Worship And Multicultural Diversity

Cultural diversity has characterized the Judeo-Christian tradition from its earliest history. While the Bible and the church's liturgies show those actions that are central to faith, cultural and social factors have shaped practice in profound ways in each worship setting. This article briefly outlines those actions and beliefs that are central to Christian worship and the corresponding practices shaped by culture and society.

The notion that North America, and particularly the United States, is a "melting pot" of cultures is no longer a valid metaphor to describe the American cultural landscape. Immigrants of the early part of the twentieth century are often surprised by the fervor of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to reclaim the cultural heritage of their ancestors. The fact that the cultural history of our forebearers shapes our identities as individuals and communities is undeniable. Parents and students from Native American, African American, Hispanic, and Asian heritages are no longer pacified or satisfied with versions of history told from Anglo or Western European perspective. Literature departments in major universities are being torn apart by debates about the "canon" of texts students should read. Textbook revisions in history and science are increasingly difficult for publishers to get approved in state departments of education. North American society and the societies within the continent are increasingly culturally diverse. At times, the level of diversity threatens the very nature of national identity and cohesiveness. The church, as one element of North American social life, naturally, is prone to the stresses caused by cultural diversity. Finding appropriate processes to guarantee equal partnership in leadership, policy making, and forming the church's mission for those peoples who were once evangelized has been difficult for the predominantly Caucasian churches of North America. Perhaps the reality of cultural diversity has been most difficult to manage in worship. Differences in language, customs, ceremonies, aesthetic sensibilities, social decorum, and theological emphases have often made cross-cultural worship impossible. The problem is solved in many places by forming congregations of one ethnic or racial type, isolated from the mainstream. However, in many urban centers and in areas where churches have sponsored Asian and Hispanic refugees, worshipers from different cultures are meeting together more regularly. Certainly, worship in denominational conference settings brings the joys and frustrations of cross-cultural worship home even to those whose local congregation is culturally homogeneous. By attempting to look beyond our desires for uniformity and familiarity in worship practice, we as Christians will likely experience a new kind of unity through diversity. And if this should happen, we may discover deeper truths about the nature of Christ's body, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the immense love of God. Worship as a Culturally Specific Activity Culture is created through language, symbols, ritual, myths and stories, art forms (such as music, dance, painting, sculpture, etc.), and beliefs that show a people's understanding of themselves and their relationship to the natural and spiritual worlds. These building blocks profoundly shape the ways in which we think and live daily. Society more explicitly describes the natural patterns of human interactions or prescribes the means by which human interaction can be accomplished. Class stratification may illustrate a natural evolution of skills, knowledge, and resources into a hierarchical pattern; however, such stratification may eventually evolve into rigid class structures or castes that are protected by law or strong social sanction. In modern history, societies often have been judged by how well their patterns of interaction provide for the needs and rights of all those living under their power. Jewish and Christian worship have always taken place in specific cultural and social contexts. Practices have both shaped the social world in which they took place and have been shaped by the prevailing culture around the worshipers. Jacob built an altar after encountering God to mark the place of this theophany or revelation, a practice common in his cultural context. David and Solomon dreamed of building a temple for God because in their cultural and social setting kings built temples to their deities. The synagogue pattern of worship and study emerged when Jews were exiled in Babylon and separated from the temple geographically. It continued after they resettled Jerusalem and preserved the Jewish legacy when the temple fell a second time. Christian worship grew out of the Jewish context of the eastern Mediterranean and only later was influenced by Hellenistic Judaism. The early Christians continued practicing the Jewish forms of worship they had learned prior to their encounter with Jesus: they gathered to hear the Scriptures, to pray, and to share a ritual meal. Only later in the first century did more distinctly ?"Christian" patterns emerge as the tensions between the Jews and Jewish Christians increased. Many of the difficulties that Paul addressed in his letters to the Corinthians reflect the class and cultural patterns of that Greek society, particularly with regard to worship. As Christianity spread throughout the Middle East, Africa, and southern Europe during the second to fourth centuries, various regions with bishopric oversight began developing distinctive liturgical styles. Liturgical scholars have identified seven liturgical families, which form during these years: Alexandrian, Western Syrian, Eastern Syrian, the liturgy of St. Bail, Byzantine, Roman, and Gallican (including Ambrosian, Mozarabic, and Celtic liturgies). Simply reading the prayers contained in these liturgies composed throughout their years of development reveals differences in worldview, rhetorical style, and central metaphors. For example, the Gallican rites can be described as being more "flowery" or effusive in tone than the more austere Roman rite. The Mozarabic rites display influences of the culture of the Moorish invaders. The church of the East presents an imagistic, poetic, sense-absorbing liturgy. The Reformation brought crises in social, political, philosophical, and theological realms to the fore. In Germany, Switzerland, and England, liturgical reforms needed to have the approval of the local and state political authorities. The possibilities and limits of liturgical reform were directly governed by social and cultural constraints. Missionaries throughout the church's history have directly faced issues of cultural diversity and inculturation. Paul's address to the Romans in Athens shows the need for ?translating? the truth known in one society in certain cultural forms into the cultural forms of another society. Roman Catholic mission work in the Far East during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries confronted different understandings of father-son relationships, shame and guilt, and forgiveness, all of which had implications for their methods of evangelism. British and North American missionaries of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries encountered similar problems in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The issues of inculturation are unavoidable in worship because much of the church's worship life is carried on at symbolic and metaphoric levels. In contemporary North American culture, the media and social justice issues are shaping the church's worship life. Beginning with televised evangelistic crusades in the 1950s, television and radio have become increasingly important in the presentation of the gospel. Media and publishing empires have been built to keep the Christian message continually floating across the airways. These industries are changing the character of worship in many settings, particularly with regard to music, to the hearing of the Word, and to the size of congregational gatherings. The realities of injustice, racism, exploitation, physical abuse, drug dependence, and homelessness announced daily over television and in newsprint illustrate the decaying moral infrastructure of North American society. Often these conditions exist in larger proportions in immigrant populations or in populations that have been marginalized from the power bases in social life. In the last decade, greater attention has been given to these sins through prayers of confession, prayers of intercession, hymns, special observances for recent martyrs, and increased attention to service in the world and in worship. These examples are meant to illustrate briefly that Christian worship has always been culturally diverse and socially embedded. Worship does not float above the shared mediums of language, symbol, gesture, metaphor, artifact, or relationships of social life, but is shaped by them and expressed through them. As ethnic communities and their cultures gain greater identity in North America generally and in the church specifically, issues of cultural diversity in worship will create opportunities and frustrations for denominations at national and local levels. Conflicts over style, interpretations of symbols, stories, and metaphors, leadership, and differences in socially accepted forms of interpersonal interaction will remain central points of challenge for the church's ability to value the differences represented by each culture and to continually discern truthful practice. One Body—Many Members Paul is explicit in the first letter to the Corinthians about the nature of the church as a body, specifically the body of Christ.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Cor. 12:12–13)

While this text is often taken as a description of the local congregation since it is in the section of the letter addressing the issue of spiritual gifts, Paul's missionary work itself implies that he understood the concept of the body beyond the limits of a specific local gathering. Paul addresses the subject again in Colossians 1:18 and 3:15; the writer of Ephesians speaks in a similar mode (Eph. 2:16; 4:4–13, 16). For those communities influenced by Paul, the body imagery is of central significance. Churches in North America readily acknowledge belief in this metaphor of the church as Christ's body at the abstract level, but struggle to realize its truth at the concrete level. Living as a body in culturally mixed conversations, in mutual sharing, and in a commitment to caring has not characterized church life in general. Congregations most frequently operate on commonly shared assumptions relating to their worldview, the role of humanity in the world, sinfulness, guilt, salvation, power, and grace. Until recently, conversations about a person's experience of these and other ?theological? terms in daily life were rarely heard in church. Where such intense sharing has occurred and is occurring, do worshipers see their commonalities and their differences in cultural and social experience? The body, then, is no longer a disassociated set of members, but a group of members communicating continually about the body's well being and its relationships with its head. Inherited Actions and Beliefs. All Christian congregations and worldwide bodies have inherited certain liturgical actions and beliefs through Scripture and tradition. These fundamental practices and beliefs identify a congregation as being Christian in practice, and therefore different from other religious traditions: (1) God is sovereign over all time, is known personally through Jesus Christ, and guides and ministers to the church and to all believers by the power of the Holy Spirit. (2) God's purpose is the salvation of the entire creation, a gift that will eliminate all sin, heal all brokenness and disease, deal justly with all peoples, and bring to completeness all that God created. (3) God's Word in Christ and in the Scripture reveals God's nature (e.g., God's love, freedom, majesty, transcendence, closeness, etc.), God's saving acts (e.g., God's judgment, redemption, forgiveness, etc.), and God's demands (e.g., faithfulness, righteousness, truthfulness, obedience, etc.). (4) Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the Savior of the world and the model for Christian life. (5) The Holy Spirit leads nonbelievers to faith, sanctifies the church and all who believe, draws believers more deeply into fellowship with Christ and with God, manifests gifts for building up the church, and comforts believers in times of suffering and temptation. (6) The church is the primary agent for God's saving activity in the world. (7) The church's worship is characterized by gathering as a body around God's Word and by sharing the meal Christ ate with his disciples and gave to the church as a sign of covenant. Singing, praying, offering, and exhorting surround these primary acts. (8) Baptism, confirmation, ordination/orders, anointing, reconciliation, and marriage are actions governed by this church for the sake of discerning the body and expressing essential dimensions of God's relationship with God's people. While these beliefs and actions are held by all Christian traditions, their practice varies from church to church due, in part, to the historical circumstances shaping a particular tradition and to the cultural realities in which a tradition took root. Words or texts that have become associated with the rites or practices of a particular tradition often express the shared meaning of the action. A brief perusal of liturgical texts from various traditions reveal differences in theological emphases or in understandings of the purpose of practice. Often, work for ecumenical consensus begins with the attempt to find commonality in the wording of texts that can point to common understandings of the act and its shared meaning. Central Symbols. The central symbols of worship shared by all Christian traditions are Scripture, bread, wine/cup, water, oil, and the gathered body. Through these things, the Holy Spirit makes God's presence known in worshipers' lives in a way that is significantly different from the way God is known through the natural world or through private prayer. While the emphasis on these symbols varies slightly or radically from tradition to tradition, they are found in the orthodox practice and theology of all Christians. Most traditions have used the vernacular language of the worshipers in their liturgies for centuries; the Roman church has used the vernacular since the Second Vatican Council. The subtleties of language itself make it a fascinating aspect of liturgy. Because of the different possibilities and limitations offered by the Spanish and English language in expressing relationships, shades of meaning, which may be different from an English speaker's experience, enter a Spanish speaker's experience even though both worshipers experience the same set of Christian symbols. While language differences are clearly a barrier to communication at the practical level, we are often not aware of differences of interpretation and understanding below the surface. No translation from one language to another can be literal, in the same way that no person's experience in one place can be literally ?translated? or transferred into another time and place. Translations may be truthful to the spirit of the meaning of the original language, but they are never exact. Because words, bread, wine, oil, water, and the body are culturally rich symbols outside of the church, it is not surprising that the church's practice has been influenced by local sociocultural practices. For example, in societies where wine is not a cultivated product and thus has little social meaning, the celebrative and fellowship aspects of the Lord's Supper may be diminished when wine is prescribed. In some cases, missionaries and bishops opted for a more meaningful indigenous substitute; in other cases, wine was imported. These are the kinds of circumstances with which missionaries, pastors, and congregations working cross-culturally must contend. What is usually at issue is not whether one cultural understanding of these central symbols is truthful and the other is false. What is at issue is whether the life-giving power of these symbols can encompass the multitude of sociocultural meanings surrounding them and still remain consonant with the church's experience of God's purpose and character witnessed in Scripture and through the traditions. Secondary Acts and Symbols. Everything else that surrounds the central acts and symbols of worship are secondary in importance. The arrangement of the worship space, the colors used, the specific hymns sung, the arrangement of leadership, vestments, the church calendar, etc., are not ends in themselves, but point out the central symbols of faith and practice. Furthermore, they point to God in Christ. This is not to imply that secondary acts and symbols are insignificant. Indeed, they help worshipers unfold the mystery of God communicated through worship in a specific location at a specific time. In the secondary acts and symbols, cultural uniqueness is seen. Ethos or group feelings of worship is best communicated through them. How the sanctuary is arranged and decorated; what hymns are sung (and in what language); what stories are told and how they are told; what instruments are needed to accompany the music; what colors are used; what style of public prayer is used; how children are involved in worship; how to move from one place to another; how objects are used, all these and a multitude of other aspects are shaped by the culture and society in which worship takes place. In cross-cultural settings, pastors and worship leaders must know the cultures represented in their congregations so well that they can remain focused on what is central (hearing God's Word and sharing at the Table), while encouraging various cultural interpretations and meanings to elaborate or penetrate the central ones. This last point suggests that pastors, worship leaders, and congregational members cannot expect to learn enough about other cultures represented in their body on one hour each Sunday morning. Cross-cultural understanding comes only through sharing in each other's daily lives, asking questions when further knowledge is sought, seeking forgiveness when miscommunications and misunderstandings arise, and genuinely valuing the truth and wisdom found in cultures other than one's own. Cross-cultural understanding takes time, patience, and the guidance of God's Spirit. Signs of Unity in Cultural Diversity Several international organizations have worked directly with cross-cultural diversity in worship with the hope of drawing the body of Christ into fuller unity. Other local efforts to build community have influenced worshiping congregations in other parts of the world. The following list is intended to illustrate the types of work encouraging cross-cultural worship and communication. The Lima liturgy was celebrated for the first time at the World Council of Churches Faith and Order Commission meeting in Lima, Peru, January 1982. It was created to "llustrate the solid theological achievements of the Faith and Order document, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry" (Max Thurian and Geoffrey Wainwright, Baptism and Eucharist: Ecumenical Convergence in Celebration [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983]). It was also used on three occasions prior to the World Council of Churches' meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, 1983. While this text hammers out basic theological agreements on the meaning of Eucharist across most all of the world's Christian traditions, its celebration was an opportunity for cross-cultural worship. The Lima liturgy received a great deal of attention during the years following the Vancouver meeting by liturgists around the world. While all agree that the liturgy is not yet perfect, many also agree that it is the closest thing to a liturgy representing consensus across Christian traditions. What is most interesting about the text of the liturgy is that it does not reveal anything that could be construed as cultural diverse in and of itself. Its outline and texts are drawn from historical sources. An attempt was made to be theological consistent with all participating traditions. It is, essentially, a reformation of the text, keeping central the primary acts of Word and Table. No rubrics are given, regarding the style of celebration or the use of secondary acts or symbols. While the text of this liturgy is set, the music weaving through the liturgy is not set. With the support of the assembly's worship book, Jesus Christ—the Life of the World (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1983), a rich tapestry of musical sounds could be woven.

In order to respect the diversity of people, languages, and traditions present, ecumenical worship relies increasingly on symbols and music, movement and color, silence and shades of light rather than words, abstractions, explanations and argument. When it gets too complicated to speak about God in any detail, you're forced to leave silence and space and to let God fill them, leaving people to hear what they will hear .… After all the words are forgotten, the images of ecumenical meetings like this one linger on. At the Vancouver assembly these were a yellow tent, a native Canadian canoe, a black baby brought to the altar, a totem pole, a haunting kyrie chant, a multicolored cloud of balloons for peace released by children. (Bluck, Canberra Take-Aways: What the Assembly Offers a Local Congregation [Geneva: WCC Publications, 1991], 3, 26.)

Whether the Lima liturgy continues to gain greater acceptance across the Christian church or provides an encouragement for other such liturgies to emerge remains to be seen.

It must be stressed that the World Council of Churches is working ecumenically across cultural identities and not specifically with the problems of cross-cultural worship in the local congregation or denomination. Yet, the experience of those who have served in this organization, particularly on the Worship subcommittee, can provide invaluable guidance for treading the peaceful and turbulent waters of cross-cultural communication. Ecumenical Prayer Cycle. With All God's People: The New Ecumenical Prayer Cycle (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1989) was compiled by John Carden and published by the World Council of Churches unit on Renewal and Congregational Life. The orders cover the seasons and feasts of the church, in addition to services of thanksgiving, the communion of saints, suffering and healing in the world, justice and peace, human rights, people of other faiths, and the affirmation of baptism. While these orders were prepared specifically for ecumenical settings, the prayers, resources, and music provided are from around the world. This prayer cycle would be of somewhat limited use in a cross-cultural congregation, but praying with these resources impresses on the worshipers that the body of Christ is diverse and heightens their respect for the miracle of communion in this body. Taizé Community. The Taizé community in France has become a spiritual retreat center for hundreds of pilgrims each year. The community has developed a simple worship pattern and a simple, yet deeply moving, style of music that accommodates itself to its numerous visitors. Many of the congregational responses are in Latin, honoring the first language of the Western church. However, many other ostinatos, canons, and responses are in English, Spanish, French or German. Instrumentals and accompaniments are outlined for most melodies, but are not played strictly; parts weave in and out of the congregational and solo parts of a piece giving it a fresh and improvised quality each time. The intent of Taizé worship and song is not to accommodate cultural diversity as such, but rather to move the experience of worship to a different plane, where believers of different cultural backgrounds can unite. Hymnal Publishing and Worship Resources. Several North American denominations have enriched their hymnody by publishing new hymnals or supplements devoted to the hymnody of a particular cultural group. The United Methodists have been particularly conscientious in supplementing their standard repertoire with hymns and songs from African-American, Asian, and Native American sources. Cantate Domino (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1980) greatly influenced the hymnal revision work of many denominations in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This collection brought together melodies from around the world and paired them with ancient or modern texts. Jesus Christ—the Life of the World directly supported daily prayer at the World Council of Churches' assembly in Vancouver. The collection contains hymns and songs from across the continents (intended to supplement the resources found in Cantate Domino [1980]) and other written resources from various worldwide bodies. In Spirit and in Truth, created for the World Council of Churches' meeting in Canberra in 1991, contains similar musical and written resources. The World Council of Churches' subunit on Renewal and Congregational Life has sponsored workshops around the world to develop skills in congregational and denominational musicians and worship leaders in order to strengthen ecumenical and cross-cultural worship at local levels. While many congregations find the rhythms and tonalities of some non-Western European music difficult (or impossible) to perform, the benefit of learning hymns and songs from other cultures opens the soul to the heart of another people. To praise in a soft and austere melody or to lament from the soles of one's feet offers an entirely new perspective on the wonder and passion of God. Praise and Worship Singing. The prevalence of electric guitars, keyboards, and drums on radio and television airwaves has created a sound that transcends many cultural boundaries in North America. The sound is almost a cultural commodity. As a result, praise and worship music that imitates this electric music has crossed many cultural boundaries. The intense energy of the music is particularly appealing in cultures that are naturally physically and emotionally expressive. Since the texts of praise and worship songs are usually simple and repetitive, they can be translated easily into other languages or learned aurally by people from other language groups. Christian Base Communities. The Christian based community movement of the third world (particularly in South and Central America, and the Philippines) has not directly changed worship in North America, but it has influenced the way in which many congregations gather around the Scriptures and share in fellowship. As members of these communities brought their experiences of suffering, exploitation, and joy to the study of Scripture, they discovered an increased awareness of God's justice and of their own solidarity. As their stories and prayers were recorded and made available to the larger church in the world, they were heard in North American congregations in sermons or in prayers of confession or intercession. Worshiping cross-culturally requires that the body of Christ not only enjoy the gifts of different cultural perspectives, but also share the pain and suffering presently found in the cultures represented in the body of Christ locally and globally. Here from All Nations, All Tongues, and All Peoples The image of all peoples of the earth gathering in worship has prevailed throughout much of Judeo-Christian history. Psalms (e.g., Ps. 66; 148), Hebrew Scripture prophecies (e.g., Isa. 2:3; 51:11; 60:14; Jer. 31:8; 50:5; Zech. 2:11), and Revelation 7 joyously proclaim this hope. The church throughout much of its history has understood itself theologically to be a unity of culturally diverse assemblies around the world enduring over time. The reality at the end of the twentieth century in North America is that our local communities are effected by cultural diversity in one way or another. Biblical visions and mandates for justice, peace, and salvation require us to take seriously the realities of our cultural strengths and biases that express themselves in religious forms. It will not be enough to tolerate each other in the body, while privately complaining about how hard it is to respect different cultural views. Our worship and our lives will be changed when we come to know God more fully through the expressions of faith by another people. Whether by moving our bodies to new rhythms, by exploring the significant symbols and metaphors of Scripture through another language and culture, and by hearing the experiences of suffering Christians in other ways, we will glimpse briefly in our lifetimes the biblical vision of the world's nations gathered around the Lamb's throne united in praise in God's eternity. Writing about an encounter he had an ecumenical meeting, Alexandros Papaderos says:

I hurried off to the section meeting accompanied by Theodoros Stylianopoulos who, a little earlier, had delivered his plenary address on the Assembly theme. Orthodox bishops and theologians embraced and congratulated him: "Brother, you spoke as a true Orthodox!" Arriving shortly afterwards in my study group, I heard a Brazilian saying with delight: "You know, this Orthodox spoke in a truly evangelical way, taking a thoroughly biblical line!" Other Protestants agreed with him. And I realized that ecumenism is first and foremost the simple yet magnificent experience of recognizing oneself in others! (Alexandros Papaderos, "Ecumenism as Celebration," in Faith and Faithfulness, ed. Pauline Webb [Geneva: WCC Publications, 1984], 34.)

To recognize our common faith is the goal of worship in culturally diverse settings as well. Such a recognition is prompted by God's Spirit moving through our congregations and denominations, uniting the diverse parts of Christ's body. However, the Holy Spirit can work with us only as we are willing to listen to others' experience of God's love, willing to recognize ourselves in other Christians, willing to learn other ways of expressing ourselves to God, and willing to confess our dependence upon the Holy Spirit to create God's church in the world.