In the first episode we talked about the importance of decolonizing worship as beginning steps for Christians and churches to repent of the Church’s complicity in creating, promoting, and perpetuating colonial imperialism and white male supremacy, and also as a means of helping the church regain its relevance in an age of post-Christendom. The focus was upon understanding how the legacy of colonial imperialism and white male supremacy influences what happens each Sunday morning in worship and upon specific practices that can and should occur in local congregations to change and decolonize their experience of worship.
In this episode we discuss how thinking about and practicing decolonizing worship requires broadening the focus not just on local practices and experiences but also on ecumenical, transcultural, and transnational factors. We begin to explore some of what those factors are and why those factors bear on the local congregation. As you will learn, conversations like these are just the start of the process. Many more such conversations need to be had and a great deal more experimentation and sharing of experiences will need to occur for important changes to be made that will help bring into joyful rhythm and harmony the body of Christ.
Among the great evils of human history has been colonial imperialism and the rise of white male supremacy. The terrible legacy of these two interwoven realities still continues. Tragically and shamefully for the Church and Christianity, is that in a twisted and perverted logic that was and is a contradiction to the Gospel, the Church has played and continues to play a fundamental role in the creation, propagation, affirmation, support, and maintenance of that legacy. The Legacy permeates all aspects of Western culture and its relationships globally.
In my mind the consequence of The Legacy has contributed substantively to the marked decline in Christianity and Evangelical and Mainline denominations in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe.
For the Church to relevance and integrity it must repent by acknowledging the sinfulness and evil of The Legacy and the Church’s complicity in it. But as Standing Rock Sioux Vine Deloria, Jr. persuasively made the case in his book, God Is Red: A Native View of Religion, repentance is not enough. Change must occur in the life and practices of Christians and the Church.
One of the continuing influences of The Legacy has been in its standards of what counts as good, appropriate, and acceptable. These standards apply to a broad diversity of culture in things like proper behavior and etiquette, what counts as good scholarship, good art, good music, and, for Christianity, what counts as appropriate worship.
Because worship is fundamental to who we are and what we do as Christians, one of the essential ways for the Church to repent and to change its life and practices is to decolonize its worship. What decolonizing Christianity’s worship means is complicated and extensive. Conversations and experiments in change are just beginning and are in the process. There are not only issues related to local practices in congregations, but interconnected international issues as well.
To help us begin our conversation on this podcast about decolonizing worship, I am grateful to Brian Hehn of The Hymn Society , who volunteered to invite conversation partners. So, it is my honor and delight to welcome to this two-part interview, Dr. Becca Whitla and Dr. Marcell Silva Steuernagel along with welcoming back Brian.
Dr. Becca Whitla is the Professor of Pastoral Studies at St. Andrew’s College in Saskatoon where she teachers worship, preaching, and Christian Education. She worked in Toronto for many years as a music director in both Anglican and United Churches (Church of the Holy Trinity, and Trinity St Paul’s United Church). She also co-directed Echo, a 70 voice women’s choir, and worked in the trade union movement developing leadership through choral singing. Becca recently published her first book, Liberation, (De)Coloniality, and Liturgical Practices: Flipping the Song Bird (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).
Dr. Marcell Silva Steuernagel is Assistant Professor of Church Music and Director of the Master of Sacred Music Program at Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology. Marcell writes at the intersection of church music, theology, musicology, and performance theory. He served as Minister of Worship, Arts, and Communication at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Curitiba, Brazil, for more than a decade and is an internationally active composer and performer. His most recent monograph is Church Music Through the Lens of Performance.
Brian Hehn is Director of The Center for Congregational Song. Experienced using a variety of genres and instrumentations, he has lead worship for Baptists, Roman Catholics, United Methodists, Presbyterians, and many more across the U.S. and Canada. He received his Bachelor of Music Education from Wingate University, his Master of Sacred Music from Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, and is certified in children’s church music (K-12) by Choristers Guild. He has articles published on sacred music and congregational song in multiple journals and has recently co-authored two books on drumming in the church published by Choristers Guild. While working for The Hymn Society as the Director of The Center for Congregational Song, he is also adjunct professor of church music at Wingate University in Wingate, North Carolina.
This episode is my second interview with The Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon. As I say in my spoken introduction, Dr. Cannon is a peacebuilder, advocate, author, and speaker. She is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Covenant Church. She has two doctorates and multiple degrees in areas as diverse as history, bioethics, business, ministry. Currently she is Executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace.
The reason I want you to know of Dr. Cannon’s books and work is that she not only provides clear and perceptive insights into the complexity of most current social justice issues, but she also a) gives excellent resources for each issue so that anyone interested in a particular issue has a good place to start in developing an understanding of the issue, and b) gives multiple examples and suggestions for how anyone can become personally involved and engaged in a social justice issue. Mae balances the theoretical and the practical is especially helpful ways.
Regardless of where a church is on the theological and political spectrum, all churches have always been interested in and concerned about youth. There are many reasons for this that exist at the same time and with varying degrees of intensity. As volunteer organizations, churches know that their survival depends on the continual and prolonged inclusion of new people. Churches also know that the age-range from middle school through college is when people are most receptive to the Gospel. Churches also have the desire to provide pastoral care to all within their ministries, including young people.
However, with the reality of the growing diversity and pluralism in the United States and also the increasing decline of Christianity in our nation, churches have been especially focused upon this issue of youth, because, if the statistics are accurate, it is young people who are the primary ones opting out of church.
This episode focuses upon what is going on with young people today in general and also what is going on with those young people who are Christians.
My guest is Laura Addis. Laura Addis has been involved in youth ministry since 2000 in both staff and volunteer roles. She currently serves as the Ministry Associate with Students at First Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, as Director of Programs for Life in Trinity Ministry, and as a consultant for Ministry Architects. Laura has regularly written for various youth magazines, online sites, and curriculum publishers.
Based upon Laura’s extensive experience, we are going to lean into her insight and wisdom in understanding what is happening with young people, including Christian young people today.
Tom has graciously agreed to return as a guest to help us understand the importance of these demographic and life-style research tools. Those who use these tools in businesses, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations are often called futurists because the research results enables them to understand trends.
Tom is an internationally recognized author, consultant, and leadership coach for Christian organizations and faith-based non-profits and has published over 25 books and numerous articles some of which have been translated into Spanish, Korean, and Afrikaans. He received his academic doctorate in philosophical theology from the University of Toronto and Victoria University. He has participated in the American Academy of Religion since 1981, and has served the board of the North American Paul Tillich Society.
Tom’s most recent publication is Why Tillich? Why Now?. It is a book addressed primarily to academic audiences.
His work upon which this interview is primarily based is Sideline Church: Bridging the Chasm between Churches and Cultures. As you will hear, Tom brings together insights from demographic and life-style research and Paul Tillich to enable the church to both look toward and plan for the future.
I love interviewing artists and having conversations about the arts not just because I love the arts but know, despite opinions by some to the contrary, that the arts are vehicles of truth and provide the means of insights and understanding about reality, ethics, faith, worldview, beauty, the quest for meaning, and all manner of other important issues and questions. The arts have been and are an integral part of every people group and civilization I know. Of course, as a Christian, I am especially interested in the way the Christian faith and the arts interweave.
To approach a conversation about all of these kinds of questions about and interests in the arts, I could think of no one better to interview than Terry Roberts!
Terry is many things, but there are three dimensions of Terry’s life that apply to this interview. First, Terry is an educator. Specifically, Terry is the Director of The National Paideia Center–an organization whose purpose is to promote critical and creative thinking. Second, Terry is a novelist. Having a Ph.D. in American Literature, Terry not only has studied writing and literature deeply, but is a practitioner of the art. Third, Terry is a Christian. So, questions of the relationship between faith, art, and larger ideas that matter intermingle for Terry, in his life, thinking, and his craftsmanship as an artist.
One might think that an interview with a couple of editors of a music publishing company might be an episode targeted only to a select audience, but, to the contrary, decisions made by such publishers can be worthy of national news. In my interview with the deans of three theological schools, when I asked what is going on in theological education presently, Dr. Karen Massey described the situation as a reckoning. There are several causes of that reckoning, but one of the significant causes is the need to confront and address the centuries long legacy and impact of colonial imperialism and white male supremacy. Another, closely related reckoning, is the issue of abuse in some way by those leading lights in a specific field. These reckonings are about power and politics because something like colonial imperialism or the abuses by dominant power brokers are by nature brought about by power and politics. Therefore any decisions made to confront and correct such legacies require political judgments. When those decisions are made, they can draw the attention of some news source. This was the experience of GIA Publications.
This interview occurred on Thursday, June 17. The day before, on Wednesday, June 16, Fox News ran a segment about how GIA Music and one the composers they publish had ended their relationship. So, when the interview occurred, my guests and GIA Music were still in the maelstrom of that event.
Publishers make choices about who and what will be published. That requires a judgment that cannot be separated from questions of theology, philosophy, ideology, ethics, and power.
To help us understand what is happening in Christian music these days and the challenges faced by Christian music publishers are my guests, Kate Williams and Michael Silhavey.
Kate Williams is the Vice President of Sacred Music for GIA Publications, Inc. In addition to her work as an editor, Kate serves as a workshop leader, consultant, and musician in the Archdiocese of Chicago and abroad, following her passion to serve in multicultural, multigenerational communities while mentoring young voices and building bridges through music ministry. Kate holds a Bachelor of Music Composition degree from DePaul University in Chicago as well as a Master of Arts degree in liturgical studies from Catholic Theological Union where it was her privilege to study as a distinguished Bernadin Scholar.
Michael Silhavy is GIA’s Senior Project Editor. With degrees in music education, theology, and liturgical studies from De Paul University, Loyola University (Chicago), and Saint John’s University (Collegeville, MN), Michael has worked in parish, grade school, university, cathedral, and diocesan settings. His work at GIA centers around choral and congregational music, hymnals, and working with composers and authors to create musical and liturgical resources for both Roman Catholic congregations and the wider ecumenical community. He has authored biographies on American composers and authors for the Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology.
Dr. Michael L. Budde is Professor of Catholic Studies and Political Science at DePaul University, where he also serves as Senior Research Scholar in the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology (CWCIT). His research explores the intersections of ecclesiology, political economy, and culture. Much of his contemporary research flows from the work of DePaul’s Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, a research center focusing on Catholicism in the so-called global South and as a worldwide religious community. Mike serves the Center as a senior research professor, and, with his colleagues, hosts visiting scholars from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere in exploring important questions in theology, politics, history, and culture.
Mike is one of the founders and was the first coordinator of the Ekklesia Project and has contributed significantly to the resources it offers.
In this episode we talk broadly about Mike’s thought and about how both the political and economic agendas of the United States have formative influences on Christians and churches that compromise the capacity of Christians and churches to live faithfully the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Mike has an exceptionally prophetic ability to hold a mirror up to us so that we as Christians and churches are able to see ourselves and our compromises more fully and truthfully. At the same time, he also has a wonderfully pastoral way of providing us the wisdom and guidance in knowing how to move forward as more authentic witnesses to the Gospel.
With the significant decline in the numbers of people calling themselves ‘Christian,’ and the closing of thousands of churches each year in the United States, a lot of us who are Christians across the theological spectrum are asking the questions, “What is God doing? How and where is God moving, especially in God’s church?”
In Amos 3:7-8, the prophet Amos declares, “Surely the Lord God does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?” I like the way the American Bible Society’s Contemporary English Version translates this passage. It reads, ” Whatever the Lord God plans to do, he tells his servants, the prophets. Everyone is terrified when a lion roars–and ordinary people become prophets when the Lord God speaks.”
My guest for this episode, Guy Sayles, may not follow Amos’s example of proclaiming, “Thus says the Lord!,” but for those of us who know Guy, we know he is one who deeply loves God and who, with every fiber of his being, seeks to be opened to and learn the lessons God has to teach. We know that when Guy speaks, what he says arises from long, prayerful, contemplative discernment that is the fruit of spending continuous time in communion and fellowship with and in the presence of God. Thus, we know his voice to be prophetic.
As you can learn from his website, fromtheintersection.org, Guy is a writer, speaker, guide, coach, and consultant who focuses on the intersections of faith and life, of meaning and culture, of love and fear. He explores healing and reconciling spirituality, ethical and effective leadership, and purposeful and empowering organizations. He also draws on his ongoing struggle with an incurable, but presently manageable, illness which has forced him to come to terms with limits and the illusion of control, to seek meaningful responses to suffering and the questions it raises, and to reflect on the ethics of healthcare and end-of-life-issues. If you’re interested in some of his reflections on his experience with cancer, you can find them at www.caringbridge.org/visit/guysayles.
Since he was in college and until recently, Guy has been the pastor of churches. He has also been a university teacher. So Guy brings to us a depth and breadth of experience that provides a guiding voice for us and for churches in these times.
In light of seeking to know what God is doing and what lessons God is teaching and wanting us to learn for the Church, Guy is here to share with us what he has learned, especially about both the lessons and opportunities for the Church brought about from the global Covid-19 pandemic.
For those of you who have been listening to this podcast from its beginning, you know Donna Marie Todd as a storyteller. She was one of the first people who graciously and generously gave her time and talent to allow me to interview her or him. Donna Marie introduced us to the wonderful art of Biblical Storytelling, and that art has been an ongoing series for me as I continue to interview Biblical Storytellers. The link to that side of Donna Marie’s life can be found here:
In this episode, Donna Marie tells us a very different sort of story. In 2011, her husband, Perrin, died, and Donna Marie became a widow and a single parent. That experience set her on an unplanned and challenging journey. However, an important and vitally needed outgrowth of that journey is a group of resources Donna Marie has developed for widows. Key among those is her book, Navigating Loss: A Survival Guide for the Newly Widowed. She also has a Navigating Loss video series and a blog and she offers private coaching and retreats. Access to all of these resources can be found on her website, A Widow’s Tale.
Donna Marie is here to share with us her experience, resources, wisdom, and, most importantly, hope!