Making Congregational Music Local, edited by Monique M. Ingalls, Muriel Swijghuisen Reigersberg, and Zoe C. Sherinian

Abstract

By providing a comparison of congregational music-making in Christian communities worldwide, editors Monique M. Ingalls, Muriel Swijghuisen Reigersberg, and Zoe C. Sherinian offer a compelling account of music production through the interplay among structure, agency, change, and continuity. The book is a part of Routledge’s Congregational Music Series and offers snapshots of the vibrant process of making Christian congregational music local. As a more accurate description of the complex processes of making music, the authors opt for the term “localization” rather than the more common and contested terms “indigenization” or “inculturation.” As such, they argue that “localization” captures the processes by which Christian communities adapt, adopt, create, perform, and share congregational music.The volume’s twelve ethnographic case studies on six continents integrate disciplinary insights of ethnomusicology, anthropology, cultural geography, mission studies, and practical theology. They define congregational music-making broadly: “Congregational music-making is a multidimensional social activity encompassing a wide range of materials to interpret, including creative practices, social processes, institutional dynamics, beliefs, and values, and elements of material culture” (15). This definition might be too broad for some. But it does give the authors ample room to explore the multidimensional aspects of the processes of the localization of congregational music. Throughout the volume, significant attention is directed to how Christian assemblies use musical practices to position themselves relative to other groups, Christian and otherwise, with some authors relying on the insights from the architects of world Christianity: Andrew Walls, Lamin Sanneh, and Kwame Bediako.Part 1, “Engaging Musical Pasts: Continuity and Change in Congregational Song Practices,” focuses on how Christian communities employ past musical materials to create a distinct sense of the local. Here we learn about the role of subjunctive visions with vernacular Catholic practice (Brazil), the ways in which song leaders have transformed older hymns to become mechanisms of the supernatural (Navajo, USA), and the mainline Protestant adoption of evangelical hymns in a retro turn that creates a usable past in order to reposition themselves in response to their declining numbers (USA).Part 2, “Congregational Music and the Politics of Indigeneity,” highlights what are oftentimes competing powers of different sorts. This section looks at the creation of new forms of creativity and productivity that bridge the indigenous and cosmopolitan (Northern Territory of Australia), the challenge of utilizing hybrid musical forms to engage top-down inculturation (East Africa), and attempts at constructing religious repertoire that elevates local cultures with an aim of creating overarching unity for all Catholics (Indonesia).Part 3, “Rifts, Reconciliation, and Coexistence: Congregational Music-making in the Diverse Locale,” conveys how social interactions impact the localization of congregational music. This section explores different kinds of sustained localization, even in the face of the domination of English and Western hymnody in Anglican church music (South Africa), a government’s involvement to translate the Christian songs of an ethnic minority farmer’s chorus into usable, nationalistic songs to meet the government’s political demands (China), and the shifting performative relationships between Christian and Hindu music to create emergent religious pluralism (Indonesia).Part 4, “Christian Musical Cosmopolitanisms: Producing the Local Across Racial and National Lines,” underscores the positioning of local congregational music-making vis-à-vis other communities. This set of case studies presents a snapshot of longer processes of the integration of diverse racial groups and the emerging common ground centered on musical and linguistic accommodation (South Africa), and, among other interesting topics, the role that baptism plays in the experience of religious belonging, with singing as the primary conduit of the ritual (Ireland).While the case studies are regional in scope, some reflection on the near unidirectionality of global flows of congregational music from Global North to Global South, and urban to rural, would have been welcomed. While the volume focused on congregations, it would seem important to investigate the phenomenological site of transformations of the individual, thus to feature the experiences of ontological change that might suggest more is happening than just enhancing the experience of community. Rupture and discontinuity may well result in ontological change. An inclusion of not only the social and cultural dimension but also the spiritual and ontological might have unearthed more of what is unique about Christian congregational music in relationship to other forms of music.The volume is to be commended for filling a lacuna left by studies that overlook the contextual nature of congregational music making. This highly attractive collection makes a significant contribution to the study of congregational music.