transform the communities and societies around them by demonstrating the reality of the kingdom community and its kingdom lifestyle” (2022: 12). When this happens, the gospel crosses cultural and artistic boundaries and becomes good news to observant Jews, to Greek-speaking Hellenists, invading “barbarians,” Irish ascetics, German peasants, Victorian elites, white-robed Nigerians and Indian mystics, to name only a few. This should encourage us, for it demonstrates that the ultimate translatability of the Christian message is not just a theoretical hope, but a descriptive fact. The church is without a doubt the most linguistically, culturally, and ethnically diverse movement on the planet. And, in fact, “the Church must be diverse because humanity is diverse,” states Andrew Walls. At the same time, “the Church must be one,” he counters, “because Christ is one, embodying in himself all of the diversity of culture-specific humanity” (2007: 32).
In the final article of this Transformation issue, we examine the Nairobi Statement of the Lutheran World Federation. The statement focuses on the relationship between worship and culture and posits four core affirmations, namely, that worship is transcultural, contextual, counter-cultural, and cross-cultural. Numerous theologians, liturgists, and anthropologists have reflected on this statement, but in line with the primary focus of this journal, four missiologists have been invited to apply a missiological lens to the Nairobi affirmations based on their own ministry settings and professional involvements.
