Culture-sensitive missionary work
Look out for this weekend’s NYT magazine. It features the story of the the Mapleses, Evangelical missionaries in sub-Saharan Africa, who “break from their forebears in that they are self-consciously sensitive, hoping to Christianize the local Samburu tribe without railroading their culture.”
Thought experiment: imagine if the whole world were Mormon and followed Mormon religious culture. If the latter necessarily proceeds from the former, consider the religio-cultural things we would lose: the music, the architecture, the art, the literature, so much of which has been inspired by the world’s rich tapestry of religion.
If a Mormon utopia is in the world’s future (admit it, that’s the Church’s goal, no?), I for one hope we do not lose the Gregorian chants, the African drums, the Arabic calligraphy, the Hindu raga etc.
That’s one good reason for better allowing native religious expression in the international Church.
Comment by Ronan — January 25, 2006 @ 9:39 pm
I don’t see this as being a problem and I don’t understand the similar concerns that many people have about Utah culture dominating others. The church may not allow Gregorian Chants or Aftrican drums in Sacrament meeting, but that doesn’t mean that the church holds any disapproval of them. I don’t see any reason why a fully Mormon world wouldn’t have them.
Comment by Eric Russell — January 25, 2006 @ 11:34 pm
Eric, I think what Ronan is alluding to is that because the Church forces the same hymns (with the same lyrics, melodies, tempos, and all that other music stuff that I don’t know anything about) on all of its congregations around the world that we’re implying that it is the most (or only) acceptable form of music to be used in worshipping our Savior. And I’m not speaking solely of music, but in dress (white shirt, dark pants), in other aspects of culture (social activities, organization of church programs, etc).
For what it’s worth, I don’t think the Church as an institution is necessarily opposed to other types of music or dress or architecture but Ronan does bring up an interesting hypothetical, that if we take the Church’s desires to their logical end, will we work to tailor these things to the regional tastes or will we continue to plant McChapels across the globe?
Comment by Rusty — January 26, 2006 @ 12:37 am
Continuing a great cultural heritage can be a form of idolatry as easily as anything else.
Comment by John Mansfield — January 26, 2006 @ 8:20 am
Yeah it’s an insane hypothetical, but imagine the Middle East were “Mormon” tomorrow. Bear with me, it’s a hypothetical! A Middle East with a dominant Mormon religious/cultural expression would be kind of, well, empty and boring (culturally speaking). Unless of course, the Church built chapels with minarets and adorned them with calligraphy, and allowed a Mormonized call to prayer.
Just close your eyes and imagine what a Mormonized world would look like. Yikes! Who is going to sing these Gregorian chants if all the churches were Mormon? They’d just become cultural relics, unless, of course, the Church could integrate the religious culture of others. Currently it doesn’t do that. If Mormomism is truly going to “fill the earth,” I hope we have something better to offer than Germanic-hymns-played-too-slowly. And aside from any potential Brave New Mormon World, I would love to go to church in Africa and have it not be the same (culturally: hymns, church art, didactics etc., not doctrinally of course).
Anyway, I look forward to reading this article. I want to see how Evangelicals are approaching cultural issues.
Comment by Ronan — January 26, 2006 @ 8:21 am
Yeah, JM, there’s plenty of idolatry at Deseret Book, believe me, except (much of) it sucks artistically.
Comment by Ronan — January 26, 2006 @ 8:23 am
What if clinging to established customs enforces an artistic barenness among the Latter-day Saints? Take the Arabic calligraphy: wasn’t its development due to a prohibition on other graphic arts? It may be that a lack of space retards high-level Mormon cultural expression.
Comment by John Mansfield — January 26, 2006 @ 11:45 am
Three years back, I was singing with a local oratorio society. For most there, singing was an outgrowth of religious experience. The group was not religious in purpose, but it had some aspects of a cross-denominational choir and some of the music was religious. There were a few pieces that expressed doctrine that I did not feel right voicing, and so I didn’t sing those; I was not a fully contributing member of the group; I was conditional. One piece in particular was a beautiful mass. I was glad for the rest of the group that religious expression could be part of the oratorio society’s experience, part some parts of it I could not share with them and be faithful to my own beliefs.
Comment by John Mansfield — January 26, 2006 @ 12:09 pm
I thought Gregorian chants were already a cultural relic. Didn’t they go out of style about 500 years ago?
Comment by ed — January 26, 2006 @ 12:28 pm
John, would you mind sharing what things you were not comfortable singing?
Comment by ed — January 26, 2006 @ 12:29 pm
Ed,
Chant-singing is alive and well in many olde churches, isn’t it? And to be precise: no-one is suggesting that the Church allow Arab Mormons (in my extreme example) to sing praises to Muhammed, but to allow that style of worship — given a Gospel theme — to be permissible in LDS worship.
Mormons around the world should sing Come, Come, Ye Saints. But Mormons in England, for example (at last we arrive at my complaint!), could profitably add many traditional English hymns to the hymnbook too.
Comment by Ronan — January 26, 2006 @ 12:39 pm
I think Chant-singing is still very popular, especially in Europe. Indeed I recall reading somewhere that most church attendance in Europe is based more on the music than anything else. I recall hearing that most who go aren’t really religious. I was reading an interview with Charles Penrose who apparently is agnostic yet he loves listening to the chorals and chants.
Comment by Clark Goble — January 26, 2006 @ 12:47 pm
An old roommate told me a story last month about a time a dozen years back when he attended a performance in a Presbyterian church in Salt Lake City given by Elder Oaks’ violinist daughter, Jenny Oaks Baker. I marvelled at that: even in Salt Lake City, even with an apostle’s daughter playing, you have to go to a Presbyterian church to hear a music recital.
Comment by John Mansfield — January 26, 2006 @ 1:33 pm
The Arabic BoM is beautiful. I don’t know what Muslims think of it, but it is supposed to be readily recognizable as a holy book. It would be nice if we could be as thoughtful in all of our translations and I also wish there was more variety in local hymn-singing. Maybe someday we will get there.
My first Sunday in Kenya (home to Samburus and about 40 other cultures) I went to an anglican service because the family I lived with was Anglican and I had not yet had success in contacting the mission office. It was a beautiful service, but not a very English anglican service. It included dancing and drumming and was quite africanized. I was eager to see an LDS service and when I did, found it was exactly like every other LDS service anywhere except: there were more men than women (probably peculiar to Nairobi–it is a very male city) and the primary president had a pierced nose. Other than that, just like you know it to be.
This can be a good thing. Kenya is full of stories of unorthodox Christian practices where the locals feel free to change important things. There is even a fascinating religion called Lego Maria that considers itself to be Catholic but also believes that Christ was reborn in the 1930s in Kenya (another virgin birth) so that Africans couls be taught the gospel by one of their own and finally understand it (their explanation). That sect has survived the death by food poisoning of this reborn christ and is still going strong.
Comment by ESO — January 26, 2006 @ 1:44 pm
Maybe the church promotes Mormon culture because including religious customs of various cultures has the possibilty of creating apostate sects – think Santoria. It also affords visitors and converts a sense of “the church is the same the world over.” I think it can even be related to why we have ward boundaries – no ward gets to be the “better” or more “popular” one. The church needs to at least have the appearance of being the same everywhere (truth=truth). That said, I love going to church where there is cultural diversity. I love that the women who sit next to me in Relief Society wear bindis and have 3 pierces in their ears.
Comment by meems — January 26, 2006 @ 9:22 pm
Also, I was visiting a very elderly Indian (Sikh) woman last week. She was a prominent doctor in her day and very well educated. With her were a few friends from her school. They had gone to the “best girls’ school in Penang,” one of them said with pride. The Indian Dr. started on a rant of how much she hated that school (this was at the time of British colonialism, of course), and how they were forced to sing “Jeruselam” every day. Why should I pray and sing for Jerusalem?! It’s all the way up there!, she pointed out the window. It has nothing to do with what’s here. And why on earth should I sing and pray about England’s mountains green?!?! It’s all the way up there!! (Pointing furiously.)
I wonder if some Saints have similar thoughts?
Comment by meems — January 26, 2006 @ 9:34 pm
The church attracts people who experience spirituality through our cultural lense. Lets face it there isn’t much cultural moving room in the church and if anything it seems to me the ship is getting tighter(standard of appearance, uniformity in lessons, mormon lingo,…….. I think missionary work is a good thing to help the small percentage of the world who will relate to our way of seeing things and grow closer to God from being a part of the church. I believe that a loving God would give all who desire to find him, a way to find his fullness within a culture and religious experience meaningful to them.
Comment by riverstone — January 27, 2006 @ 12:50 am
John M.-
you haven’t been to any music recitals in LDS churches?
How sad for you. In Salt Lake and Provo areas, I have been to several. Also, the Assembly Hall on Temple square has many musical offerings of a wide variety from choral to Celtic.
And I didn’t have to go to Presbyterian church.
But those who wish to bad mouth Utah culutre will find ways to do so, even if the claims aren’t really true.
Comment by Ivan Wolfe — January 27, 2006 @ 10:13 am
I’ve also been to recitals in LDS chapels, but I don’t think they’re very good venues for some things (especially choral works) because they tend to be accoustically dead.
Comment by ed — January 27, 2006 @ 11:04 am
ed -
good point. Having performed in some LDS churches, I’ve only been in one that had really good acoustics. Most cultural halls are rather acoustically dead.
Though that’s probably because they don’t want the noise from the Basketball games to carry.
Comment by Ivan Wolfe — January 27, 2006 @ 11:34 am
Link to the story
Comment by Ronan — January 30, 2006 @ 5:14 pm