Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 ISSN 2324-6375

Arts & Orality Part 1: Foundations and Applications

Piper • Kreider • Hawn • Lim • Oswald • Pierce Rowe • Carson • Rayl • Ferguson • Unseth Hoogerheide • Krabill • Bowman • Lowther • Atkins The Seven Disciplines of Orality

Courtesy of Dr. Chuck Madinger who leads Global Impact Mission and serves on the International Orality Network’s Leadership Team facilitating the Research Task Force. The Word Became Fresh Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 ISBN 978-962-7673-35-4 ISSN 2324-6375

Cover Photo A group of women who are part of a choir react with delight as they hear a story told by pastor Elasi, in their mother tongue—Nyanga.

Additional Photos All photos not otherwise credited have been contributed by members of the International Council of Ethnodoxologists (ICE).

Word Art The word art at the beginning of each article was created using Wordle.net with the font Loved by the King.

Articles All of the articles in this issue—aside from those by authors Atkins, Hoogerheide, and Unseth—have been adapted or directly reprinted with permission from William Carey Library from the volume Worship and Mission for the Global Church: An Ethnodoxology Handbook, edited by James R. Krabill, gen. ed., and Frank Fortunato, Robin P. Harris, and Brian Schrag (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 2013). “The LORD said to Moses, ‘See, I have called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft.” Exodus 31:1-5 (ESV)

“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever!” Psalm 30:11-12 (ESV) The Word Became Fresh

Orality Journal is the journal of the International Orality Network. It is published online semi-annually and aims to provide a platform for scholarly discourse on the issues of orality, discoveries of innovations in orality, and praxis of effectiveness across multiple domains in society. This online journal is international and interdisciplinary, serving the interests of the orality movement through research articles, documentation, book reviews, and academic news. Occasionally, print editions will be provisioned. Submission of items that could contribute to the furtherance of the orality movement is welcomed.

Editorial Committee Co-Editors - Samuel E. Chiang and William Coppedge Guest Editors - Katie Hoogerheide and James R. Krabill Associate Editor - Laurie Fortunak Nichols Assistant Editor - Joni A. Chiang

International Editorial/Advisory Committee Amos Aderonmu Calvin Chong Gilles Gravelle Geoffrey W. Hahn William D. Taylor Mary Verghese Hannes Wiher

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Orality Journal Disclaimer: Articles published in Orality Journal are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors, or the International Orality Network.

ISBN 978-962-7673-35-4 ISSN 2324-6375 Copyright © 2016 International Orality Network In cooperation with Capstone Enterprises Ltd., Hong Kong

PRINTED IN HONG KONG CONTENTS

Co-Editors’ Note...... 9 Samuel E. Chiang and William Coppedge

Note from Guest Editors...... 11 Katie Hoogerheide and James R. Krabill

Foundation 1: The Biblical Basis for Indigenous Arts in Worship...... 17 John Piper The worship of God in “spirit and truth” presents both the goal and fuel of missions, which allows for a surprising freedom of indigenous cultural expression.

Foundation 2: Artistic Expression in Early Christianity...... 27 Eleanor Kreider This brief survey of artistic expressions within the Early Church invites contemporary application within today’s worship community.

Foundation 3: Cross-cultural Communication through Symbol...... 31 C. Michael Hawn and Swee Hong Lim Christian symbols, both historically and contemporarily, enable clearer communication of the gospel across cultures.

Application 1: Arts Open Tibetan Hearts to the Gospel...... 43 John Oswald A synthesizing of Tibetan cultural arts and the Christian message of hope enables Tibetans to believe in Jesus. film—song—dance—poetic narration—masks—drama—lament— painting (thangka) Application 2: Connecting Faith and Arts in Bali...... 47 John D. Pierce One Christian couple has blended art and relationships in their desire to see people in Bali transformed by their “artistic” Creator. music—dance—painting—gamelan

Application 3: Community Engagement through Ethnodramatology...... 51 Julisa Rowe Dance, drama, and the blurring of the line between “performers” and “participants” are ways in which the presentation of the gospel is engaging local cultures. kuchipudi—bharata natyam—Likay—Noh—Chavittunadakam—sigana

Application 4: Engaging People through Visual Arts...... 55 Geinene Carson God can work in relationship-building ways in non-receptive areas when an artist remains available and accessible to local viewers. painting—murals

Application 5: Sharing Faith through Contextualized Visual Arts...... 59 Scott Rayl Whether henna “storying” in South Asia or “contemporary indigenous art” in Australia, the visual arts provide a means of sharing the love of God. henna (mehndi) storying—painting

Application 6: Church Planting with Bible Storying and the Creative Arts...... 63 Tom Ferguson By combining storytelling with various artistic expressions, effective strategies are developing for communicating the gospel in culturally- relevant ways. story—drama—dance—song—painting—henna—music video Application 7: Strengthening Ministry and Storytelling with Local Proverbs...... 67 Pete Unseth Local proverbs can provide a natural connection point between biblical stories and local communities. proverbs—story—poetry—song

Application 8: A Balinese Painter Illustrates Biblical Characters...... 73 Scott Rayl This dramatic case study seeks to explore the synthesizing of Balinese culture, visual art, and biblical material. painting—masks—costumes—dance—shadow puppets (wayang)

Application 9: The Artful Presentation of a Contextualized Christology...... 77 Katie Hoogerheide A critical analysis evaluates a Christological confession recitation specifically crafted with oral components in mind for enhancing scriptural engagement. confessional recitation—canto—narrative

Application 10: Scriptural Impact through a Dramatic Reenactment...... 83 James R. and Jeanette Krabill One village’s adaptation of their funeral ritual to reenact Jesus’ death on Good Friday lends power to their resurrection celebration on Easter. ritual—procession—song—liturgy—choir—dance—colors

Application 11: Arts Enliven Scripture-based Storytelling...... 87 Carla Bowman An organization has experienced the favor of God as a result of its commitment to oral communication strategies. ritual meal—dance—drum (dolak)—story—drama— costumes—song

Application 12: Music Brings Comfort in Disaster Relief...... 93 Roger W. Lowther The aroma of music enables those experiencing grief and despair to be reminded of life and hope. bamboo flute (shakuhachi)—keyboard instruments—dance

Application 13: Arts and Trauma Healing...... 97 Wendy Atkins This case study considers the power of the arts in enabling people’s expressions of grief, lament, and loss as well as ultimately their trust in God. carving—wood burning—weaving—wall decorations—lament— song—dance Orality Journal 9 Co-Editors’ Note Samuel E. Chiang and William Coppedge

“In the beginning God created…” Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word…” John 1:1

he International Orality Network and the International Council of TEthnodoxologists are excited to collaborate in both 2016 editions of the Orality Journal. The two networks, through this publication, are exploring the relationship between orality and the arts.

The beginnings of both Genesis and the Gospel of John offer a natural starting point for a consideration of this unique relationship. God Himself is a creative God, creating not from impulse nor for mere utilitarian purposes, but creatio ex nihilo: he creates out of the overflow of his creative being. This Creator God is the Triune God - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thus far from being an individualized activity, divine creation maintains an inherent communal component as each member of the Trinity participates (Genesis 1:1-2; Isaiah 42:5; Proverbs 8:22-31; John 1:1-3; Hebrews 1:1-4, 11:6) in bringing creation into existence.

This Triune God creates by communicating though: “All things came into being through the Word.”1 Creation and communication are inextricably bound together in the nature of the Triune God. Naturally, every human person, made in the image of a Triune Creator, is inherently creative and communicative. The articles offered in this edition of the Orality Journal provide an array of opportunities to consider such creativity and artistic communication from various cultures around the world.

What needs to not be missed, though, is the Trinitarian component that threads its way through these case studies. Whether discussing henna art or music, these stories describe individual artists and their artistic expressions, yet every one of them creates and communicates within a communal network of relationships. Herein lies a subtle witness to Trinitarian nature of the creative God who made all human persons like himself. 10 Samuel E. Chiang and William Coppedge

The authors and participants within these case studies are seeking to probe the depths of the creative arts and oral communication as both a means to discovering echoes of the Triune Creator but also as a means to understand specific human cultures. Far from extracting human persons from their cultural context, they believe the Incarnation is a testimony to God’s commitment to enter into human culture. Like Jesus, they are not mere observers of culture only. These writers and artists desire people from all cultures to be in communion with their Triune Creator which ultimately makes possible the restoration of human creativity (the arts) and human communication. For when one enters into communion with the Triune God, transformation becomes possible, not only for an individual person but for one’s cultural community. As editors, we gladly commend these articles to you in the hope that they may stimulate godly artistic creativity in your current cultural context as well as deeper communion with the Triune Creator.

On the journey together,

1John 1.3. Orality Journal 11 Note from Guest Editors Katie Hoogerheide and James R. Krabill

Katie Hoogerheide serves as Associate Director of the Center for Excellence in World Arts at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics in Dallas, Texas. Her work and graduate-level studies include experience in the areas of organ performance, ethnoarts, linguistics, and education. She also works as Associate Editor for the Global Forum on Arts and Christian Faith (artsandchristianfaith.org).

James R. Krabill served from 1978–1996 as a Mennonite mission worker teaching Bible and church history in oral culture settings among African- initiated churches in West Africa. Currently serving as Senior Executive for Global Ministries with the Mennonite Mission Network, Krabill has authored or edited various works, including Music in the Life of the African Church (with Roberta King and others, 2008) and Worship and Mission for the Global Church: An Ethnodoxology Handbook (2013).

esonate. All of us who have a message we want to share with other people want that communication to resonate in their hearts. When the message is the greatest news ever to come to earth, the story of a Savior, the stakes seem particularly high. And so we seek knowledge, pursuing the wisdom of others who have reported some measure of success in their quest for sharing the message across boundaries.

In that quest for shared knowledge, the International Council of Ethnodoxologists has been asked to guest edit this volume of the Orality Journal. We have been tasked with sharing with you just how much impact the arts can have in cross-cultural communication. Their absence impoverishes communication; their distortion disrupts communication; their genuine presence enriches communication. As you read the articles in this edition, you will see over and over again how the arts help messages with brand-new content to be perceived as more familiar, less foreign. The arts form one critical component for making our messages resonate.

The three articles in the FOUNDATIONS section provide a grounding in biblical, historical, and cultural perspectives on engaging the arts. As Piper explains, the inclusion of indigenous artistic expressions in 12 Katie Hoogerheide and James R. Krabill

worship emerges naturally from biblical principles. Looking at the Early Church, Kreider gives us a view of the timelessness of incorporating artistic expressions into worship. In order to introduce us to the range of physical senses that can be involved in worship through the arts, Hawn & Lim draw from various symbols used across cultural boundaries.

The arts have been identified by the International Orality Network as one of at least seven aspects influencing orality-framed content (see “The Seven Disciplines of Orality” graphic on the inside front cover). Although these seven aspects appear as discrete arrows, in reality each of the seven is inextricably woven through the others. None can carry a message independently. All join together to create effective oral communication.

The arts are no exception. This volume highlights the arts, but even a cursory glance through the articles in the APPLICATIONS section shows the great extent to which the arts play an indispensable role in strengthening the other six disciplines in the act of communication. As just a few examples:

• MEDIA: Oswald shares how “vivid indigenous arts” in Tibet have brought the story of Jesus to life through film. Authentic arts content makes even the best delivered media resonate more deeply with the local people. • LANGUAGE: Hoogerheide and Unseth address the importance of using language with the nuances of form familiar to an audience. Relevant artistic structures, discourse markers, and storytelling conventions make even the most accurate pronunciation, vocabulary, and word order seem more familiar and less foreign. • MEMORY: Both Unseth and Bowman tap into the arts as ways of internalizing biblical stories and their messages. Familiar artistic expressions provide vehicles for more rapid and satisfying retention of new content. • LITERACY: Unseth mentions the value of written collections of proverbs for understanding how to communicate more naturally within a culture. Only locally-recognized forms and expressions will serve to inform connecting effectively with the oral traditions. • NETWORKS: Pierce, Rowe, Carson, and Rayl (“Sharing Faith”) each illustrate natural relationship building around the arts. Well-loved art Orality Journal 13

forms draw people to connect with others through their hearts rather than only through their minds or their physical presence. • CULTURE: Krabill and Krabill depict the power of interpreting biblical concepts through the lens of local cultural rituals. Everyday artistic elements speak into local people’s lives organically from the rhythms in the place they call home.

In each scenario, we see how arts are part and parcel of communities, inseparable from so many contexts of communication. Our attempts at sharing about Christ in a way that resonates with any group of people will not ring true without the natural colors, gestures, sounds, and communication frameworks familiar to those people. Without them, any incarnation of the gospel remains incomplete, a robotic, lifeless framework, rather than a living creation.

Just as the arts saturate their communication contexts, so the different elements within the realm we call “the arts” also blend together. We often speak of artistic domains such as music, dance, or drama. In reality, any artistic element is nearly always accompanied by several more, blurring our attempts at drawing boundaries between types of artistic expression. Consider the Balinese paintings inspired by another form of visual art, carved masks, and also by traditional dance postures and shadow puppet figures (Rayl, “A Balinese Painter”). Consider the tendency towards multi-arts descriptions such as “dance drama” (Rowe), or the account in which people hearing music spontaneously break into dance (Lowther). We can neither extract the arts from their communicative contexts nor specify one kind of artistic expression as consistently distinct from another.

Terminology changes. Arts research around the world continues to uncover new ways of talking about arts within different societies. The ancient Greeks used to indicate music, dance, lyrics, and poetry all with the one word mousikē.1 English speakers might refer to both lyrics and melody by the term “song” but may or may not think of lyrics when they speak about “music.” The point is not to separate and label artistic expressions, but rather to become aware of those elements of artistic expression that make communication contexts authentic for the people in a given culture. 14 Katie Hoogerheide and James R. Krabill

That’s why we chose a few artistic keywords from each APPLICATION article for listing in the Table of Contents—as you scan the list, you’ll get just a taste of the rich array of artistic combinations within the cultures of the world. For example, through her description of trauma healing, Atkins introduces us to carving, wood burning, hat weaving, wall decorations, songs, laments, and dances. Likewise, Ferguson’s journey with storytelling taps into drama, dance, song, painting, henna, and music videos. As you read the articles, you’ll discover just how much these different artistic elements interact with each other. The Wordles at the top of each article also provide a sense of how all artistic expressions are connected through the commonality of their communicative effect, although some rise to the surface more in certain contexts compared to others.

It is our hope and prayer that the articles found in these pages will encourage you to new levels of finding and appreciating the power of artistic expression in your own communication contexts. We think you’ll start noticing artistic elements in places you might not have thought to look before—in the materials, sounds, sights, and body movements around you. And, as with all the other disciplines of orality, our best results will come from encouraging the people of the culture to share the good news with others around them. They embody communication in a way no outsider ever can. Orality Journal 15

ICE and ION Collaborate It has been a special privilege as guest editors of this journal and as representatives of the International Council of Ethnodoxologists (ICE) to partner with ION in this important collaborative effort. ICE began in 2003 as a small group of people working in cross-cultural arts ministries with a shared vision “to see Christ-followers from every culture express their faith through the own heart music and other arts.”2 In its first decade the ICE network grew to over three hundred associates, some of whom launched their own national and regional initiatives in Latin America, the Philippines, and the Korean diaspora.

Several charter members of ICE (Tom Ferguson, Frank Fortunato, Robin Harris, Roberta King, Paul Neeley, Brian Schrag, and others) were involved in the orality movement in its early years, giving papers at ION gatherings on the ways in which music and arts connected to storying and orality. In 2007, Avery Willis approached ICE leaders to launch a Music and Arts Task Force in ION, and the foundational meetings that took place were energized by the vision of promoting a global movement for the use of all culturally-appropriate arts in making disciples of oral learners.

In addition, the Task Force was committed to the idea that storytelling, singing, dancing, dramatizing, drawing, sculpting, and other local arts are fundamentally interrelated means of telling God’s story. They affirmed that music and arts support other strategies to evangelize, disciple, and empower oral people, but that they can also stand on their own in communicating God’s story. Robin Harris served as the first Task Force coordinator, eventually passing the baton to Frank Fortunato, who served for several years and was succeeded by Erica Logan.

The arts presence grew steadily at ION with Task Force participants teaching and learning about ethnodoxology approaches, and bringing multicultural worship to ION gatherings. Collaboration between the ethnodoxology movement and its orality counterpart also grew, resulting in regular participation in one another’s events, publications,3 and other initiatives. Arts was recognized within ION as one of the “Seven Disciplines within Orality”4 and storytelling, once the primary 16 Katie Hoogerheide and James R. Krabill concern of the orality movement, came to be considered as only one of many effective forms of communicative art forms to be employed in the complex task of discipling oral learners.

The ION and ICE networks thus have much in common in our desire to see God’s kingdom grow and mature through every form and means of communication God has graciously put at our disposal. May the collaboration illustrated in this issue of the Orality Journal be a sign pointing to even more such efforts between us in the days and years to come!

With special thanks to Samuel Chiang, who first invited us to consider this project, and to Robin Harris, President of the International Council of Ethnodoxologists, who offered invaluable counsel and logistical support as the project took shape and moved toward completion.

1See, for example, Mike Cartwright’s article on “Greek Music” in the Ancient History Encyclopedia, online at www.ancient.eu/Greek_Music/ (accessed November 6, 2015).

2From the ICE website at www.worldofworship.org.

3There were several chapters which specifically focused on Bible-storying methods and case studies in ICE’s large volume edited by James R. Krabill, Frank Fortunato, Robin P. Harris, and Brian Schrag—Worship and Mission for the Global Church: An Ethnodoxology Handbook (William Carey Library, 2013), www.ethnodoxologyhandbook.com.

4Samuel E. Chiang, “Learning from my own mistakes,” Mission Frontiers 36 (2014):3-4. Foundation 1: The Biblical Basis for Indigenous Arts in Worship 17 The Biblical Basis for Indigenous Arts in Worship1 John Piper

John Piper is Founder and Teacher of desiringGod.org, and Chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He served over thirty years as senior pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. His books include Desiring God (Colorado Spring: Multnomah, revised and expanded 2011); What Jesus Demands from the World (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006); God Is the Gospel (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004); and Don’t Waste Your Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 2003).

The Centrality of Worship issions is not the ultimate thee! O Let the nations be Mgoal of the church. Worship glad and sing for joy!” (Ps is. Missions exists because worship 67:3-4 KJV Cambridge ed.; doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not emphasis added). missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, But worship is also the fuel of and the countless millions of the missions. Passion for God in redeemed fall on their faces before worship precedes the offer of the throne of God, missions will God in preaching. You can’t be no more. It is a temporary commend what you don’t necessity. But worship abides cherish. We will never call out, forever. Worship, therefore, is the “Let the nations be glad!” if we goal and fuel of missions: cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the Lord . . . I will It is the goal of missions because be glad and exult in thee, I in missions we simply aim to will sing praise to thy name, O bring the nations into the white Most High” (Ps 104:34 ESV; 9:2 hot enjoyment of God’s glory. KJV Cambridge ed.). Missions The goal of missions is the begins and ends in worship. gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. “The LORD I am not pleading for the reigns; let the earth rejoice; let diminishing of missions but for a the many coastlands be glad!” magnifying of God. Where passion (Ps 97:1 ESV, emphasis added). for God is weak, zeal for missions “Let the peoples praise thee, O will be weak. Churches that are God; let all the peoples praise not centered on the exaltation of 18 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 John Piper the majesty and beauty of God you, that I may not cut you will scarcely kindle a fervent desire off. Behold, I have refined to “declare his glory among the you, but not as silver; I have nations” (Ps 96:3). But when the tried you in the furnace of flame of worship burns with the affliction.For my own sake, heat of God’s true worth, then the for my own sake, I do it, for light of missions will shine to the how should my name be most remote peoples on earth. Even profaned? My glory I will outsiders feel the disparity between not give to another. (ESV, the boldness of our claims upon the emphasis added) nations and the blandness of our engagement with God. I have found that for many people these words come like six hammer The deepest reason why our passion blows to a human-centered way of for God should fuel missions is looking at the world: that God’s passion for God fuels missions. Missions is the overflow For my name’s sake! of our delight in God because For the sake of my praise! missions is the overflow of God’s For my own sake! delight in being God. And the For my own sake! deepest reason why worship is the How should my name be goal in missions is that worship is profaned? God’s goal. We are confirmed in My glory I will not give to this goal by the biblical record of another! God’s relentless pursuit of praise among the nations. “Praise the The Modality of Worship LORD, all nations! Extol him, all Having said this, we should note peoples!” (Ps 117:1 ESV). If it is the startling fact that the New God’s goal it must be our goal. Testament contains remarkably little explicit teaching about Probably no text in the Bible reveals corporate worship—what we call the passion of God for his own worship services. Not that there glory more clearly and bluntly than were no corporate gatherings for Isaiah 48:9–11 where God says: worship. First Corinthians 14:23 speaks of “the whole church” For my name’s sake I defer assembling together. Acts 2:46 my anger, for the sake of speaks of the early church my praise I restrain it for “attending the temple together Foundation 1: The Biblical Basis for Indigenous Arts in Worship 19

and breaking bread in their But when we look at its use, we homes” (ESV). And Hebrews 10:25 notice something astonishing.2 It is speaks of “not neglecting to meet common in the Gospels (twenty-six together” (ESV). But this is not times)—people would often bow much, and the remarkable thing down worshipfully before Jesus. is that even when the gatherings are And it is common in the book in view, the apostles do not speak of Revelation (twenty-one times) of them explicitly as worship. because the angels and elders in heaven often bow down before God. Let me illustrate this so we can feel But in the Epistles of Paul, it occurs its full force. In the Old Testament, only once, namely, in 1 Corinthians the most common word for worship 14:25, where the unbeliever falls is the Hebrew word hishtahavah down at the power of prophecy (or a related form of that word). Its and confesses that God is in the basic meaning is “bow down,” with assembly. And the word doesn’t the sense of reverence, respect, and occur at all in the letters of Peter, honor. It occurs 171 times. In the James, or John. Greek Old Testament, 164 of those instances of this Hebrew word are This is remarkable. The main word translated by the Greek proskyneom. for worship in the Old Testament is In the Greek New Testament, this virtually absent from the letters of is the main word for worship. the New Testament.3 Why is this? 20 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 John Piper

Why are the very Epistles that were He said, “Something greater than written to help the church be what the temple is here,” referring to it ought to be in this age almost himself (Matt 12:6 ESV), and totally devoid of this word and of “Destroy this temple, and in three explicit teaching on the specifics of days I will raise it up” (John 2:19 corporate worship? ESV). This attitude toward the temple got not only him killed The Locality of Worship (Mark 14:58; 15:29) but also Jesus becomes the new “place” Stephen (Acts 6:14). That’s how of worship. I think the reason is important it was. found in the way Jesus treated worship in his life and teaching. His Jesus identified himself as the true main statement is found in John temple. “Something greater than 4:20–24. But before we look at this the temple is here.” In himself he text, consider a few other things would fulfill everything the temple he said. For example, his attitude stood for, especially the “place” toward the temple, the main place where believers meet God. He of Jewish worship, was not at all diverted attention away from what the Jewish leaders thought it worship as a localized activity with should be. outward forms and pointed toward a personal, spiritual experience When he wove a whip and drove with himself at the center. Worship out the moneychangers, he said does not have to have a building, a he did so not for the sake of priesthood, and a sacrificial system. proper sacrifices but for the sake It has to have the risen Jesus. of prayer—in fact, prayer for all the nations. “My house shall be Jesus loosens worship from place called a house of prayer for all the and form. What Jesus did to worship nations” (Mark 11:17 ESV). In in the way he related to the temple is other words, he focused attention made explicit in John 4:20–24. Here away from the outward acts of he uses the word proskyneom—the Jewish sacrifices to the personal dominant Old Testament word for act of communion with God for worship—and shows that it is laden all peoples. with outward and localized meaning. Then he transforms it into a Then he said two other things concept that is mainly inward rather about the temple that pointed to than outward and mainly pervasive a radically altered view of worship. rather than localized. Foundation 1: The Biblical Basis for Indigenous Arts in Worship 21

The woman at the well said, localized place or outward form. “Our fathers worshiped on this Instead of being on this mountain mountain, but you say that in or in Jerusalem, it is “in spirit Jerusalem is the place where and truth.”4 people ought to worship.” [The word for “worship” used here is Jesus strips proskyneom of its last the common Old Testament word vestiges of localized and outward proskyneom. Note the localized connotations.5 It will not be wrong emphasis in her mind.] Jesus said for worship to be in a place or to to her, “Woman, believe me, the use outward forms, but he makes hour is coming when neither on explicit and central that this is not this mountain nor in Jerusalem what makes worship worship. What will you worship the Father” (John makes worship worship is what 4:20-21 ESV). happens “in spirit and truth”— with or without a place and with Here Jesus loosens worship or without outward forms. from its outward and localized connotations. Place is not the This is likely the best explanation issue: “neither on this mountain as to why proskyneom—the central nor in Jerusalem.” He goes on: Old Testament word for worship— “But the hour is coming, and is was virtually boycotted by Peter, now here, when the true worshipers James, John, and Paul in the letters will worship the Father in spirit they wrote to the churches6: and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is • The word did not make clear spirit, and those who worship him enough the inward, spiritual must worship in spirit and truth” nature of true worship. (John 4:23-24 ESV). • The word carried significant connotations of place and form. Here is the key sentence: True • The word was associated worship, which was anticipated with bodily bowing down and for the age to come, has arrived: with the actual presence of a “The hour is coming [in the age to visible manifestation to bow come] and is now here [in me!].” down before. What marks this true future worship, which has broken into In the Gospels, Jesus was present the present from the glorious age in visible form to fall before, so to come, is that it is not bound by the word proskyneom is used 22 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 John Piper with some frequency. In the book • “I serve (or worship) [God] in of Revelation, the act of bowing my spirit in the preaching of down usually happens before God’s the gospel” (Rom 1:9 NASB; manifestation in heaven or before parenthesis added). false gods on the earth. Therefore • True Christians “worship God the word proskyneom is widely in the Spirit of God . . . and put used in Revelation as well. no confidence in the flesh” (Phil 3:3 NASB, emphasis added). But in the Epistles something very • “Present your bodies a living different is happening. Jesus is and holy sacrifice, acceptable not present in visible glory to fall to God, which is your spiritual before. As a result, the tendency of service of worship” (Rom 12:1 the early church was to deal with NASB, emphasis added). worship as primarily inward and spiritual rather than outward and The praise and thanks of the lips bodily, and primarily pervasive is called a sacrifice to God (Heb rather than localized. 13:15). But so are good works in everyday life (Heb 13:16). Paul The Totality of Worship refers to his own ministry as a The next most frequent word for “priestly duties [of worship]” and worship after proskuneo in the he calls the converts themselves an Old Testament is the word latreuo “offering acceptable [in worship]” (over ninety times, almost always to God (Rom 15:16 NIV 1984; cf. translating ‘abad). This is usually Phil 2:17). The money that the rendered “serve,” as in “You shall churches sent Paul was described not worship their gods nor serve by him as “a fragrant aroma, an them” (Ex 23:24 NASB). acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God [in worship]” (Phil 4:18 When Paul uses it for Christian NASB). And Paul’s own death for worship he goes out of his way Christ he calls a “drink offering [to to make sure that we know he God]” (2 Tim 4:6). means not a localized or outward form for worship practice, The same thrust is furthermore but a nonlocalized, spiritual seen in the imagery of the people experience. In fact, he takes it of God—the body of Christ— so far as to treat virtually all of as the New Testament “temple” life as worship when lived in the where spiritual sacrifices are right spirit. offered (1 Pet 2:5 NLT), where Foundation 1: The Biblical Basis for Indigenous Arts in Worship 23

God dwells by his Spirit (Eph All the focus of this worship is on 2:21, 22) and where all the people the reality of the glory of Christ, are seen as the holy priesthood (1 not the shadow and copy of Pet 2:5, 9). Second Corinthians religious objects and forms. There 6:16 shows that the new covenant is no authorization in the New hope of God’s presence is being Testament for worship buildings, fulfilled even now in the church or worship dress, or worship times, as a people, not in any particular or worship music, or worship service: “We are the temple of liturgy, or worship size, or thirty- the living God; just as God five-minute sermons, or Advent said, ‘I will dwell in them and poems, or choirs, or instruments, walk among them; and I will be or candles. In fact, the act of their God, and they shall be My getting together as Christians in people’” (NASB). the New Testament to sing or pray or hear the word of God is never Worship, thus, in the New even called worship. Do we distort Testament is significantly the biblical meaning of “worship” deinstitutionalized, delocalized, by using the term almost entirely and deexternalized. The whole for an event for which the New thrust is gradually taken off of Testament never does? ceremony and seasons and places and forms and is shifted to what is All of this makes us very free and, happening in the heart—not just perhaps, very frightened—free to on Sunday, but every day and all find place and time and dress and the time in all of life. size and music and elements and objects that help us orient radically The Radicality of Worship toward the supremacy of God in Worship in the New Testament, Christ. And frightened because in short, moves toward almost every worship tradition something radically simple and we have is culturally shaped rather inward, with manifold external than biblically commanded. The expressions in life and liturgy. command is a radical connection One of the reasons for this of love and trust and obedience to stunning indifference to outward Jesus Christ in all of life. form is a vision for missions that is usable across thousands There is a reason for this radical of cultures and therefore not to spirituality of worship in the be laden with externals. New Testament. And the reason 24 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 John Piper is this: the New Testament is present that the heart of what a missionary document! The we do becomes the joy of all the message found here is meant to peoples we are called to reach. be carried to every people on earth and incarnated in every Conclusion culture in the world. And that The New Testament is not a is why our High Priest came and manual for worship services. ended tabernacle and sacrifices Rather, it is a vision for missions in and feasts and vestments and thousands of diverse people groups dietary laws and circumcision around the world. In such groups, and priesthood. outward forms of worship will vary drastically, but the inner reality of The Old Testament was mainly a treasuring Christ in spirit and truth “come-and-see” religion. The New is common ground. Testament is primarily a “go-and- tell” religion. And to make that I believe that God intends to possible, Jesus has not abolished leave the matter of form and worship, but made it the kind of style and content to the judgment radically spiritual engagement with of our spiritual wisdom—not God that can and must happen to our whim or our tradition, in every culture on the earth. but to prayerful, thoughtful, Worship is not trivialized in the culturally alert, self-critical, New Testament, but intensified, Bible-saturated, God-centered, deepened, and made the radical Christ-exalting reflection driven fuel and goal of all missions. by a passion to be filled with all the fullness of God. I assume this The frightening freedom of will be an ongoing process, not a worship in the New Testament is one-time effort. a missionary mandate. We must not lock this gospel treasure in God is pursuing with omnipotent any cultural straitjacket. Rather passion a worldwide purpose let us find the place, the time, the of gathering joyful worshipers dress, the forms, and the music for himself from every tribe that kindle and carry a passion and tongue and people and for the supremacy of God in all nation. He has an inexhaustible things. And may our communion enthusiasm for the supremacy of with the living God be so real and his name among the nations. Let the Spirit of God so powerfully us bring then our affections into Foundation 1: The Biblical Basis for Indigenous Arts in Worship 25 line with God’s and, for the sake (Ps 37:4). And then to declare, “Let of his name, let us renounce the the nations be glad and sing for quest for worldly comforts and joy” (Ps 67:4 ESV). In this way God join his global purpose. will be glorified from beginning to end, and worship will empower the The Great Commission is first mission efforts of the church until to delight yourself in the Lord the coming of the Lord.

1This chapter was compiled by James R. Krabill, the general editor of the Worship and Mission for the Global Church handbook, with permission of the author, from two sermons, one chapter, and one article by John Piper. The four sources are as follows: John Piper, “The Supremacy of God in Missions through Worship,” Mission Frontiers, July–August 1996, www.missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/the- supremacy-of-god-in-missions-through-worship; John Piper, “The Inner Simplicity and Outer Freedom of Worldwide Worship,” in Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 239–54; John Piper, “Our High Priest Is the Son of God Perfect Forever” (sermon, December 8, 1996), Desiring God Foundation, www.desiringgod.org/resource- library/sermons/our-high-priest-is-the-son-of-god-perfect-forever); and John Piper, “Gravity and Gladness on Sunday Morning, Part 1” (seminar for the Bethlehem Institute, September 12, 2008), Desiring God Foundation, www.desiringgod. org/resource-library/seminars/gravity-and-gladness-on-sunday-morning-part- 1#InwardExperience. 26 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 John Piper

2Heinrich Greeven, in Gerhard Friedrich, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 6, trans. Geoffrey Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 765, observes the “astonishing fact” that while proskyneom is abundant in the Gospels (twenty-six times) and Acts (four times) and Revelation (twenty-one times), it is almost completely absent in the epistles (Heb. 1:6 and 11:21 are Old Testament quotations). Apart from Acts 24:11, where proskynein is a technical term for worship in the temple, the only instance of proskynemsis in the primitive Christian community is in 1 Corinthians 14:25, where there appears to be an actual falling down. Elsewhere there is reference to kneeling in prayer (Acts 9:40; 20:36) and lifting the hands (1 Tim. 2:8), but the word proskynein is not used. Greeven concludes: “This is, however, a further proof of the concreteness of the term. Proskynemsis demands visible majesty before which the worshiper bows. The Son of God was visible to all on earth (the Gospels) and the exalted Lord will again be visible to His own when faith gives way to sight (Revelation).”

3See the note above for the few apparent exceptions in the Book of Hebrews.

4In line with what we saw in note 2, Heinrich Greeven remarks that “if instead of naming a place to which the pilgrims should go to worship, Jesus says that the true place of worship is in the spirit and in truth: this is an oxymoron. Undiluted proskynein, the act of worship which is concrete in place and gesture, is lifted up to a new dimension: ‘spirit and truth.’” Friedrich, Theological Dictionary, 764.

5I am aware that Jesus may not have spoken Greek with this woman at the well and so may not have actually used the word proskyneom. But I take it that John’s rendering of Jesus’ intention is accurate and that John’s use of proskyneom faithfully captures what Jesus wanted to communicate about the meaning of worship carried by that word.

6Another important word for worship, sebomai, is used twice in the Gospels (“In vain do they worship me” [Matt 15:9; Mark 7:7 ESV; emphasis added]) and eight times in Acts, always for God-fearing Gentiles except once for pagan worship (Acts 19:27). The absence of this word in the Epistles is again remarkable. It is as if the apostles, in their letters, avoided words that were current for synagogue worship, both proskyneom and sebomai. Foundation 2: Artistic Expression in Early Christianity 27 Artistic Expression in Early Christianity Eleanor Kreider

Eleanor Kreider, a Mennonite liturgical scholar and missionary, is now retired and lives in Elkhart, Indiana, with her husband, Alan Kreider. They are joint-authors of Worship and Mission after Christendom (Herald Press, 2011). n the early centuries, Christians In catacomb paintings and as Iinculturated their faith by using bas-relief sculpture on sarcophagi symbols which deeply affected (tombs), heroes and stories of common life and worship. The the Bible appear clad in the following examples of historical, iconography of Greco-Roman symbolic forms reach across culture. Jesus, as healer and cultures and enrich the transmission wonder worker, sometimes carries of the gospel. These examples a “magic” wand. Depicted as a pose questions for contemporary clean-shaven youth, Jesus could as Christians seeking deep symbolic easily be taken for an adolescent expressions in worship. Orpheus, who in Greek mythology charmed all living beings with his Catacomb Art music and challenged the power Around the beginning of the third of the underworld. Apostles century, Christian communities sculpted as full-bearded men began to produce and use visual look remarkably like heroic art forms. Why so late? Injunctions Roman statues. Favorite Bible against idolatry, resistance to the stories (Jonah, the fiery furnace, culture around them, and insistence Lazarus) and depictions of Christ on an invisible God may have been or saints are frequent subjects. reasons. We cannot know for sure. Birds and flowers, trees and rivers As we see in the Roman catacombs evoked more than appreciation for of the third century, Christians nature—they could also be symbols began borrowing and adapting a of paradise, of life after death. It is variety of contemporary symbols. often difficult to differentiate early Their theological reflection in Christian symbols from pagan written texts correlates with a prototypes. In the century after visual language of sacred images. the emperor Constantine, when it Visual art may have been illustrative became safe and advantageous to be or didactic, but it also could be a Christian, Christian symbolism richly exegetical and liturgical. became more explicit. 28 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Eleanor Kreider

Signet Rings way, Christians used distinctive In Roman times, men of substance and potent symbols to reflect their wore signet rings, which they used faith, values, and life practices. to authenticate documents or to label goods for trade. In the Peace Greeting late second century, Clement of In the mid-second century, Justin Alexandria instructed Christian Martyr mentioned the peace men to wear the signet ring at greeting as a part of the eucharistic the base of the little finger. On liturgy of the church in Rome. This no account could the ring’s image gesture continued throughout early be a lover, for “[we are a] chaste Christianity in weekly eucharistic people,” nor a sword or bow, “for services and also at the conclusion we cultivate peace,” nor a drinking of believers’ morning prayer cup, “for we practice temperance.” following catechetical sessions. The The image on the ring could be kiss of peace is one of the oldest of a dove, a fish, a ship in full Christian liturgical practices, noted sail, or an anchor, which could in several New Testament epistles discretely evoke the cross.1 In this as the holy kiss, or the kiss of peace (e.g., 1 Thess. 5:26; 1 Pet. 5:14). Kissing in public in Greco-Roman culture was reserved for relatives or social equals. The Christian liturgical kiss of peace was countercultural, even scandalous. Enemies of the Christians gossiped and slandered them because Christians exchanged the greeting across social and economic lines in their weekly eucharistic services, as they sought to be reconciled with each other following the teachings of Matthew 5:23-24. Foundation 2: Artistic Expression in Early Christianity 29

At the appropriate time in the multi-gifted church, and chapter 13 eucharistic service, a deacon is a paean of praise to the virtue of announced the peace greeting, love and a call to “table manners” often asking if any member of the of courtesy, deference, and honor. assembly had a grievance against Paul, as a missionary theologian, another. This was the time to accepted the inculturation of the greet and be reconciled with the church’s worship within the forms estranged person. of the banquet.

Later, during the Christian However, as a pastoral theologian, centuries in Europe, this practice Paul pointed to distortions in faded, becoming infrequent and in the church’s practice of the meal many places confined to the clergy. and advised the church on how Since the twentieth century when they should rectify these abuses the peace greeting was reintroduced and align their worship with into Christian liturgies, the physical the distinctive values of their gesture has varied according to Christian faith. For the meal, Paul culture—a bow, a hands gesture admonishes the richer believers (namaste), an embrace, a kiss, a to stop showing contempt to the handshake. poorer believers and to share food equitably (“discerning the body”; Eucharist as a Form of Roman 1 Cor. 11:29). For the symposium Banquet (conversation), Paul rebukes the In 1 Corinthians 11–14, the Apostle church’s chaotic use of spiritual Paul addresses the Christian gifts, which prevented outsiders community in Corinth about its from participating in worship and worship practices. The church which kept Christian worship from had adopted the familiar cultural expressing the character of the God form of Greco-Roman banquet of peace (14:33). “Each” and “all” (meal plus symposium—the after- were to contribute according to dinner conversation) for their Lord’s the gifts of the Spirit (14:26, 31). Supper. These chapters address a Multi-voiced worship at table single worship event in a Corinthian was what Paul considered to be house church. Chapter 11 relates “decently and in order” (14:40). to the meal. Chapter 14 deals with This inculturated form of liturgy the symposium (conversation). included countercultural gestures Between these two chapters, chapter and practices which created social 12 presents Paul’s vision for the bonding and radical equalization. 30 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Eleanor Kreider

Architectural Space standing crowds and kept in order New Testament churches were by patrolling deacons. Imagine domestic gatherings. The host of the change in how individuals the home often served as leader experienced worship! No longer of the church. Worship on this face to face in someone’s home and domestic scale continued for courtyard, worshipers now stood several centuries, although in some in a grand public space, craning to instances the apartments or houses see and straining to hear what was could be fairly large. In the fourth going on. century, by imperial favor, churches in some cities were able to build Questions Then and Now large buildings to house growing All of these symbols and gestures congregations. But house churches we have considered in early continued into the fifth century, Christianity—in art, jewelry, meal when in many places they were practices, space—raise questions displaced by purpose-built church for today. How can followers of buildings. This new scale of worship Christ engage practices and create necessitated an “amplification”— artifacts through which Christian rhetorical sermons, glorious truths become comprehensible yet processions, and dramatic liturgy. challenge aspects of wider culture Now churches were filled with in the name of the gospel?

1Clement of Alexandria, The Paedagogus, The Instructor, book III, chapter 11, “A Compendious View of the Christian Life,” www.newadvent.org/fathers/02093.htm. Foundation 3: Cross-cultural Communication through Symbol 31 Cross-cultural Communication through Symbol C. Michael Hawn and Swee Hong Lim

C. Michael Hawn is the University Distinguished Professor of Church Music at the Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. A student of global music, he has published numerous articles in church music journals and several books, including Gather into One: Praying and Singing Globally (2003). He has studied church music and worship and taught in seminaries in Africa, Asia, Australia, and Latin America.

Swee Hong Lim is the Deer Park Assistant Professor of Sacred Music and Director of the Master of Sacred Music Program at Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto, Canada. He serves as Director of Research for the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada.

econd only to the translation meaning. Musical forms and Sof scripture is the spread styles can also bridge cultures, of the gospel through various often being creatively adapted in symbols. Symbols provide modes new environments.Symbols are of communication, establish more complex than signs. Signs identity, and engage the affective are arbitrary indicators that point dimensions of personality. to some aspect of reality (e.g., a Many symbols communicate green light indicates that a car through nonverbal means. The may go). A symbol embodies in imprecision of symbolic forms some way the reality to which of communication allows for it points, and participates in its easier transmission across meaning. The Lord’s Supper, for cultures and helps to establish example, mirrors to some degree Christian identity, especially historical meals that Christ had in societies where Christianity with his followers and ritualizes exists in the midst of religious the sayings of Christ as “the pluralism. bread of life” and “the true vine.” Through the symbolism of Historical symbols such as Communion we may participate the cross may be adapted to in the reality of Christ’s life and any cultural context and still ministry on earth and the promise maintain their central shape and of eternal life in heaven. 32 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Hawn and Lim

The following are a sampling of Christ. Some Protestant traditions, historical and current symbolic such as the Reformed Church, forms that reach across cultures have avoided any visual symbols and enrich the transmission of in worship. Today, however, the the gospel. cross as symbol appears in many worship spaces. Visual Symbols The cross. The cross, though not exclusively Christian, is central to followers of Christ. The origins of the cross as a symbol are difficult to ascertain. However, from the Latin crux, the cross referred historically to an instrument of death by crucifixion during the Roman rule at the time of the life of Christ. Several meanings have been attributed to the crossbeams of the Christian cross, including the four quadrants of the earth and the intersection between heaven (vertical beam) and earth (horizontal beam). The cross functions as a part Numerous Christian traditions of Christian worship in several and cultures throughout history ways. In the Roman Catholic and have designed variations on Anglican traditions a crucifer the simple crossbeams used for bears the cross on a pole and Christ’s crucifixion. Thus, one leads processions into the worship can distinguish the symbol used space. Both Orthodox and Roman by Orthodox, Coptic, Celtic, and Catholic churches, as well as some many other Christian groups Anglicans and Lutherans, observe throughout history. In the Roman special feast days related to the Catholic tradition, the crucifix cross. These include the Feast of bears the body of the crucified Corpus Christi on the Thursday Foundation 3: Cross-cultural Communication through Symbol 33 after Trinity Sunday, the Feast of of God. They serve as avenues for the Glorious Cross celebrated in anamnesis—the actualization some form by Roman Catholics or active remembering of past and Anglicans on September 14, saving acts of God—for those who and the Veneration of the Cross choose to use them. Thus, icons are observed on Good Friday by the venerated—shown great honor and Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and respect—in stylized ways such as by some Anglican churches. being carried high in a procession or by physical acts of respect like The cross has also served as an bowing. They are not, however, object of personal devotion and worshiped. Unfortunately, some adornment throughout Christian Christians have not understood history. It has been, for example, this representational sacred art attached to rosary beads, worn by form and its worth in deepening men and women on a necklace, or Christian spirituality. embedded in a piece of jewelry. As adornment, it is used by Christians In the seventh and eighth centuries, and non-Christians alike and may Christians clashed violently over serve for some the role of an amulet. the use of icons (the “iconoclastic controversies”), at the end of which Iconography. The use of icons the Orthodox tradition affirmed has often been associated with the centrality of icons in their the Eastern Orthodox Church. worship. However, this sacred art form is broader and may originate in Today, the use of icons is the first centuries after Christ’s experiencing a revival. While the resurrection. Some scholars have Orthodox and Coptic churches indicated that the third-century continue to lead in the use of Christian paintings found in the icons as a part of liturgy, the baptistery room of the house church Taizé Community in France also in Dura-Europas, Syria, depicted uses them in their worship space. biblical imageries and could have They find that icons facilitate been the forerunner or catalyst to prayer in an ecumenical setting this sacred visual art form. where too many words could encourage divisions. Likewise, Suffice it to say that icons are not congregations associated with considered works of art, but rather the Emerging Church movement artistic narrative about the Kingdom have also wholeheartedly embraced 34 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Hawn and Lim this liturgical practice. Interest in Europe. However, it is important icons as a liturgical expression to note that Christianity is not the is also growing among mainline only faith tradition that has used denominations as they seek a this symbol. Other faith traditions holistic approach in worship. such as Egyptian mystery cults, Buddhism, and Hinduism have also Icthus, the fish. The fish (icthus) done it. However, Christianity has symbol has long been a significant been deliberate in fully developing expression of Christian identity. the icthus as a distinctive symbolic Originating in the Greek word ιχουs faith expression. (fish), its individual letters serve as an acrostic for a Greek phrase that Vestments. No special clothing set is generally translated as “Jesus clergy apart from lay Christians Christ, God’s Son, Savior.” before the fourth century. From that time onward vestments became This particular symbol was associated with Christian ritual especially important to the and have served several functions in Early Church, as members the subsequent history of Christian faced persecution from Roman worship. authorities for their faith in Christ. It was used as a code for believers Vestments often indicate the role to recognize each other. Equally that a lay member or clergy holds important is the fact that this in the church. For example, in symbol resonates strongly with various parts of Africa, one may the scriptural theme of fishing in distinguish between Anglican, relation to God’s plan for people’s Methodist, or Presbyterian women salvation, as exemplified in verses by the uniform clothing that is such as, “And Jesus said to them, distinct to each denomination. ‘Follow me and I will make you fish Various African initiated churches for people’” (Mark 1:17). may be distinguished by their clothing. Choirs often wear special The fish symbol is typically used vestments, including various colors to mark catacombs, caves, or any and styles of robes, depending on places that denote the presence of local and denominational tradition. Christians. This marking is said to Ministers or others who officiate have originated from Alexandria, often wear vestments to emphasize Egypt, in the first or second century their vocational role and disguise and to have subsequently spread to or mute their individual identity. Foundation 3: Cross-cultural Communication through Symbol 35

In some Protestant traditions, garb. Some worship teams wear especially Presbyterians and some uniform clothing and others choose Methodists and Baptists, academic clothing that might be worn by a gowns, usually black, are worn secular band or that is similar to as a vestment that indicates the what is worn by the worshipers who authority of the minister to preside. attend. Although not historically thought of as vestments, intentional While primarily associated choices in clothing are made that with worship leadership, some reflect the witness, identity, and vestments may be worn in the cultural context of those leading broader community, especially or presiding in worship. the ministerial collar worn by Roman Catholic and Anglican Aural Symbols priests, Lutheran pastors, and Congregational song. Singing is ministers in some other Protestant for Christians a biblical mandate. groups. This collar is a witness Psalm 96:1, 98:1, 104:33, and 149:1 to their vocation in the broader are but a few passages that link community, especially in hospitals singing with praising God’s name. or at civic events. Members of Furthermore, the biblical witness Roman Catholic monastic orders is replete with canticles—songs often wear their robes and habits beyond the Book of Psalms—that in public as a sign of their special were sung by men and women commitment to Christ and the within the context of specific Church. Rather than a symbol of narratives. Representative Old distinction, the simple cassock is a Testament examples include the sign of humility and shedding of songs of Moses (Exod. 15:1–19) as much individuality as possible, and Miriam (Exod. 15:20,21), the since those committed to monastic song of Moses (Deut. 32:1–43), life are servants of the church. the song of Hannah (1 Sam. 2:1– 10), the song of Habakkuk (Hab. In other traditions, especially in the 3:1–19), the song of Isaiah (Isa. West, the differences between clergy 26:9–20), the song of Jonah (Jonah and laity are blurred, and no specific 2:2–9), and the song of the Three ecclesial vestments are worn. In Holy Children (Dan. 3:57–88). these cases, a business suit or more informal apparel is normative. The The primary canticles in the New context distinguishes the leader, Testament are found in Luke 1 rather than any specific liturgical and 2: the song of Zacharias, or 36 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Hawn and Lim

Benedictus (1:68–79); the song of congregational song has been Mary, or Magnificat (1:46–55); a primary element in Christian the song of the angels, Gloria in worship across the years. excelsis (2:14); and the song of • Congregational singing has been Simeon, Nunc dimittis (2:29–32). one of the ways that the Church In addition, the New Testament has connected with its heritage. includes creedal hymns, the The witness of those who have most famous of which is the gone before is contained in the Kenosis (self-emptying) hymn in great hymns of the Church. Philippians 2:5–11. Finally, there • Congregational singing are the great hymns of praise in bears theological insights; it Revelation (e.g., 5:12-13; 11:17-18; articulates the way Christians 15:3-4; and 19:1–8). in various traditions express their theology. Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians • Congregational singing 3:16 encourage variety in song— promotes unity of spirit “psalms, hymns, and spiritual among those gathered songs”—though scholars do not for worship. Unity may be agree on the exact meaning of experienced not only among these terms. Acts 16:25 records an those physically gathered for example of songs being a witness worship, but also with the to the Lord when the prisoners Paul “faithful of every time and and Silas sang while in jail. place”—those Christians who have gone before and who are Although little is known about scattered throughout the world. music in the worship of Christians • Congregational singing in the first three centuries, some bears witness to those in the hymn texts have survived. What we congregation who need the do know is that music in worship message of the song. meant singing—human voices. The purpose of this singing within the For many Protestant Christians congregational setting is fivefold: who have either avoided or never explored visual symbols in • It is a point of identity for worship, congregational singing Christians throughout the bears an iconic quality. Many ages. While there have been hymns indicate that the hosts of times when the people’s voice heaven begin the song and the earth was silent in worship, generally responds with its own song. The Foundation 3: Cross-cultural Communication through Symbol 37 idea of a cosmic song that is sung Christian message that represents simultaneously in heaven and on their theological tenets and earth represents the iconic quality ecclesiological understandings. In of congregational singing. Western Church tradition, specific genres of musical composition Sacred music. Sacred music may be developed to support the liturgy defined broadly as music with holy or of the Church. These genres religious themes. As such, this music included the mass, oratorio, extends beyond the church to the passion, requiem, motet, anthem, concert hall or other public venues and cantata. As Christianity has and beyond the Christian context to spread, many of these genres have any religious or cultic context where been embraced by cultures around it is used for religious purposes. the world in modified forms. More recently, the term “ritual music” In most Christian traditions sacred is used in some contexts to refer music generally adorns worship to music that supports the sacred in some way. This sacred music, ritual. This music may include the perhaps more appropriately called congregation’s participation, as “church music,” is most often well as that of specialized choirs vocal, including solo, choral, and and instrumentalists. congregational singing, but also includes instruments ranging from Throughout history, some styles orchestra and organ to piano, have been identified almost guitar, electronic synthesizers, exclusively with Christian worship, percussion, and various indigenous including plainsong and Protestant instruments, pitched and non- hymns. Other styles of sacred music pitched, throughout the world. have drawn from secular sources Related art forms such as dance including opera, popular song often fall under the purview styles of the day, gospel, rock, rap, of the music director in local and various ethnic styles around congregations. the world. Generally, the text and the context of the music are better Music is one of the primary forms indicators of the sacred nature of of contextualization of Christian the music than musical style. worship. Various denominations, ethnic traditions, and generational Instrumental music. Instruments groups use music to establish have often played a significant their identity and promote the role in worship. The shofar (ram’s 38 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Hawn and Lim horn) was very important for unaccompanied vocal music. The specific Jewish festivals. Psalm 81:3 Reformers took various approaches states, “Blow the ram’s horn at new to instruments, from banning moon, and again at full moon to them (Calvin and Zwingli) to call a festival.” Psalm 150 refers to incorporating the organ fully into a variety of instruments. liturgy (Luther).

For both practical and ethical During the 1960s in the United reasons, instruments were less States, the folk song revolution common in the Early Church. A brought first acoustic and then persecuted church could not risk the electric guitars into churches, louder sounds of noisy instruments adding a sense of informality and that might call attention to their accessibility to music making. Not worship. The young church was only did the increased use of guitars also distinguishing itself from and percussion identify more its Jewish ancestry. And within closely with the culture of the day, the Greco-Roman context, the it also fostered music making that Church’s resistance to the use incorporated lay musicians and not of instruments—e.g., flutes and just highly trained professionals. reeds—revealed concern about Today, the use of instruments importing elements into the within Christian worship ranges worship music that might evoke from no instruments (Church of pagan rituals or entertainments. Christ) to primarily organ and/or piano to a fully electric ensemble The medieval Western Church with a percussion-based sound. favored vocal music, preferably a cappella, even though instruments In missions, instruments continue of various kinds may have been to be a source of enrichment and used locally in liturgy. Eventually, controversy. In West Africa, for the organ became the dominant example, specific drums and instrument. Perhaps as a result of drum patterns may communicate abuses of instruments in liturgy, non-Christian associations with the motu proprio (1903) of Pope traditional deities or rituals. Pius X on sacred music proposed In Asia, gongs and bells may a restricted role for instruments. be associated with indigenous The document echoes the temple worship and deemed, in principles set forth at the Council some cases, inappropriate for of Trent (1545–63), clearly favoring Christian ritual. Foundation 3: Cross-cultural Communication through Symbol 39

As a result of these non-Christian 1 Tim. 2:8), although this symbolic associations and because of gesture has other meanings as well. increased globalization, Western In Exodus 17:11–16, Moses lifted instruments became somewhat his hands, and as he did so, God predominant in Christian worship gave the Israelites victory over the around the world. However, Amalekites. In Leviticus 9:22, this as Christian missions mature gesture conveys a blessing by Aaron and ethnomusicologists have an on the Israelites. Like all other increasing role in communicating physical expressions, the practice the gospel, the use of indigenous of hand lifting is not exclusive to instruments in worship is becoming the Jewish or Christian worship more common. A process of tradition. Other faith traditions, gradual “sanctification” is required, such as Islam and Hinduism, also allowing the once “profane” draw on this gesture in their times instrument to assume a character of worship. appropriate for Christian worship. This common expression of Following the Second Vatican raising hands may sometimes Council (1962–65), the Roman be seen as an instinctive gesture Catholic Church led the way in rather than only as a liturgically the use of indigenous instruments prescribed stylized movement. in the Mass. Protestants have Prior to the emergence of the more often incorporated Western charismatic renewal movement, instruments in worship. this posture appears to have been However, today indigenous used only in a limited way by the instruments may be found in clergy of the Roman Catholic Protestant and Pentecostal tradition. For example, it was worship around the globe. used in the ritual act of narrating portions of the Eucharistic Prayer Movement Symbols or in leading the recitation of the Lifting hands. Typically known as Lord’s Prayer. However, with the the orans position, lifting extended onset of the charismatic renewal hands upwards is one of the earliest movement in the mid-twentieth documented postures in worship. century, this gesture has been A popular practice particularly significantly reclaimed by the laity for charismatic Christians, lifting and freely used by individuals to hands is commonly associated with express their personal experience petitionary prayer (Ps. 28:2; 63:4; with God. 40 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Hawn and Lim

Tambourine and dance. Dancing theological concepts such as with a tambourine was first covenant or grace. These patterns mentioned in Exodus 15:20 typically follow a sixteen-beat following the destruction of the cycle. Tambourine dancers also Egyptian army by Yahweh at the tend to favor costume designs that Red Sea. Apart from this biblical bear specific colors associated reference, dance activity has a long with particular spiritual history and can be found in ancient concepts. At the same time, such civilizations such as Mesopotamia, tambourine dancing may be used Greece, and Rome. with the intention of establishing a link, albeit tenuous, to the Old Aside from its presence in festive Testament. functions, the tambourine also occupies a prominent place as Olfactory Symbols: Incense an instrument in religious and From the earliest times incense was cultural events. In the eighteenth frequently connected with religious century Mozart was known to ceremonies. Typically speaking, the have included its use in his musical use of incense seeks to acknowledge compositions. Tchaikovsky in the the presence of deities, to possibly nineteenth century was also known appease benevolent spirits, or to to have included the instrument drive away evil spirits. in the “Arabian Dance” of the Nutcracker Suite. In Exodus, the offering of incense was a mandated ritual At the present time tambourine act in worship (Exod. 40:27). The dancing continues to be featured purpose of this liturgical act was in Middle Eastern countries in to symbolically acknowledge the both folk and religious settings. presence of God. At other times, its For some charismatic Christians use had the expressed purpose of the tambourine is primarily placating the anger of God so that used as an instrument of praise he would not destroy the Israelites and worship. Dancing with (Num. 16:47). tambourines may be employed in spiritual warfare. Analysis of In our present time there are the use of tambourine with dance two primary approaches to in Christian worship reveals that understanding and employing the strict tambourine movement use of incense. The evangelical patterns often denote specific segment of the Church seems to Foundation 3: Cross-cultural Communication through Symbol 41 focus on the symbolic equivalence com, and Christiancinema. of incense as prayer (Ps. 141:2; com are providing another way Rev. 5:8). Within more liturgical for believers to nurture their traditions, the use of incense spirituality or to view life’s issues in such rituals as censing the from a Christian perspective. assembly or reverencing the altar Comparable to the Internet Movie or Communion table has several Database (IMDb) organization, meanings. Such a ritual may parallel organizations like the symbolize the “setting apart” of Christian Film Database (CFDb) people and things to experience and Christian Film News help God’s holy presence, or it may serve believers nurture their faith as a tangible sign of God’s blessing through film media. or to express the importance of the censed people or things in the Christianity in the Southern worship experience. The response hemisphere has harnessed media on the part of the assembly in products such as films for the such a ritual would either be the purpose of evangelism rather than signing of the cross on oneself entertainment. Campus Crusade or bowing as the censing occurs. for Christ has been in the forefront There is no liturgical significance of this effort. Its most popular in the manner of censing, although work, the JESUS film, is presently censing techniques are described available in 1,100 languages. in some present-day liturgical Unlike Western Christians, who leadership books. show such films in homes or churches, Christian organizations Film in developing countries take Just as stained-glass designs advantage of the rural lack of served as a tool in the early technology and show films in years of Christianity to educate open-air settings. These settings generally illiterate believers, encourage the whole community film has been harnessed in the to gather for this recreational and twentieth century to convey the evangelistic activity. gospel, teach its principles, and do evangelism. With increased ambivalence among governing authorities Christian organizations involved regarding the presence of in web-based ministries such as Christianity, it remains to be Christianfilms.com, Outreach. seen if this media will be viable 42 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Hawn and Lim in the long run, particularly Evangelism Limited seek to if it is perceived as a tool of contextualize Christianity with spreading Western ideals and their own film productions values. In addressing this rather than merely translating concern, indigenous Christian Western works. For the moment, organizations like Sri Lanka- film remains an effective way of based Kithusevana Ministries communicating the gospel to a and Hong Kong-based Media broad spectrum of people.1

1For additional reading, see Dowley (2011), Mayer-Thurman (1975), Ramshaw (2009), and Routley and Richardson (2005) in the Handbook bibliography. Application 1: Arts Open Tibetan Hearts to the Gospel 43 Arts Open Tibetan Hearts to the Gospel John Oswald John Oswald is author and compiler of several books and articles on Tibetan Christian music. These include A New Song Rising in Tibetan Hearts: Tibetan Christian Worship in the Early 21st Century (CAF 2001), “Gospel Communication in Tibetan Song” in Communicating Christ through Story and Song: Orality in Buddhist Contexts (ed. Paul De Neui, 2008, William Carey Library), and a Tibetan Songbook Offer Up a Praise Song (compiled 2011, Central Asia Publishing, [email protected]).

he best of storytellers Two couples in Nepal dreamed of Tcapture the imagination of creating a storytelling tool that their audiences such that their would help Tibetans understand enrapt listeners remember and the gospel and overcome two enthusiastically retell the story typical reactions: (1) “Jesus is for to others. Surely it should be no westerners,” and (2) “This is just different with the gospel of Jesus. like Buddhism.” Unfortunately, But how can this “greatest story much Christian media unwittingly ever told” be communicated so it reinforces these misconceptions, becomes relevant to people whose but these couples drew up plans understanding of life is so different for this production using artistic from that of the people of the media that match both the culture Bible? In the following arts-rich and the subject matter. Then, they story, I relate how one group of assigned a year to research. people responded to this challenge by drawing on a variety of vivid In 2002, the team met a dedicated indigenous arts to share the biblical and gifted film producer and also story in modern video form with discovered a new movie called Tibetan people.1 The HOPE. Created by Mars 44 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 John Oswald

Hill Productions, it is a masterful regional dances. The final song is a 80-minute dramatic motion picture call to all nations to join the dance of God’s redemptive story, from of faith in Christ, illustrated (in the creation to the return of Christ. revised version) by Thai, Nepalese, This movie has already been Indian, Mongolian, Filipino, and translated into many languages2 Western dance, as well as diverse and addresses many of the Tibetan Tibetan styles. project’s biblical needs. Mars Hill gave the team permission Most of these songs are also for the existing movie to become dramatized, including one where the foundation for an extended demonic beings are portrayed4 with production about a Tibetan man masks that draw on cultural imagery. searching for truth, discovering The third song is a poignant lament answers through the Bible, and in soaring nomadic style. In all five eventually becoming a storyteller songs the videography features of God’s promised deliverer, Jesus. the striking landscape of the high- Using Tibetan song, dance, art, and altitude plateau. poetic narration, the Tibetan movie tells the Bible’s story of hope for Since animal blood sacrifice in the all humanity.3 Old Testament elicits profound disgust in Buddhists, an additional This adaptation currently exists dramatic scene uses an analogy in Central Tibetan, with options from Tibetan life, graphically for English and Tibetan subtitles. demonstrating how nomads build Subtitles will be added in other pits to catch wolves, which prey on languages, and new dubbed their flocks. They lure the wolf into versions will be produced in various the pit with a lone sheep, sacrificed languages for people groups who to save the rest of the flock. This share Tibetan culture. illustrates both the concept of a substitutionary death and the Music, Dance, and Drama meaning of the death of Christ, Five lyrical songs reinforce the making it clear that no more animal film’s storyline and provide time for sacrifice is needed. reflection. Two use an indigenous question-and-answer format Artwork and, in keeping with Tibetans’ The project team commissioned love of music videos, four are four exquisite and intricate choreographed with Tibetan paintings (thangkas) of the type Application 1: Arts Open Tibetan Hearts to the Gospel 45 traditionally used by traveling The thangka paintings have also religious storytellers in teaching been well received. The following Buddhist stories. Two canvases four reports illustrate the way the depict Old Testament stories and posters have been used separately two show New Testament scenes. from the DVD in a wide variety of geographical contexts.5 Responses This contextualized production • In southwest China, a believer has been used in two main ways: shared the paintings with a showing the DVD or telling group of Tibetans in a village the Bible’s central storyline in for a couple of hours. A person, using posters of the man at the back was talking, paintings. Responses to both have smoking, and not paying much been extremely warm. Tibetan attention. Later, he started to audiences love the songs, dances, listen to the stories and became and artwork. Some even join in the very interested. In the end, he dances while watching the DVD! believed and later learned to tell the stories himself using • One Buddhist monk read parts the thangkas. of the Bible and concluded that Christianity was just like • In India, a cross-cultural worker Buddhism. Then, he heard the used the thangkas in teaching. story twice more, once told by He said, “People are very a visitor using the paintings and responsive.” He reports that again by watching the DVD. By they enjoy listening to the Bible the next day he had a radically story in conjunction with the revised conclusion—“This is not thangkas and, although they are the same”—and what’s more, he initially surprised at their own was hardly recognizable. He was conclusions, they readily accept dressed in layman’s clothes, a sure the posters as both Tibetan and sign of his new allegiance to Jesus! Christian.

• A woman believer was thrilled • In a remote, high-altitude that she was now able to grasp town in China, a lady used the how the Old Testament relates thangka posters at a Christmas to the New and said she wanted celebration, preceded by much to show the DVD to her husband prayer and fasting. To her and other villagers. delight, a local teacher opened 46 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 John Oswald

his family home to her. She said, that these can be used both to “When I started telling the story, proclaim the gospel and also to while showing the thangkas teach believers.” (Genesis to Revelation), the teacher stood up and helped Conclusion translate. We really felt the The overwhelming feedback to the Father’s presence!” The DVD and artwork shows that it is thangkas were passed around not simply the story, but the way because people wanted to look it is presented that helps hearers at them again and again. respond in new ways. It is the use of familiar forms of music, dance, • From Thailand, a missionary art, and culturally evocative scenes reported: “We are actually going that engender this positive reaction. to a village tonight where we Presented in this way, Christ not only have shared the gospel now two comes as deliverer for other people, times using these posters. They but he addresses this audience much are very useful, and the pastor more directly—through film and the who is sharing the story said arts—as Tibetans.

1The resulting production is known as the Tibetan HOPE DVD. This project is sometimes referred to as REWA HOPE to mark it as the Tibetan version, after the Tibetan word for “hope” (rewa) and its title Rewa’i Namthar (The Story of Hope).

2For an up-to-date list of The HOPE in different languages, see www.mars-hill. org/media/the_hope_main/chart.html.

3The entire movie and all its songs and artwork can be accessed at www.rewahope.com by clicking the video, music, or art icons.

4In a revised version. Two dances were refilmed in 2011.

5For a fuller account, please see the blog by artist Scott Rayl, “Tibetan Christian Thangka Ministry,” Indigenous Jesus, November 22, 2011, http://indigenousjesus. blogspot.com/2011/11/tibetan-christian-thangka-ministry.html. Application 2: Connecting Faith and Arts in Bali 47 Connecting Faith and Arts in Bali1 John D. Pierce

John D. Pierce has served as Executive Editor of Baptists Today since 2000. A native of Ringgold, Georgia, he is a graduate of Berry College (BA), Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (MDiv), and Columbia Theological Seminary (DMin). He speaks frequently in churches, consults with congregations concerning communications, and holds interim pastorates.

ali, Indonesia, is a haven for opened,” says Tina. “[The larger Binternational artists. Since art community] knows that we are 1996, Jonathan and Tina Bailey Christians and artists and involved have been living and serving within in the International Christian this diverse, vibrant, and talented Church . . . We are artist-ministers community of artists, where they working as coordinators for the encourage Christians to be true Arts and Community Engagement. to their culture, craft, and calling. Our hope is that our work will open up doors of dialogue across Tina, a native of Springfield, religious and cultural lines that will Georgia, is a dancer, visual artist, enable an authentic experience of and graduate of the Savannah Christ.” College of Art and Design. Jonathan, from Simpsonville, South Tina and Jonathan encourage Carolina, specializes in music and Christian artists to use their gifts literature. They serve through the of music, dance, and visual arts Cooperative Baptist Fellowship to express faith in a way that is global missions program. “We true to their own culture (see photo walked through the doors that of Tina dancing). In doing so, the 48 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 John D. Pierce

Baileys believe that relationships expression than to getting across are built across cultural barriers a religious message. and authentic expressions of faith get heard. “We don’t see the arts So Jonathan and Tina offer as a tool,” says Tina. “It’s not a encouragement and support to means to an end; it’s an authentic Christian artists and help create way to be.” opportunities for engagement

“Christian artist” can be a tough with the larger arts community. tag to wear in Bali, as well as From art exhibits to music and in other cultures. If the artists’ dance classes, to enhancing the use works are not solely focused of arts in worship, the Baileys are on overtly Christian symbols finding many points where faith and themes, fellow Christians and art connect. will often criticize them for straying from or compromising In every creative form of art—music, their faith commitments. On painting, dance—the Baileys see a the other hand, the larger arts connection to the Creator. “We community can see Christian see it as a gift from God,” says artists as being one-dimensional, Jonathan. He and Tina are helping with less commitment to artistic artists grow in their own creativity Application 2: Connecting Faith and Arts in Bali 49 and see themselves as gifts from be a means of Christian service, God, as well. They offer spiritual Tina and Jonathan speak of a formation retreats, cross-cultural art more common basis for their projects, creativity/body awareness work: relationship-building. workshops, interfaith music “Our work is about as traditional collaborations, art and spiritual as it gets,” says Tina. “It’s about formation, dance, visual art exhibits, relationships.” gamelan lessons and performance, and care for international students. Jonathan adds, “We live in a community where the arts “It’s not a new idea,” says Jonathan. are a way to relate; in fact, “It is what the Church did for a a primary way.” Growing, millennium or more,” noting its trusting relationships provide role in music, architecture, and opportunities for the Baileys other forms of art. to host an artist-in-residence

The Baileys feel not everyone program, teach summer understands how art can be an art classes in Hungary, and intrinsic part of life and faith communicate faith in ways that for people in many cultures. For are understood and appreciated those who do not appreciate art in a pluralistic and artistic or cannot grasp how this could culture. 50 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 John D. Pierce

The Baileys often have artists One visiting pastor told them and other guests come to that churches in U.S. could learn participate in their classes some important things from and worship, and they invite their ways of engaging the arts collaboration and partnership. community.

1Originally published in a slightly different form in John Pierce, “Faith and the Arts: Baileys Share in Bali’s Diverse, Creative Culture,” Baptists Today News Journal 29, no. 8 (August 2011): 4–5, http://issuu.com/baptiststoday/docs/ btaugust11_071611final?mode=a_p&wmode=0. Reprinted by permission of John Pierce. Application 3: Community Engagement through Ethnodramatology 51 Community Engagement through Ethnodramatology Julisa Rowe Julisa Rowe is with Artists in Christian Testimony and is based in Kenya, where she trains leaders in using drama as a powerful tool for communicating God’s truth and touching hearts for transformation. She has a BA in Theatre and an MA in Intercultural Ministries. She received a Doctor of Missiology in ethnodramatology from Western Seminary.

e thought the Bible of Tamil Nadu—to present “Wwas a foreign book, the Gospel of Matthew. His but today I see the smells and attempt also met with great sounds of my culture. Those animosity from the Church, who tell of Bhagavata (God) but had wide acceptance and are Bhagavatars—storytellers of appeal to the general populace, God.” Those were the words of resulting in many turning to a Brahmin in Andhra Pradesh, Christ, including the dancers India, after viewing a classical themselves. A government kuchipudi dance drama with a minister was the chief guest, and biblical message.1 The play met after the performance he said, with opposition from Christians, “You Christians speak about God but affirmation from Hindus. and heavenly glory somewhere, but I saw God and heavenly Prior to this, Dr. Suvisesamuthu, glory right here on stage.” Dr. former Director of the Christian Suvisesamuthu’s work inspired a Arts Centre in Chennai, was the large number of believers in India first to use bharata natyam— to pursue classical art forms to the classical dance drama form communicate Christ. 52 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Julisa Rowe

Kala Darshini, a Catholic arts In Thailand, the traditional Likay training institute in Andhra folk drama form has been used Pradesh, has done some innovative with great success for over thirty works, including one piece on the years by Christian Communications eight beatitudes of Jesus, done Institute (CCI), under the direction in eight different Indian styles of of Alan Eubanks, to tell numerous dance (kuchipudi, bharata natyam, biblical stories and gospel messages. orissi, manipuri, and others—one In Japan, a Noh drama, “Wings of style for each beatitude). This piece Love,” was created as a dialogue was an attempt to show India the between Buddhism and Christianity universality of the beatitudes. and as a means of beginning to The institute has also done folk bring out the message of the cross. and classical pieces depicting the life and works of Jesus, such as Kerala, India, has an interesting shepherds dancing for joy at his folk theater tradition called birth, and a bharata natyam on the Chavittunadakam.2 It is a Christian miracles of Jesus. In the miracles alternative to the usual folk theaters piece, the dance master took the and was developed under the role of Jesus and other dancers influence of Catholic priests and took the roles of different people the Portuguese in the mid-sixteenth in the calming of the storm, stories century. The scripts are from of his healing, and other miracles. Christian European history, such as Application 3: Community Engagement through Ethnodramatology 53

Charlemagne and the early Christian and response, chants, role- emperors. There are also saint play, banter and communal stories and Bible stories. Although it dilemma resolution. originated as a Christian alternative Sigana performances take to Kerala folk theater, it has become off from the traditional its own art form, and recognized by narrative form. But because the Kerala government. it is performed in a more “contrived” environment, An immensely popular Christmas it also incorporates more show in Nairobi, Kenya, was entertaining forms like produced in 2000–2001. It was a song, dance and music. fusion of traditional storytelling, These are organically song and dance, and modern woven into the shows.3 theater. It brought together popular faces and comedy acts, such as TV Active participation of the game show presenters, comedy trios, audience is encouraged, as the DJs, radio announcers, and leading line between performers and actors in a loosely woven retelling of audience is eradicated. This the Christmas story, set in modern- informs the “communal dilemma day Dandora—a Kenyan housing resolution” that is central to estate. A jazz vocal group provided its teaching. Unlike traditional Christmas music between scenes, storytelling, sigana works in a while a popular radio personality multicultural setting, mixing music narrated the event and encouraged and movements from traditional audience participation. and contemporary sources and challenging contemporary realities. While the acting style was along the lines of psychological realism, the The above examples show how mix of music, interaction, and story indigenous drama forms are being showed a more Kenyan structure used to communicate Christ with and gave a model on which to base great effect around the world. a contemporary fusion theater that Plays written out of the local speaks to today’s urban audience. worldview using indigenous styles This model is called sigana, which are best able to resonate with seamlessly weaves together contemporary audiences and show acting, narration, music and them a reflection of themselves, other expressive techniques, while entertaining them at the in the form of traditional call same time. 54 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Julisa Rowe

Classical and folk theater forms instead of giving money to a preacher. are well worth considering as In many cases, this has actually resulted possibilities for incorporating in the conversion of the actors as they the message of Christ, because interact with the message of Christ. their role is to affirm long- established social and religious As globalization continues in many beliefs. Development and health countries, it is also important to organizations have realized the look at developing theater styles potential that these forms have that fuse contemporary realities to reach the masses—particularly with traditional, indigenous forms. more rural-oriented groups— Christian artists can blend the two when a new message needs to be worlds into an artistic heart language communicated. Such agencies for today’s urban audiences. have carried out a great deal of Christian workers who truly desire experimentation in this regard. to communicate Christ in a way that reaches to the heart of each culture, It is not a great stretch to understand effecting change for the Kingdom of how people can communicate the God, should seek dramas that are Christian message in folk forms indigenous to each country, whether that are already accepted and can historically indigenous or indigenous be adapted for use with messages through fusion of contemporary of various types. Given the lack of culture and traditional cultural Christians trained in the traditional elements. In such indigenous drama, arts and the realities of economics, ideas and actions are communicated some have suggested hiring a group in a powerful language that is truly of actors to perform Christian plays understood by the people.4

1The kuchipudi dance drama “What Is My Duty?” was created by Dr. Solomon Raj in the 1970s.

2See www.chavittunadakam.com.

3Oby Obyerodhyambo, “Sigana: Re-engaging Contemporary Cultural Reality,” The Swaraj Foundation, www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/ls3_oby.htm.

4For additional reading, see the following resources in the Handbook bibliography: Byam (1999), Corbitt and Nix-Early (2003), Eubank (2004), Lapiz (2006), and Nicholls (1983). Application 4: Engaging People through Visual Arts 55 Engaging People through Visual Arts Geinene Carson Geinene Carson has a BFA in Painting and Sculpture. She has been with Operation Mobilization (OM) since 1999 serving in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. She now resides in Atlanta, Georgia, serving as a consultant for ArtsLink, the visual arts ministry she founded within OM. She is a wife, mother, practicing artist, and well-traveled advocate and mentor for using the arts as a bridge between peoples and cultures.

he small town was full of abandoned houses. Old bricks, doors, and Tbroken pots littered the sides of the streets. Upon arrival, the artists began observing the people, spending time among them, and praying for an understanding of the culture. Every morning as they walked through town, they received invitations to enter homes and drink tea with locals. Over those cups, God began to teach these artists about the area and people he had brought them to.1 The Posture of a Conscientious themselves accessible along with Artist their work will likely reap much The conscientious artist has great favor. With favor comes the right opportunities to build bridges with to be heard. communities of different cultures. When an artist is willing to spend “There’s a deeper meaning in time prayerfully observing a culture this piece. I’m going to return and creating informed art, it is more tomorrow to sit and contemplate likely that his or her art will attract it,” one young man proclaimed. and occupy people’s attention. To And return he did, to sit silently for go further, artists who invest in the hours in front of a painting entitled lives of the local people and make “The Passage of Time”—an artist’s 56 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Geinene Carson response to the changes she saw The Role of the Artist as in the local village over the course Observer, Learner, and of two years. This North African Relationship Builder man had read the Bible but had Artists who go into the community many questions. Standing in front as learners not only create informed of the painting, the artist shared art, but also naturally initiate her inspiration and the painting’s genuine relationships. Another deeper truth, centered on the gospel. opportunity for local interaction This curious student returned for is through the artist staying visible several days to gaze at the painting during the art-making process by that had captured his attention and creating publicly or maintaining an to continue conversations with the open studio. With this approach, visiting artists.2 art exhibitions, for example, become less about viewing art and As an expressionistic painting of more about a celebration of shared a tree, there was nothing overtly experience. Christian about the painting. The tree, however, resembled the Through being accessible at art locally common olive tree. Painted events, the artist honors those in prayerful response to the artist’s viewing the artwork as well as the perception of changes in the artwork itself. This accessibility community, the artwork begged places more importance on the deeper engagement. Through the actual message and expresses artist’s availability, that engagement sensitivity to the people receiving was made possible and meaningful it. In spite of the stereotype that conversation ensued. art should speak for itself, the artist can show a motivation to However, particularly in the communicate and build lasting West, it seems that artists think relationships. Moreover, artwork their work should speak for itself, created with a sense of shared their only responsibility being to ownership is better appreciated and birth and release their work to the its message more deeply received. exposure received by hanging on a wall or sitting on a podium. What This practice of working within artists can learn in cross-cultural culture and being accessible to it is experience is the importance of not simply a pragmatic strategy. In their own presence to bring further so doing, we follow in the footsteps depth and influence to their work. of Christ, the incarnation of God, Application 4: Engaging People through Visual Arts 57

“full of grace and truth” (John with the artisans of the 1:14). God in Christ gave grace area. The group’s prayer was through works of healing and that their creations would provision, and through his death resonate with the very people and resurrection. These works they had built relationships were in response to humanity’s with, speaking a message of need and were a reflection of God’s restoration and redemption character. Through his accessibility, into their lives.3 Christ also spoke the truth of God represented within his creative acts. In recent years, God has opened unique doors for artists to minister Artists who are believers should in parts of the world that are respond to this challenge by typically closed to the gospel. We knowing what they are being have been exploring ways artists called to communicate, standing can impact Muslim communities confidently in their divine through murals, art workshops, inspiration. If artists are never exhibitions, encouraging creativity present with their work, then in public institutions, and how can it be expected of those establishing community art centers. not of the kingdom, not of the This creative approach has allowed same culture, to understand or us to be less confrontational and interpret their artwork with the yet more direct in communicating same insight? If there is no effort the good news of Jesus. People who invested in building relationships would reject gospel tracts stop to with the viewers nor any level of ponder scripture associated with citizenship with the community, images that are familiar to them. people may not feel that questions and curiosities conjured up by a Some years ago, a group of visual piece of art merit dialogue. artists were invited onto a public university campus in one of these Artists in Contexts Where areas harder to reach. They had Ministry Is Challenging been warned that the town had Even though the exhibition the reputation of being one of the was the goal they were most hostile in the country. The working towards, it became artists did what came naturally, quite apparent that much building relationships with local of their ministry would people by carefully observing the involve personal interaction culture, prayerfully creating art, 58 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Geinene Carson and producing an exhibition. The Viewers gave each piece of artwork people were welcomed into the their undivided attention, seeking studio space to view the artistic out each artist to ask in depth process and, in some cases, to about the meaning behind every directly collaborate on a piece color, symbol, pattern, and title. of art. This genuine encounter Had the artists left their work between the people, the artwork, to simply “speak for itself,” they and the artists helped to draw would have never encountered nearly one thousand visitors to such keen interest. Through the exhibition. The nonthreatening their availability, the depth of atmosphere created a perfect forum the artwork’s inspiration and for reducing the distance between meaning was fleshed out, and cultures. Locals were shocked opportunities for truth-sharing to see an art exhibit focused on and meaningful relationships celebrating their own people. were seized. The artists, thrilled These artists thoughtfully created by such an outcome, discovered art that displayed the familiar in a that God has an exciting new light, creating a venue for deep role for visual artists in his spiritual conversation. kingdom mission.4

1Anonymous, “Restoring Broken Jars,” OM Artslink, 2009, http://omartslink. org/news/news_WAsia_09.php.

2Anonymous, “Peace Reflected Artistically in North Africa,” OM Artslink, Summer 2007, www.omartslink.org/getInspired/inspiredNorthAfrica07.php.

3Anonymous, “Restoring Broken Jars.”

4Anonymous, “Restoring Broken Jars,” OM Artslink, 2009, http://omartslink. org/news/news_WAsia_09.php. Application 5: Sharing Faith through Contextualized Visual Arts 59 Sharing Faith through Contextualized Visual Arts Scott Rayl Scott Rayl is a graduate of Tulane University with a degree in Anthropology and Studio Art. He has taught both informally and at the graduate level on Indigenous Art and Christianity, and seeks to better understand the role of indigenous visual art in missions and in the life of the Global Church. He blogs at http://indigenousjesus.blogspot.com.

Henna “Storying” ina Rowland1 has lived for narrative designs based on the Mthe last few years in East gospel story. Although traditional Africa and South Asia. In her henna designs are mainly decorative work, she chose to explore the use and have no narrative content, she of “henna storying.” Henna is a found that they lend themselves plant that grows in certain regions quite well to illustrating narratives. of Africa, southern Asia, Australia, After developing a series of designs and Oceania. Among other things, based on feedback from nationals, it is used for body decoration in the she began hosting henna parties form of temporary tattoos, which as a form of outreach. She invited are popular for new brides and for local women to attend the parties special occasions, including simple and shared the gospel with them fellowship among women. Henna while applying the designs to their is even mentioned in the Bible in hands. Some of the women, both Song of Solomon (1:14; 4:13-14). believers and nonbelievers, had opportunities afterward to share Rowland felt that God had gifted the stories with others, because her in doing illustrations using henna designs typically remain henna, and she began to develop visible for a few days or even up to a 60 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Scott Rayl month. Since then, online resources Stephens reports that the art show for henna storying and henna was very well received. Most parties have been well developed visitors had never seen anything and are available for download. like it before and felt proud that a foreigner would take the time to Kimberly M. Stephens used a learn their art forms and develop similar approach during her recent them in such a way. Like Rowland’s time in South Asia. She decided to henna designs, Stephens’ paintings create a public art exhibit entitled were very abstract, requiring “A True Story.” It was an exhibit explanation to understand their of nineteen paintings, acrylic and meanings.3 mehndi (henna) on canvas.2 Each painting depicts a mehndi design Safina (Fergie) Stewart, an and tells a story from scripture. Indigenous Christian Artist Stephens intended her designs to Safina (Fergie) Stewart is an give an overview of the biblical Indigenous Australian artist, story from both the Old and New educator, and follower of Jesus who Testaments. Some of her lives in Melbourne, Australia,

BUNJIL4 paintings incorporated written with her husband and three children. scripture as a design element, Born in Auckland, New Zealand, although Stephens made sure she was raised in the highlands that the scripture expressed God’s of Papua New Guinea, where she character and narrated a part of learned to follow Jesus from her the painting’s story. missionary parents and had many Application 5: Sharing Faith through Contextualized Visual Arts 61

RIPPLE EFFECT5 multicultural experiences. Her of issues that hinder acceptance father is Australian with Scottish and mutual respect between heritage and her mother is a Torres indigenous and non-indigenous Strait Islander and Queensland Australians. Aboriginal. At the age of 13 Safina moved to live in mainland Australia. Safina makes her living as an artist from the sale of her original works In the last few years, Safina has and reproductions both online5 and pursued a career in painting, at a local indigenous art market, working in a style she calls where she is able to informally “contemporary indigenous art.” share the meanings behind her Her work is rich and vibrant, artwork. Her indigenous heritage and her subjects range from sea gives her the right in the eyes of creatures to topographic landscapes Aboriginal Australians to use their and traditional, indigenous totem traditional motifs and symbols animals. All of her work is infused which, when filled with gospel with biblical meanings and a sense meaning, shine the love of God of joyful hopefulness. Through it, into the hearts of both indigenous she seeks in part to raise awareness and non-indigenous Australians. 62 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Scott Rayl

1Name changed for security purposes.

2Henna is known as mehndi in Hindi.

3For more information and examples of henna evangelism, see www.go2southasia. org/resource/evangelism/henna.

4By Safina Stewart, www.artbysafina.com.au. Used by permission. Bunjil means “eagle” in the languages of the Kulin Nations of Australia.

5For more information and examples of Safina’s artwork, see www.artbysafina. com.au/gallery.html. Application 6: Church Planting with Bible Storying and the Creative Arts 63 Church Planting with Bible Storying and the Creative Arts Tom Ferguson Tom Ferguson has served as an Ethno-Arts and Orality Specialist with a faith-based nonprofit organization since 1994. He and his wife, Tin, have worked in Africa and Asia, equipping local believers and expatriate workers in the use of creative arts and oral communication strategies. Tom holds music degrees from the University of Southern Mississippi and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is a charter member of the International Council of Ethnodoxologists.

Ayizan Festival—The Beginning founding. Atumpani, the talking ugust 1996—It was time for drums for the Ewé people, told the the festival celebrating the epic story that was translated into founding of Tsévié, the town where both Ewé and French languages for we were living in Togo. The stadium those uninitiated in the language of field was covered with traditional the drum. As the story unfolded, musical groups demonstrating dancer-actors played it out for all their prowess, creating a veritable to see. The crowd was thoroughly smorgasbord of sound for a new captivated. Then it occurred to me ethnodoxologist like myself. I went how powerful it would be if God’s from group to group drinking in the story could be told in this way. Thus amazing rhythms and phenomenal began my journey into the realm of dancing. As the time for the official storying with music and other arts. ceremony approached, the groups formed a parade around the field. A Tale of Two Peoples The first breakthrough happened The central piece was a presentation among the Ifè people. After of the story of the village’s successful new song workshops in 64 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Tom Ferguson

1997 and 1998, I was asked to co- At that same time I touched base on lead a music, storying, and church- the work among the Waci-speaking planting workshop in March 2000.1 community in Togo. In October I returned again in 2001 to do a 2003, I had proposed the creation mini-workshop focused on creating of an evangelistic music-drama to songs based on major events from the Glévé church. The music-drama the life of Christ and Pentecost. would be used in conjunction with As things progressed, Pastor Odah a chronological Bible storying Kodjo became the key champion pictorial evangelistic tract that was for the use of the Ifè language and being produced. Over the next year musical arts among the Ifè Baptist church members created songs and churches in Togo. dramatic sketches for each story. Their first presentation was at a Ten years later, I spoke with Pastor conference on Bible storying as an Odah about the state of music in example for the participants. Just as the Jésus le Chemin (Jesus the Way) everything was coming together, my Baptist Association, comprised wife and I transferred to South Asia. primarily of Ifè-speaking churches. Just before we left, the Glévé church He shared that the arts and storying presented some of the music and are still an integral part of evangelism dramas as part of a church-planting and church planting. Associational event in the village of Vo Kponou. leadership includes a directeur de musique (music director). There are When I visited Togo in July 2011, I annual music seminars and concerts had the opportunity to speak with in each zone of the association. Each some Waci church leaders about how seminar includes the composing things had progressed. The church of new songs, as well as topics for in Vo Kponou had an attendance discussion. The 2010 topic focused of about forty people. The Glévé on the role and appropriate use of church had continued to perform Ifè traditional dance in the church. the songs they created at various During their annual music week, events but no new songs had been churches are encouraged to take created. They discontinued using music out of the church and into the dramas. The difference between the public spaces. Emphasis is placed the Ifè and the Waci is that among on using indigenous Ifè performing the Glévé church no “champion” arts. Daily performances include arose. We are praying that God will concerts, music-theater, and a picnic raise up a local champion for the followed by traditional dancing. arts in our Waci churches. Application 6: Church Planting with Bible Storying and the Creative Arts 65

Local Story Crafters and Music account using a popular music style Since that first experience in of the Masikoro. The traditional Tsévié, storytelling has played an mandolin player is a popular ever-increasing role in my work. Masikoro musician. The music It became necessary to improve group hopes to use the mandolin my skills and knowledge of player’s popularity to gather storytelling to the point that my crowds to hear the gospel message. role has evolved from “indigenous The group is participating in a music catalyst” to “creative arts story-crafting project, and plans and orality consultant-coach.” In are underway to encourage and this new role I have noted that as assist the creation of more story- local believers around the world songs in local styles. begin to craft and use stories for the first time in their heart language, Visual arts and storytelling some have naturally moved to The visual arts are also being used creating songs based on the stories. in conjunction with stories. A small group of believers in North India Among the Kotokoli people of Togo created songs for a Christmas and the Bisa people of Burkina outreach party for family and Faso, story-based songs have friends. Two young artists in the been used with radio broadcasts group were commissioned to paint of Bible stories. These programs scenes from the nativity story on have become extremely popular large canvases. These were hung within the predominately Muslim around the venue and were used population. In Mali, a story crafter to tell the Christmas story. The composed songs for every story in following year, the believers added his language’s story set. He also has drama to their presentation. begun creating music videos from these songs. Story crafters among Believers in South Asia, the a North Indian people composed Middle East, and Africa combine a song in place of a story, finding Bible storytelling and henna art that the story would be more easily to share the gospel. Women use told through song. henna to draw beautiful designs on their hands and feet for special After being introduced to “Storying occasions. While drawing the Training for Trainers” (ST4T),2 henna designs, the women talk, a group of Malagasy musicians build relationships, and share the created a song on the creation Bible story they are drawing. When 66 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Tom Ferguson women are wearing henna, others Participants are taught the Handy admire the art on their hands, Guide for Facilitating New Song opening doors for the story to be Creation4 and given the assignment shared again and again.3 of creating a song for one of the stories from the Book of Acts. Empowering Storyteller Church When the story is told during Planters “house church” time, they teach The value of using the performing their song to the training “church.” and visual arts with stories is growing among storying practitioners and Increasingly, as church planters, trainers. Impromptu drama and storytellers, and creative artists storyboarding are tools regularly are trained and empowered, used to help teach a story. A new creative arts paired with Bible song creation module is included stories become a powerful tool as part of the storying church for communicating the message formation training in South Asia. of scripture.5

1See Tom Ferguson, “Ifé Music in Evangelism and Church Planting Workshop,” EM News 9, no.1 (2000), 1–4; or Tom Ferguson, “Music, Drama, and Storying: Exciting Foundations for Church Planting,” in All the World Is Singing: Glorifying God through the Worship Music of the Nations, eds. Frank Fortunato with Carol Brinneman and Paul Neeley (Tyrone, GA: Authentic, 2006), 199–204.

2See Stephen Springer, ed., Storying Training for Trainers (ST4T) (n.p.: WigTake Resources, 2010).

3See more about henna art in this Handbook, see Scott Rayl, “Contextualizing Visual Arts for Faith Sharing,” chpt. 27.

4See Brian Schrag and Paul Neeley, “Tool FF: Memory Aid Hand Motions,” in All the World Will Worship (2005) on the Handbook DVD.

5For additional reading on chanted narratives, see Kaushal (2001). Application 7: Strengthening Ministry and Storytelling with Local Proverbs 67 Strengthening Ministry and Storytelling with Local Proverbs Pete Unseth Peter Unseth spent a dozen years in Ethiopia with his wife, Carole, working under SIL. They now work at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, where Peter is an Associate Professor. He studies proverbs from many languages, with such varied applications as the study of coined proverbs by C.S. Lewis, proverbs in Bible translation, and the relationship between a culture’s values and its proverbs.

roverbs are a highly valued art a context, such as within stories, Pform in many societies. They songs, poems, etc. In stories, are artistic pieces of verbal art, proverbs are often used for short poems of wisdom. They functions such as introducing a may be marked by rhyme such as narrative, marking transitions, “Haste makes waste.” Or they may enlivening dialogue, and, most use alliteration, such as “All that often, concluding a story. is gold does not glitter.” Or they make an image that is striking such Using local proverbs makes as “You can lead a horse to water, stories and their messages more but you can’t make him drink.” familiar and less foreign. Jesus And many proverbs combine more and some of the biblical writers than one of these techniques, for used local proverbs. The best example, “Birds of a feather flock known example is in Luke 4:23, together,” or “A friend in need is where a proverb introduces a a friend in deed.” topic—“I am sure you will quote this proverb to me, ‘Doctor, heal The proverb art form is rarely used yourself’” (cf. 1 Sam. 24:13; Ezek. by itself, but rather embedded in 12:22-23; 16:44; 18:1-2). 68 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Pete Unseth

Collecting Local Proverbs I learn about the meaning When planning to use local and application of proverbs, proverbs, we should do two frequently with a story about types of preparation. First, we how a proverb has been used. need a collection of local proverbs. Even for native speakers of a language, a collection of proverbs helps them recall ones that are relevant. This is especially true if the collection is arranged or indexed by topics. Collections of proverbs are available for many languages—in print or on the web—and often translated into English.1 Cross- culturally, I have found that simply discussing a list of proverbs with a local person leads to excellent conversations. Listening to a person explain proverbs, I am in the position of a learner/listener. Application 7: Strengthening Ministry and Storytelling with Local Proverbs 69

Some proverbs open up spiritual often introduce something new, topics very naturally. For or more often summarize and example, in Ethiopia, while evaluate what has just been said. studying a collection of proverbs, Most of the examples given below I learned the saying, “Praying use English proverbs, since they with a grudge, burglarizing with are more familiar to the readers, a cough.” It was explained to but each point could also be me that the proverb is about the illustrated with proverbs from importance of reconciling with other languages. people, for grudges hinder our fellowship with God. It is not We want to understand as much a proverb from the Bible, but as possible when and how locals it certainly opened a door for insert proverbs into the stories discussion of biblical teaching they tell. To do this, we need to on this subject. Similarly, in study their stories, hopefully in Afghanistan, we find the Dari a fixed form, ideally recorded proverb, “In childhood you are and roughly transcribed. Video playful; in youth you are lustful; recordings, rather than audio, in old age you are feeble. So help us learn more about local when before God will you be storytelling patterns, including worshipful?” Asking a local gestures, distance between person to explain this proverb storyteller and listener(s), etc. can lead to a deep discussion. As we study local stories, here are some basic questions we Analyzing Local Story Structures might ask: to Learn When to Use Proverbs in Storytelling 1. Are proverbs used to introduce The second type of preparation a story? If so, how? for using proverbs is to study 2. Are proverbs used in transitions how proverbs are used in between segments of a story? the community, especially in Or in editorial comments about storytelling. People do not use circumstances or people’s their proverbs randomly. Skilled actions? storytellers around the world 3. Are proverbs used at the end of use proverbs strategically. As a a story? general world pattern, proverbs The application of such insights are used at the margins of stories can be very helpful. But even if we or their sub-units. That is, they do not find a specific example of 70 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Pete Unseth proverbs being used in a certain something familiar. In this way, way, we can experiment with using the story is a bit less foreign local proverbs in various ways in to them. our storytelling. Proverbs inserted by a storyteller. Proverbs to introduce stories. If we are telling stories from the Local proverbs can be used to Bible, we must be careful about introduce stories. For example, in putting local proverbs into the an English-speaking context, we story. Still, we can experiment can introduce the story of David with inserting proverbs in and Goliath by saying, “There is transitions, spoken as editorial an old proverb, ‘Little strokes fell intrusions into the flow of the great oaks.’ I’m going to tell you story. For example, in telling the a story from God’s word about story of the prodigal son, after how a mighty giant was brought the son leaves, a storyteller might down by a little stroke.” Or we refer to a proverb—“But, as this could introduce the story of story goes on, you can guess that Paul’s nephew overhearing a plot the son will regret his actions, as (Acts 23)—“A proverb reminds the proverb says, ‘A fool and his us that ‘Little pitchers have big money are soon parted.’ Then ears.’ Here is a story from God’s the son…” word about how the ‘big ears’ of a boy overheard a plot and saved Proverbs used to summarize a Paul’s life...” story. Proverbs have often been used to summarize a story or to In an Arabic context, we might emphasize the main point. As we introduce a story about Jesus study local storytelling patterns, telling parables by referring to a it is likely we will find cases where local proverb—“Our ancestors proverbs are used at the end of gave us the proverb that ‘Allah telling a story. teaches by an allegory.’ In this story from the Holy Injil, we will hear When we use local proverbs how the Prophet Isa [Jesus] taught in this way, we should make it people by parables…” clear that the story is concluded and that the proverb is a By using an appropriate local comment or application. For proverb to introduce a story, example, think of telling the we can intrigue listeners with story where Paul was opposed Application 7: Strengthening Ministry and Storytelling with Local Proverbs 71 by Elymas the Sorcerer (Acts a belief that is contrary to 13). After Elymas had rejected scripture. For example, before the gospel and tried to hinder a story, a local proverb could be Paul’s proclamation of it, Paul cited about being unforgiving to announced that Elymas would people who have hurt us—“You be blind for a time. In fact, know the proverb ‘…’ Here is a Elymas became blind and had to story that tells what Jesus said be led by the hand. A storyteller about forgiving….” Or, after a could then end—“This story story, “We see that God does not about Elymas’ rejection of the support the values reflected by light reminds me of the proverb, the proverb ‘…’” ‘There is none so blind as he who will not see.’” Conclusion Whatever stories we tell will be In addition to helping underline more effective when constructed the point of a story, using an well by local artistic standards. appropriate proverb at the end has As we find out when and how been shown to increase listeners’ storytellers use proverbs, we ability to remember the story. can try to insert appropriate We desperately want listeners to local proverbs into stories in remember the biblical stories we similar ways. tell, so this is important. Some will say, “That’s a lot of Challenging Traditional work!” Yes, but let’s remember Beliefs as Expressed in Local that using oral methods is Proverbs not a way to dodge serious Every culture has some beliefs thinking and preparation. and values that disagree with Using oral methods must scripture. These beliefs are often not mean we simply go into reflected in some local proverbs. new contexts and tell our Well-chosen biblical stories stories as we would in our can counter these beliefs. This home cultures. Let’s do the is similar to what Ezekiel said groundwork to help people about a local proverb (18:1-2). in each culture resonate with the stories they hear. Let’s do In introducing a biblical story, whatever we can to make the or after its conclusion, we can biblical stories more familiar cite a local proverb that supports and less foreign. 72 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Pete Unseth

1For languages that do not have available proverb collections, read how to collect proverbs (http://www.gial.edu/documents/gialens/Vol1-1/Unseth-Proverbs- Article.pdf). Application 8: A Balinese Painter Illustrates Biblical Characters 73 A Balinese Painter Illustrates Biblical Characters Scott Rayl

Scott Rayl is a graduate of Tulane University with a degree in Anthropology and Studio Art. He has taught both informally and at the graduate level on Indigenous Art and Christianity, and seeks to better understand the role of indigenous visual art in missions and in the life of the Global Church. He blogs at http://indigenousjesus.blogspot.com.

yoman Darsane Nis a Balinese Christian painter (batik and canvas), musician, dancer, and shadow puppeteer. He was born in 1939 to rice farmers, and his father played in the Indonesian orchestra (gamelan) of the local king. Due to his family’s close 1 contact with this Nyoman Darsane’s HE CAME DOWN (1978) ruler, Darsane was raised and When Darsane later studied art at educated in the king’s palace, Universitas Diponegoro in Java, along with one of the princes. he met a Christian woman there Through this royal education named Deze, who introduced him he learned Balinese culture to faith in Jesus. After finishing and religion (Hinduism), along art school and returning to with the cultural art forms he is Bali, he eventually became a known for today. professional artist and teacher. As 74 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Scott Rayl

Darsane sought ways to combine masks representing the mythical Balinese arts with the message creature known in Bali as of the gospel, his motto became, Banaspati Raja (King of the “Bali is my body. Christ is my Forest), also called the Barong Ket. life.” Initially, he was rejected by his family and community after Every Balinese village has a becoming a Christian, but over Barong, whom it considers its the years Darsane has recaptured guardian. The Barong mask is a much of his family’s respect means of both giving the spirit because of his commitment to tangible form and harnessing remain Balinese in his Christian its energy. Stored in the village art and life. temple, the mask is brought out on special occasions and While attending art school asked to bestow blessings on Darsane was exposed to a the community or restore the variety of Western art forms, balance of cosmic forces. At which he incorporates into his these times, the Barong might evolving painting style, one that be placed on an altar or worn, portrays biblical elements and along with a full body costume, simultaneously maintains a strong in ceremonial processions or Balinese identity. He frequently theatrical events. During sacred features biblical characters in performances, two members Balinese dance positions. of the community dance the Barong mask and costume, which This earlier painting by Darsane, together can weigh as much as He Came Down, portrays the one hundred pounds. When a humility of Christ coming into dancer, another performer, or human experience and sharing the an audience member falls into life of the people. The worshiper a trance, it is believed that the prays with a lotus blossom spirit of the Barong has been between her fingers in an attitude successfully invoked. common to the people of Bali. Images of demons are pushed to Dancing is a form of worship in the edges of the frame by the light Bali. The Balinese believe that that Jesus brings. the dancer performs before the gods, delighting them. The gods The demons in this painting are take possession of them while derived from carved, wooden they dance. Application 8: A Balinese Painter Illustrates Biblical Characters 75

Nyoman Darsane’s THE ANGEL’S WHISPER (2002)2 In The Angel’s Whisper we see are allowed to dance before the Mary, the mother of Jesus, dressed gods. She uses hand gestures called in a white blouse dappled with mudras as she dances. gold designs. Her colorful Balinese sarong is covered by a golden Looking over her right shoulder, wrap that reaches to her knees. Mary sees a figure who resembles She wears a crown topped with an angel. The appearance of the white flowers. Mary’s virginity angel is based on a shadow puppet, is underscored by the fact that or wayang, figure. He appears out only premenstrual virgin girls of the abstract background to blow/ 76 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Scott Rayl whisper into Mary’s ear through a where the gospel infuses the lotus blossom that he holds between culture and can’t be peeled his hands. His message of the birth away. Many of the concepts and of a Savior sets Mary into motion. images in his work would be familiar and recognizable to a Darsane’s paintings represent Balinese, but probably not to a a fusing of form and content, Western Christian.

1See the second section, “Jesus as Dancer-Servant,” at http://thejesusquestion. org/2012/03/25/jesus-the-dancer-part-7-the-art-of-nyoman-darsane/.

2View online at http://www.omsc.org/art-at-omsc/darsane/darsane-intro.html. Copyright by Nyoman Darsane and OMSC. Used with permission. Application 9: The Artful Presentation of a Contextualized Christology 77 The Artful Presentation of a Contextualized Christology Katie Hoogerheide Katie Hoogerheide serves as Associate Director of the Center for Excellence in World Arts at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics in Dallas, Texas. With background in both ethnoarts and linguistics/translation, she is particularly interested in how these disciplines intersect in the realm of oral verbal arts. The overseas experiences particularly influencing her work include time spent living, working, and traveling in Europe, the Middle East, and South Africa.

t gripped me the first time I He alone is the one Creator (al-Khaliq) of all things, I saw it, and the e Father who dwells in unapproachable light is second time, and the source of creation from whom all things came. the third. I kept From all eternity ‘Isa, the visible form of the invis- coming back to it, ible God, was with God, and was God. All things reading it aloud, were created through Him, without Him nothing being drawn into was made that has been made. its flow, wondering He is the Creator (al-Khaliq), the Maker (al-Bari), the Fashioner (al-Musawir) and the Beginner (al- how it carried such Mubdi) of all things. We are His creatures. power. It was called He is the one Creator God, the Self-subsisting One a “Christology,” a (al-Qayum) who alone has life in Himself, and has proclamation of imparted life to His creation through His Spirit, who theology about the alone is the Quickener (al-Muhyi), the giver of life. Christ. Its author, is is our God, the only true God. Martin Parsons, We worship Him alone. had artfully Excerpt from the full text, available online: missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/unveiling-god crafted these truths in the form of a confessional recitation, a kind of creed intended to be presented orally.1 78 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Katie Hoogerheide

The entire work was saturated (1) There is but one God, whom with scripture that I loved, but they alone we worship were scripture that I already knew (2) The Creator of all things well. Why was I so drawn to this (3) The Lord of all things particular presentation? Finally, (4) The Master of the Day of after years of wondering, I set Judgment aside time to dig into its depths. (5) And the only Savior Unlocking some of its secrets could benefit anyone hoping to present In Parsons’s confessional recitation, scripture in powerful ways that these five statements appear draw people into engaging with as an opening doxology, after God’s story. which each one of these topics is realized within its own “canto,” I started by spending time with or subsection. A final, sixth canto, the text itself: comparing it with beginning with the same words as scripture, looking for discourse and the first, presents a fresh reworking other linguistic characteristics, and of all the material presented in the drawing connections between what first five subsections. I found and current understandings of the oral verbal arts. Then Each canto contains a wealth of I contacted the author, who information about its particular graciously granted me an interview. topic, and you may be drawn for The more I learned, the more quite some time into that material. vibrantly the text came alive. Come Upon reaching the end of each with me and I’ll introduce you to subsection, however, you will the world of this confessional encounter a phrase nearly identical recitation. to the words that open the first and final cantos: “This is our God, the Let’s start by imagining that we’re only true God. We worship Him walking over to a filing cabinet alone.”2 and pulling out a drawer called “A Christology.” As you crack open Returning to our file cabinet the drawer, your eyes land on the analogy, it’s like spending time in labels atop each folder, giving a particular folder and then closing you an overview of the drawer’s it again, at which point you’re back contents. The first five folders are to the top level of seeing the main marked with labels denoting five labels of the whole drawer. The different descriptions of God: first and final folders catch your Application 9: The Artful Presentation of a Contextualized Christology 79 eye, summing up the contents of about God as Creator, Ruler, Judge, the whole drawer. Finally, when or Savior—you choose to follow, you’ve finished perusing all the every branch contains, at its core, folders in the drawer, your eyes this same storyline. Consider two run over all the labels again as you examples: close it. Similarly, the confessional recitation closes with the original 3rd canto (Ruler): “Therefore the doxology of the five statements Father…put all things under ‘Isa…. about God. From heaven He [‘Isa] has sent the Spirit of God to His church.” Parsons developed this picture of the filing cabinet as he studied and 4th canto (Savior): “The Father… attempted to imitate Urdu-Persian sent ‘Isa…to save us…. And ways of organizing oral discourse. ‘Isa…has poured out the Spirit of Of course, the fact that he chose God….” a filing cabinet reflects Parsons’ own grounding in a Western, Just as in a tree, other, smaller paper-based society, and it’s just branches may stem from the larger one possible picture for conceiving branches, so each canto contains of how the human mind organizes additional information related to information at various levels. its own primary topic. In the end, Those familiar with computer however, all of the branches in the organizational systems might find tree, and all of the statements in similar inspiration by thinking the cantos, return to the trunk, the about file directories. Let’s move main line of the story. By the time now to another possible picture. we’ve reached the crown of the tree, it’s almost as if the sixth canto We’ll take our imaginations to the takes us shimmying down the trunk base of a large tree, its stately trunk again, past all that we’ve learned, and massive branches towering making the story line explicit with above us. That trunk carries the its review of the descriptions of load of the whole tree, representing God we’ve covered: “We know a storyline that occurs over and Him as Father…we know Him as over throughout the confessional ‘Isa… and we know Him as the recitation: “God (the Father) Holy Spirit.” empowered ‘Isa, who in turn poured out the Spirit.” No matter which A local man gave Parsons this major branch—presented as cantos picture of the tree in response 80 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Katie Hoogerheide to the question, “How do you In addition to reinforcing important tell stories?” From his particular theological concepts throughout cultural background, the picture the course of the recitation, these of the tree made the most sense formulas also provide a “resting in guiding him in organizing a place” for purposes of memory narrative structure. Once again, recall. The familiarity of a phrase we see evidence of the human mind allows someone reciting the poem creating levels in order to remember to say those words on autopilot and recount material. while mentally preparing for the upcoming subject matter.4 In In his original publication of the another example, Parsons has also confessional recitation, Parsons streamlined recall by consistently specifically identified narrative ordering the terms tribe, language, and repetition as key elements to people, and nation despite the fact making theology more accessible that the book of Revelation itself in oral contexts (2005, 226-227). So only presents those four elements far, we’ve seen an overall narrative in that particular order one time, structured by two kinds of in Revelation 5:9. repetition—repeated descriptions about God outline the overall Space precludes the exploration form of six cantos, while the core of the many other devices of narrative itself is also repeated in narrative and repetition present each canto. in Parsons’s work. Already very powerful, this confessional Parsons employs yet another recitation has the potential to powerful feature of repetition—he become even more so if performed consistently uses formulaic phrases orally in the language of a specific when referring to certain concepts context. The experience of hearing or characters. For example, God vocal expressive elements such as the Father is described in every intonation, rhythm, and choices canto but the first as “The Father in syntax will bring out new levels who dwells in unapproachable of meaning in the text, as will the light.” Likewise, ‘Isa is introduced experience of being able to see in each canto except the first as “the other expressive elements such as visible form of the invisible God” gestures and facial expressions. or, in one case, with the slightly condensed version “the visible form In presenting this confessional of God.”3 recitation, Parsons intended to Application 9: The Artful Presentation of a Contextualized Christology 81 provide a well-grounded prototype Parsons’s footnotes also suggest from which others can draw to that he has connected concepts of create a gripping narrative account his Christology with at least one of God’s role throughout the hundred lines taken from seventeen history of the universe. His own different suras of the Qur’an. footnotes on the recitation indicate Readers familiar with Islamic that he incorporated material practice will also recognize the from at least 85 verses of the Old similarities between the opening Testament and over 250 verses of of the doxology and the first part the New Testament. of the Islamic shahadah—“There is

Having identified a good number no God but God.”5 This compelling of additional direct references story, solidly grounded in God’s or strong allusions throughout word, has been intentionally the text, I estimate that this designed both in content and in confessional recitation embodies form to connect with the Urdu- concepts from nearly 150 verses Persian context. in the Old Testament and over 300 verses drawn from nearly Given Parsons’s model as a every book in the New Testament. possible starting point, let us 82 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Katie Hoogerheide seek to stimulate local people linguistic and artistic conventions to create their own confessional that will make the internalization recitations. Especially in contexts of such a rich, scripture-infused where established churches Christology accessible to the expect something resembling a average member of society. Most formalized creed, let us encourage importantly, let us pray for the them to craft such works in the creation in every community narrative forms that resonate with around the world of an irresistibly the common people. As necessary, compelling presentation of this let us guide them in discovering the one God, whom alone we worship.

1Originally published by Martin Parsons, in Unveiling God: Contextualizing Christology for Islamic Culture (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 2005), 227-238. The full text of the confessional recitation is also available online: missionfrontiers. org/issue/article/unveiling-god (accessed November 7, 2015).

2Only the fifth canto doesn’t end with this statement, presumably because the sixth canto immediately begins with very similar words.

3Compare these formulas for God the Father and ‘Isa with 1 Timothy 6:16 and Colossians 1:15.

4In The Singer of Tales, Albert Lord refers to the usefulness of formulas to accommodate the “demands of performance at high speed,” in which the performer “depends upon inculcated habit and association of sounds, words, phrases, and lines.” Quoted in The Singer, edited by Stephen Mitchell and Gregory Nagy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000, 2nd ed.), 65.

5See Ruthven, Malise and Azim Nanji, in Historical Atlas of Islam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 14. Application 10: Scriptural Impact through a Dramatic Reenactment 83 Scriptural Impact through a Dramatic Reenactment James R. and Jeanette Krabill James and Jeanette Krabill served from 1978–1996 as Mennonite mission workers with African-initiated churches in West Africa. They currently live in Indiana, where James is senior executive for the Mennonite Mission Network and Jeanette teaches third grade. The Krabills’ adult children— Matthew, Elisabeth Anne, and Mary-Laura—were all born in Côte d’Ivoire, but now live in the U.S.

ituals play many important and Rituals take on particular Rdiverse functions in society. significance in oral cultures where They ground people in history, they become a primary, if not the foster community identity, mark primary way for socio-religious life’s passages, reinforce cultural values to be transmitted from one values, and create continuity and generation to the next. When faith meaning for both individuals and communities, following the model collectivities. Jesus understood of Jesus, do the creative work the importance of rituals when he of embedding Christian rituals took common practices already in already existing, culturally “ritualized” in Jewish culture— appropriate societal patterns, like washing feet, eating bread, the meaning of such practices is and drinking wine—and invested deepened in the minds and hearts them with additional meaning of believers. by commanding his disciples, whenever they gathered, to “do We experienced this in a significant this in memory of me.” Faithful way as a family during the nearly Christian communities have passed two decades we spent sharing life along these practices for now over with African-initiated churches two thousand years. in West Africa. Our two oldest 84 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 James R. & Jeanette Krabill children, Matthew and Elisabeth Muslim friend from Mali who Anne, spent their early years living sometimes helps with work around with us among the Dida people the place. of southern Côte d’Ivoire and worshiping in the Harrist Church, March 20: This morning was an indigenous movement with Pita’s funeral service and burial, some 200,000 members. and Matthew accompanied his mama and papa throughout the Rituals of all kinds shaped life in entire affair, even walking the long the village during those years and distance in the scorching midday often served to reinforce the central sun to the cemetery and back again. beliefs and activities of the church as well. One such example took Most people came dressed in black place during Holy Week in 1985, or dark blue and, before the service, when our oldest child, Matthew, assembled quietly around Pita’s bed was five years old. Here is what to pay last respects. Pita’s sister happened that year in the days sat beside her brother on the bed, leading up to Easter, as recorded wiping his brow and chasing away a in our diary: growing number of flies also drawn to the occasion. “Fight, fight the March 18: Today, just two weeks war for me!” sang the choir in before the beginning of Holy Week muted voices and without the usual festivities, death hit the village musical instruments. “It is you, my when one of our neighbors, Pita, God, who can fight for me!” left this world to join the next. When Pita’s body had been March 19: As Dida tradition washed and placed in the casket, prescribes, on the night before the mourners proceeded to the burial the body is placed outside church in two long lines—men on on a spacious double bed in the the right, women on the left—on courtyard of the deceased, and the either side of Pita. “Women of entire community gathers around honor,” dressed in black uniforms, to pass the night in singing. In led the way, carrying bouquets of order to attend the death watch, freshly cut flowers to be spread Mama and Papa put Matthew and about Pita’s grave. Elisabeth Anne to bed a bit early tonight and left them for several We paused for several brief hours in the care of Lassina, a moments at the church to offer Application 10: Scriptural Impact through a Dramatic Reenactment 85 final prayers. The middle row of April 1—Good Friday: The practice benches had been removed to make here on Good Friday is to reenact a way for the casket. Everywhere funeral—the funeral of Jesus. And one looked were signs of sadness: so today we did it all over again. the sanctuary candles remained Black dress, muted singing, the flameless, the flowerpots flowerless, symbolic removal of the benches and the floor unswept. Across the and freshly cut flowers, this time altar was draped a large black cloth deposited at the foot of the altar. in place of the usual white one. Preacher Alphonse’s comments We explained the rerun to Matthew were short and barely audible; by telling him Jesus had died and from where we stood, only snatches on this day all other activity ceased reached us. in order to think about his passing.

Matthew, normally bubbling with “You mean Jesus is like Pita?” questions, was caught up in the Matthew wanted to know. “He’s solemnity of the occasion. He like Pita lying there on the bed?” remained silent and, like the rest “Yes,” we said, “Jesus is like Pita of us, simply moved along with lying there on the bed.” the flow of things until Pita had been lowered into the ground and April 3—Easter Sunday: Easter we had headed for home. morning! We got up and began 86 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 James R. & Jeanette Krabill preparing for church. This day, we wearing dark clothing?” asked knew, would be one of great joy! Matthew, confused by his revolving There would be singing and dancing wardrobe. “Because Jesus isn’t with bright flowers and palm dead any longer,” we replied. “He’s branches decorating the sanctuary. come back to life!” And the musical instruments would be back in full force! Matthew stopped, reflected for a moment, and then with a burst of We dressed the children in their inspiration added, “Jesus isn’t on little white outfits prescribed the bed anymore!” “No,” we said, for the day. “Hey, why aren’t we “Jesus isn’t on the bed anymore!” Application 11: Arts Enliven Scripture-based Storytelling 87 Arts Enliven Scripture-based Storytelling Carla Bowman Carla Bowman, with her husband, Jim, founded Scriptures in Use (siutraining. org) in 1987. The curriculum they authored, Communication Bridges to Oral Cultures, has been taught around the world. In 2006, Carla developed Bridges for Women, a course to empower non-reading women with the memorized word of God in story. SIU holds over two hundred training events each year in over fifty countries. The Bowmans served as missionaries in Latin America and subsequently extended their training courses worldwide.

t nightfall in Dulumpur, a hamlet in Jharkhand in eastern India, thousands of stars cling randomly onto an ebony sky. The welcome foot-washing and artful, ritually paced meal served on giant leaves take place as if in slow motion. Below the star-encrusted sky, this place seems suspended in time. Shrouded women dance in a millennia-old line. To the silken movement of saris, they rock faintly back and forth on bare feet to an irrepressible, soft, high-pitched, repetitive chant of a biblical song.

The perceived sluggishness of music-chant are illusory because the dance, foot washing, ritual evidence of hard work is all around meal, and hypnotic sounds of the us: rice and lentils cooked for hours 88 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Carla Bowman on dry dung fires; swept dirt streets; At this instant, a large serpent immaculate, smooth, plastered, slithers across the dirt, weaving mud-brown walls adorned with and gliding toward Adam and Eve. white geometric designs and The observers, enraptured and painted with whimsical gazelles speechless, are gathered under the floating in a line under tiny thatched roof veranda. One can windowsills. hear a simultaneous, forceful gasp from the audience as the serpent Abruptly, a loud beating of the moves across the ground. It is in dolak assaults the night silence. It is reality a small woman wrapped a drumbeat contradicting the slow in a silk-striped sari, slinking rhythm of swaying hammocks that realistically in curved, slow motion creak as the rope ends make contact toward Eve. with the trunks of kikar trees. Contrasting with the slow motion As the serpent lets out a hissing of village ritual, the drum heralds sound, the narration in the form an arrival. A team of community of song continues: “The serpent church planters has arrived at said to the woman, ‘Did God the house of peace—a place for really say, “You must not eat from night fellowship consisting of a any tree in the garden”?’” Eve is ceremony of scripture story, song, startled. Her face shows incredulity. drama, dance, and prayer. The narrator continues in song, changing nothing from scripture, On this night, the community church not adding to or deleting from the planters tell and enact the story of word of God. The story moves on Adam and Eve. It is part of the Old to its conclusion as the villagers of Testament series, a set of stories Dulumpur have watched electrified, being presented in Dulumpur and spellbound. other villages. A pervasive silence hangs in the air as the drum stops The success of these talented and actors playing Adam and Eve and creative performer church stroll forward. The subtle chant- planters is due in no small part song of the narrator begins. Her to flawless training by master voice penetrates the night as she trainers from Engage India, an begins to sing the enthralling tale Indian church-planting agency from Genesis 3: “Now the serpent based in Madhupur, located in the was craftier than any of the wild geographical center of the large animals the LORD God had made.” state of Jharkhand. Engage India Application 11: Arts Enliven Scripture-based Storytelling 89 focuses on training church planters curriculum designed specifically in an orality-centered curriculum for oral cultures is a powerful tool called Communication Bridges to when in the hands of national Oral Cultures (Bridges for short), churches, agencies, and trainers. developed by Scriptures In Use We have seen evidence of the (SIU, siutraining.org). The Engage effectiveness and innovation of India trainers have insightfully Indian trainers through the results identified the communication style in Dulumpur and in scores of other of the Santali people group and villages dotted around Jharkhand have used, to huge advantage, tribal where many scripture stories have skills in dramatic arts, music, and been adapted to drama. dance. Their repertoire of stories, complete with drama, song, and We have seen results north of dance, reaches upward of thirty. Dulumpur several hundred miles The stories are sung to one of away in the country of Nepal, twelve traditional tunes with total where teams of master trainers fidelity to the biblical text. travel by foot, boat, bus, train, jeep, donkey, and yak to reach their Other stories have been memorized venues. For years now, these teams but are not yet developed in drama have faithfully multiplied Bridges and song. The church planters have training all across Nepal and on been taught to revisit these same the borders with Tibet and Bhutan. stories with dialogue, as villagers sit in a circle around the storyteller. We have seen the effectiveness of Trainers have taught the church national trainers multiplying this planters to help listeners discover training among dozens of Majority the meaning of the story through World churches and agencies of dialogue. Semiliterate storytellers South Asia. Their ownership use the printed Santali Bible as an of the method and material aid to memorization. They are the has inspired the translation of ideal practitioners of this orality- manuals and video supplements based method of evangelism and into many languages of the Indian church planting that has gained subcontinent alone. We have popularity and momentum in the observed the leaders of training past decade. hubs develop their reproducible innovations. These include the The SIU ministry ethos/vision is House Church Bridges Model, that a systematic church-planting Bridges in a Nutshell, Bridges for 90 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Carla Bowman

Women onsite demonstrations, the success national trainers have integrated children’s ministry, the had is not limited to that region Esther Institute, story Bible schools, of the world. Bible story training during tailor classes, story memorization after In Vietnam, storytellers journey prayer meetings, and multiplying with their “traveling Bibles,” the the Bridges for Women training in word of God safely stored in their small groups. minds and hearts, as they go from village to village. In Sumatra, Other innovations to multiply storytelling teams dramatize Old training and encourage self- Testament stories of the prophets sustainability have emerged. and chant corresponding Psalms. Some believers bring goats and In Latin America, we have seen rice so food may be shared with innovative nationals create urban participants. Trainers meet with barrio story groups in Peru, as well church planters once a month for as rainforest story groups in Brazil. coaching and mentoring. It is no mystery why oral communication Across the Atlantic to the methods have been so successful continent of Africa, innovation in South Asia. For people groups and multiplication abound: like the Santali of Dulumpur or the Banjara of South India, the creative • Among the Pygmies, an oral arts are their heart and soul. But Bible school, which is in reality Application 11: Arts Enliven Scripture-based Storytelling 91

a simple grass-roofed veranda scripture is an aid to memorization in the heart of the rainforest, and that stories must be told with is created. complete biblical accuracy and • There are long storytelling fidelity to the text. afternoons under the acacia trees among the Turkana of At the same time, storytellers northern Kenya. learn how to create introductions • There is storytelling among the and develop dialogue. They are nomadic Mbororo of Niger. taught how to differentiate wisely • There is story and dance by between dialogue for “stone firelight among the Tuareg, who clearing” (pre-evangelism) and have come to the Lord by family dialogue for discipleship. They are group conversion. instructed to follow chronological • In Ethiopia, hardworking order in their storytelling, as well trainers travel long distances to as to select from worldview story be greeted by church planters collections. They are encouraged who welcome them eagerly and to have command of 50 to 225 embrace their teaching. stories. Although scripture tapes, • In Khartoum, non-reading oral- media, and radio presentations culture believers internalize are useful tools, participants learn stories from God’s word after that face-to-face interaction and effective training by a Kenyan. community relationships developed • In Chad, classes on oral culture through storytelling and dialogue communication are filled to are crucially important. They have capacity, sometimes exceeding also learned that literacy is not seventy students. dispensable. Literate mentors are • In Mauritania, stories are essential to teach stories to non- encouraged as sweet mint tea reading believers and are a key to is passed. maintaining fidelity to the word.

All across the globe national In addition to the quality of training teams are presenting what instruction in the essential elements we consider the essential elements of oral communication presented of effective oral communication in hundreds of events yearly by of scripture. They instruct new national training teams, it has been storytellers to memorize the a significant joy to the Scriptures biblical story exactly as it is In Use team to see innovative written. They teach that printed adaptations made by nationally- 92 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Carla Bowman led training hubs. It is a credit to They have demonstrated vision, mission leaders and practitioners adaptability, and willingness to in the Majority World that they venture forward in a new paradigm have so quickly become staunch for missions, utilizing ancient advocates and champions of oral communication methods of the communication of the scripture. oral arts. Application 12: Music Brings Comfort in Disaster Relief 93 Music Brings Comfort in Disaster Relief Roger W. Lowther Roger Lowther is the Founder and Director of Community Arts Tokyo (www. communityarts.jp), as well as the Director of Faith and Art at Grace City Church Tokyo (www.gracecitychurch.jp). Roger received his Master of Music in Organ Performance from The Juilliard School and his Bachelor of Science in Applied Physics from Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. Roger and his wife Abi helped start Grace City Relief and Tsukuda Loves Tohoku after the trifold disasters of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear radiation and have since been very involved in relief efforts. Roger has been serving with Mission to the World since 2005. He lives in downtown Tokyo, Japan with his wife Abi and four small boys. More information can be found on their blog: rogerlowther.blogspot.com.

t was hard not to stare at the best to help the survivors of a Idevastation surrounding us or community in Ishinomaki. shrink at the stench of decaying fish and squid washed in by the The pleasant aromas of the tsunami that struck Japan on cooking soup drifted through March 11, 2011. Our group of the air, a smell almost forgotten twenty-two volunteers—pastors, by those who began to line up. It missionaries, church members, awakened a hunger, an appetite, and others—drove two trucks and not only for delicious, hot food, two vans into a gravel lot, recently but also for life. Hope itself was cleared of debris, and started wafting through the air. unloading supplies. Others started making meat and veggie Bruce Huebner, graduate of Tokyo stew on large propane burners. University of the Arts, walked up A little over a month after the and down the lines of waiting earthquake, we were doing our people playing his shakuhachi 94 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Roger W. Lowther

(bamboo flute). The traditional long after the need for material melodies gently carried familiar supplies had ended. In the scores stories of both pain and peace, of relief concerts that first year awakening a joy for life that had after the disaster, building been forgotten. Bruce played relationships was paramount. not to distract people from the After hearing us play, people boredom of waiting in line or as willingly opened their lives to us mere entertainment. His music and shared their stories. brought a delicious aroma of a different kind, one just as real We have witnessed dramatic and meaningful, pointing to changes in the mood of a shelter something that will always satisfy during a concert. “Bravo!” and and can never be lost. Workers “Wonderful!” ring through the and survivors alike heard it and air in a festive way. Children remembered. come up to play with us. People repeatedly break down in tears What part does music play in as some deal with their grief for disaster relief? was not a question the very first time. As a thank on my mind at the time, as I and you to us, one energetic 84-year- everyone else were overwhelmed old gentleman sang songs from by the earthquake, tsunami, and his youth, bringing cheers from nuclear disasters. But at the very everyone in the shelter. One first shelter I brought supplies to, damaged community center was I spied an old electronic keyboard transformed for a little while in the corner. When I mentioned into an elegant concert hall to the shelter manager that I was as the music transcended the a musician, everyone started to set surroundings. up chairs and gather around. Once I started playing, they did not want The most dramatic response me to stop. occurred at Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant’s shelter following Hundreds of thousands of a moment of silence for the people resided in shelters after two-month anniversary of the earthquake, grief-stricken and the tsunami. The mood was unable to move forward with their incredibly somber, and we lives. People need love, and music realized the usual upbeat opened doors for us to remain in opening to a concert was far the shelters and share that love from appropriate. Bruce came Application 12: Music Brings Comfort in Disaster Relief 95 up with the brilliant idea to call they gave in twelve days) three out a melody on his shakuhachi months after the tsunami struck. from one side of the gymnasium. As the afternoon light began to Steve Sacks echoed a varied wane, refugees pulled out their response from the other side flashlights and lanterns so we of the room on his flute. Calls could all see the music. The and responses of comforting howling winds of a typhoon melodies crisscrossed the room, raging outside had knocked out mesmerizing us with their healing the power and created an eerie power. As we were leaving, one atmosphere inside the gymnasium of the junior high girls got up full of people. Torrential the courage to play her flute. downpours created lakes of Bruce and Steve quickly joined standing water surrounding the in, and before long a whole group building. Yet the music allowed us of adults were joyfully dancing all to relax and feel like everything in their celebration of life! was going to be okay.

I have played with other Tokyo- At an International Arts Movement based professionals in schools, conference in New York City years hotels, sports complexes, ago, Jeremy Begbie encapsulated community centers, and even the importance of music in disaster outdoors. Setting up my portable relief. He said: digital organ never fails to draw crowds and comments, In a world that is so obviously but nothing compares to the not as it ought to be, it is the reactions when I start to play. calling of artists to be agents “Wow! You’ve turned our of a new world, a redeemed gymnasium into a beautiful world. Whenever we start to cathedral,” one shelter manager believe that nothing can ever told me. People always send us be different, that our homes, away with, “Please come back, relationships, careers are and play longer next time!” basically stuck in a groove and can never change and Ten Christians from The Juilliard never will change, whenever School came with me to the we start to believe that the Watanoha Elementary School horrors of the world just shelter to help in musical relief have to be, the emaciated work (one of fourteen concerts child compelled to beg at a 96 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Roger W. Lowther

road side, or the prostitute Neither my training in conservatory forced to the streets to feed nor my job as a church musician her drug addiction, whenever could have prepared me for that we start to believe that there first year after the earthquake. can never be anything new However, my role as an artist in under the sun, it’s the artist’s disaster relief fit as clearly and calling to make us believe naturally as if we had planned for things can be different, that it all along. The aroma of beauty life can be new, that a new plays a powerful part in the healing world is possible, a world of individuals and community that ought to be.1 reformation.

1International Arts Movement Conference, “Redemptive Culture: Creating the World that Ought To Be,” February 23, 2007. New York City. Application 13: Arts and Trauma Healing 97 Arts and Trauma Healing Wendy Atkins Wendy Atkins has been ministering in eastern and central Africa since 1986. Since 1992, she has lived among the Azande in Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo. Her passion is to see Zande believers use their traditional art forms for evangelism, worship, and edification. She is currently working on a MA in World Arts from the Center for Excellence in World Arts at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics in Dallas, Texas.

ith traumatic situations When Congolese refugees fled Wresulting from war, tribal north into the Central African conflict, disease, famine, and Republic (CAR) after their villages the breakdown of the family had been attacked by members of rampant in our world today, the the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) role of the Church in promoting led by Joseph Kony in October biblically-based trauma healing 2009, feelings of trauma permeated is becoming an essential aspect that population.3 But soon after of missions.1 In fact, it has been they crossed the Mbomou River said that “trauma is perhaps the into CAR, the realities of beginning greatest mission field of the 21st new lives as refugees brought their century.”2 Combining the power artistic talents to the surface. of the performing and visual arts with the word of God provides Men began carving mortars, used an important tool to facilitate for centuries by the women of this the healing of the emotional and area to husk rice and pound dried spiritual wounds received when cassava into flour. Artistic lines people experience trauma. and wood-burned designs were 98 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Wendy Atkins

order in the people’s lives and public expressions of their joy and frustration. The visual arts expressed in survival activities helped the refugees deal with the horrific situation that they had been through, as well as spur them on to begin again in the new situation into which they had been thrust. incorporated into the carving of these ordinary domestic utensils. Music also played an integral role Young Congolese men started in helping the Congolese refugees weaving straw hats traditionally worn by the ruling class of this people group. Their peers in CAR were not aware of this tradition, but when they became aware of the symbolism of the headwear, they quickly purchased the hats.

These artistic creations were made and sold to obtain much- needed cash for refugees in order to purchase food and other supplies essential to their survival. As temporary shelters and more permanent dwellings were built, artwork became an important way for these traumatized people to express themselves. deal with the trauma they had experienced. The musical practices From the positioning of the of the evangelical church people supporting struts to the decorative within the refugee population sayings painted on the walls, these continued to be an important part shelters became signs of desired of their church life as refugees. Application 13: Arts and Trauma Healing 99

Two weeks after the majority of the attended the four days of teaching. refugees arrived, a Sunday morning Songs were composed each evening church service of thanksgiving by more than six groups of church was held in the refugee camp. members. Songs of praise and People prayed, pastors preached, thanksgiving were composed using testimonies were given. Throughout scripture as text. the three-hour long service, musical expressions of grief mingled with After lessons that taught them hope infused the experience. Due to about the process of grieving, the a long history of brass instruments participants were encouraged to being one of the main forms of present their experiences in the instrumental music used in this form of laments. Psalm 13 was church, the refugees had carried used as an example of a lament, their trumpets, cornets, trombones, following the details presented and baritone horns with them when in Lesson 2 of the book Healing they had fled their persecutors. the Wounds of Trauma: How the These instruments were played at Church can Help.4 The pattern of this church service to accompany expressing felt anguish, turning congregational singing. to God in trust, then praising him for his goodness was used by the After the preaching, the Congolese various groups to compose new refugee pastors and Bible songs expressing their pain. Several schoolteachers sang a hymn as examples are worthy of note. a testimony of God’s goodness and care. The power of song set One of the choir groups based their to biblical texts helped those who lament on the text found in Psalm attended to focus their thoughts 59:1: “Rescue me from my enemies, on the protection and provision of O God. Protect me from those who God as a way of dealing with the have come to destroy me.” Here is immediate trauma they were facing. the English translation of the song based on the text written by the The most significant opportunity choir group (listen at www.youtube. for the refugees to put their pain com/watch?v=3n6sWLjPo_s). into song came several months later [Leader] Oh, you the LRA, you when a song-writing workshop chase people across the river! was held at the evangelical church [All] O God, save us from this! established among the refugees. To leave our houses for the More than one hundred refugees termites to run to Digba or to 100 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Wendy Atkins

Zemio. O God, save us from this! God be merciful. You, the LRA, you eat people Difficult illnesses are troubling by your fires! O God, save us us. God be merciful. from this! AIDS is killing us. God be merciful. You, the LRA, you beat people Oh God, this is troubling us. as a blacksmith beats iron. O Oh Father, this is troubling us. God, save us from this! The LRA are killing us. God be Pastors have died. Joseph is the merciful. one who killed them. O God, Desire to return to our homes is save us from this! troubling us. God be merciful. God’s work has died. Joseph has The LRA are killing us. God be killed it. O God, save us from this! merciful. Choir members have died. Joseph Kony is troubling us. Joseph is the one who killed God be merciful. them. O God, save us from this! Difficult deaths are troubling Man, you, Kony where are you? us. God be merciful. When will you repent? O God, Bad words are troubling us. God save us from this! be merciful. Oh God, this is troubling us. The pastors who attended the God be merciful. song-writing workshop composed Your power covers us. Thank a song based on Psalm 13:6 and you, God. Joel 2:18, accompanied by a dance. Your love covers us. Thank you, As the men shuffled around in a God. circular motion, replicating a Your grace covers us. Thank traditional dance done by hunters you, God. and fishermen of this people group, The LRA are troubling us. God they sang (listen at www.youtube. be merciful. com/watch?v=rJW3mi45YYM): Desire to return to our homes is [Leader] Sin is troubling us. [All] troubling us. God be merciful. God be merciful. God forgive us. Your power covers us. Thank Great sorrows are troubling us. you, God. God be merciful. Your love covers us. Thank you, Many wars are troubling us. God. God be merciful. Your grace covers us. Thank Hunger is killing us. God be you, God. merciful. The LRA are troubling us. God Great poverty is troubling us. be merciful. Application 13: Arts and Trauma Healing 101

A group of widows, some of Discussions that followed revealed whose husbands had been either many symptoms of acute stress: abducted or murdered when the nightmares, formerly excelling LRA attacked their village, chose students doing poorly in their to reflect on heaven (the time when schoolwork, feelings of depression, they would be relieved of all their and deep anger. Composing the sorrows), including those inflicted laments opened the doors to on them by the LRA. They used their souls as individual refugees the verse found in Revelation 21:4 poured out their pain. Pastors as the text for their composition. and Bible school teachers, You can see them singing the song having been through the same on a video clip at www.youtube. traumatic experience, were able com/watch?v=zj8FDdvsVuU. The to bring individuals to the point English translation of their song of reaffirming their faith in the reads as follows: sovereign God who is always in Truly, truly, Jesus will wipe the control even when it does not appear tears from our eyes. so. The result was their songs being Truly, he will wipe the tears of sung, recorded, duplicated on sorrow from our hearts. cassette tapes, and then distributed Truly, he will end the pain that to key church leaders in the refugee is in our hearts. camp. Healing had begun as Truly, truly, he will wipe the deep-seated emotions produced tears from our eyes. by the traumatic situations they experienced were released through As the songs were heard for the song and dance. first time, those attending the workshop sat in silence, some Jesus Christ told us to expect with tears streaming down their troubles in our day-to-day lives faces. As each group was allowed (Matt. 6:34). Throughout scripture, to express their pain and hurt human agony is expressed as a publicly, the trauma these refugees normal part of life here on earth. had experienced, having to flee The contemporary situations their homes and travel over eighty- many face today prove these five miles by foot through dense, words of Christ to be true. How tropical jungle to arrive in a small will the Church of Jesus Christ town with only those items they respond to these needy situations could carry on their backs, was where thousands of people are brought to the surface. traumatized? 102 Orality Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 2016 Wendy Atkins

The use of the arts to help people expressions will provide a way for the express their deepest hurts is hurting to find a measure of peace. an avenue that artists, trauma But true healing and wholeness will counselors, and the traumatized be experienced by the traumatized need to further explore and utilize only as these artistic expressions today. Giving hurting people draw people to focus ultimately on the opportunity to present their the sovereignty and faithfulness of emotional and spiritual wounds God. Such biblically-based artistic through painting, sculpture, song, expressions will provide hope for a dance, drama, and other artistic hurting world.

1This article is adapted from Wendy Atkins, “The Use of the Arts in Trauma Healing Ministry.” GIALens 7 (1), 2013. Available at www.gial.edu/documents/ gialens/Vol7-1/Atkins_Arts.pdf (accessed October 7, 2015). Both photos featured in this article were taken by Wendy Atkins.

2Diane Langberg, “Trauma as a place of service.” Paper presented at the National Church Leaders Summit, Bible House, New York City, May 5, 2011, p. 3.

3BBC News Africa, “Joseph Kony: Profile of the LRA Leader,” 2012 [www.bbc. co.uk/news/world-africa-17299084. Accessed May 29, 2012].

4Harriet Hill, Margaret Hill, Richard Bagge, and Pat Miersma, Healing the Wounds of Trauma: How the Church Can Help (New York: American Bible Society), 2013. For more information on the Trauma Healing Institute, see http:// thi.americanbible.org. The Center for Excellence in World Arts at GIAL in Dallas, TX (USA) has built on this training to offer a graduate level, faith-based course incorporating the more extensive use of a variety of artistic domains cross- culturally in trauma healing. 103 104

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