Every Nation, Tribe and Song

The other day my kids told me about this fascinating cross-cultural experience they had at school. Apparently a touring group that played traditional instruments from the highlands of Japan treated their school to a concert.

At least they thought it was Japan. The geographic details were a bit hazy, but what stood out with crystalline clarity for them was the fascinating array of musical instruments. Things my kids had never imagined before: a bowed instrument you played by stretching, a stringed instrument you held in your teeth and played by changing the shape of your mouth. My kids were mesmerized, by the sounds of things.

And they got me thinking about ethnodoxology.

Ethnodoxology is one of those ten-dollar words I learned in seminary; it means something like "the study of ethnic worship," and it looks at the use of indigenous musical traditions in Christian worship. It's really a vital issue for global missions these days, I think, because as our global village continues to shrink, indigenous musical forms are being pushed out of the village church in many parts of the world, to make room for contemporary (read: western) Christian music. My theology of worship prof came home from a teaching trip to India not long ago, lamenting the fact that he had to scour the city of Secunderabad to find a church that still used indigenous musical forms. Most had gone CCLI.

More's the pity, too, because there's a wonderful diversity of musical traditions that might enrich the global church's worship if we had ears to hear it.

About six or seven years ago (before I ever learned the word ethnodoxology) I developed a curious fascination with musical instruments from different cultures. What started with the gift of some instruments my Grandfather brought home from a missions trip to Africa eventually grew into a modest collection of instruments from around the globe. Some of the more exotic ones in my collection (pictured left) include a kora--a 21-stringed harp-like instrument from central Africa, a gidjak--an upright stringed instrument from Tajikistan that you play with a bow like a violin, and a zampona--a kind of pan-flute from Peru.

So one day, after researching and experimenting with these different instruments for a while, and after daydreaming about all the Christ-claimed, blood-bought cultures they represented for a longer while, I tried to write a worship song that included as many of them as I could play passably. To make it sound even less "western," I wrote it in 5/4 time; you can click here to listen.

Well, I don't expect it to ever make the top 40 on the Worship Charts, but it does capture a kind of musical vision for me. It's a vision of that coming day when worshipers from every nation, tribe and tongue will gather together in an orchestra the likes of which no eye has yet seen, surrounding the Throne of the Lamb-that-was-slain and offering up a symphony of praise the likes of which no ear has yet heard. There the rumble of all our amplified electric guitars and synchopated kick-drums will be joined--and probably drowned out--by the din of koras and gidjaks and zamponas and penny whistles... and zithers and ocarinas and bodhrans and steel drums and didgeridoos and throat singing...and all manner of creative, joyous noise-making from around the globe. Who knows, maybe even a bagpipe or two.

May the Lord hasten that day.

(If I've piqued your interest in ethnodoxology on a more academic level, you can read an interesting study posted here at the Canadian Centre for Worship Studies.)