A LITURGICAL MANIFESTO: MUSICAL TRANSMISSION AS ECCLESIOLOGY

July 22, 2017 | Autor: Tripp Hudgins | Categoría: Musicology, Technology, Ethnomusicology, Liturgy, Contemporary Christian Music
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A Liturgical Manifesto: Musical Transmission as Ecclesiology Tripp Hudgins Published online: 11 Feb 2015.

Click for updates To cite this article: Tripp Hudgins (2015) A Liturgical Manifesto: Musical Transmission as Ecclesiology, Liturgy, 30:2, 17-25, DOI: 10.1080/0458063X.2015.985928 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0458063X.2015.985928

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Tripp Hudgins

The great mystics, sages and theologians of history have always espoused that all of life is sacred. While the power-hungry and money-lovers within religious power systems may find incentive to parse life into clear-cut categories like “sacred” and “secular”, we, the Liturgists, firmly reject this sort of categorization, insofar as it leads to a destructive domestication or heirarchal [sic] dissolution of the exquisite oneness and wonder of existence. We reject the notion that singing about “God”, for instance, is somehow more inherently “sacred” or “spiritual” than singing about romance, money, or any other aspect of human life.1

With more than 380 million views, Pharrell Williams’s YouTube video “Happy” can reasonably be considered successful.2 One might even say that it went viral. The song was originally composed for the movie Despicable Me 2. The movie was reasonably successful in the theaters and with the DVD release, but what makes the song truly remarkable is what happened after the release, beyond its associations with the film. People around the globe began to make their own music videos with it. Copying the direction from the original, people filmed themselves singing and dancing in the streets of their neighborhoods and cities. That is not all. They did so, in many instances, as a form of protest against the injustices they perceive in their own social context. Shan Wang of mic.com writes: The movement started slowly––first it was the soundtrack to a video of people dancing joyfully in Paris. But then the song began cropping up in videos from countries in political turmoil. One came from the Philippines, a country still picking up the pieces from Typhoon Haiyan. Soon, one followed from Tunis, still reeling from the aftershocks of the Arab Spring. And then another from Moscow. While not a “protest” song in its traditional sense, Pharrell’s “Happy” has taken on a politically charged meaning as an anthem of international resilience.3

Williams contracted to write a fun song for an animated movie featuring little yellow people called Minions. He had no intention of writing an “anthem of international resilience.” And, although Wang states that the movement started slowly, on a broader historical scale, the song went from being an upbeat

Liturgy, 30 (2): 17–25, 2015 Copyright # The Liturgical Conference ISSN: 0458-063X DOI: 10.1080/0458063X.2015.985928

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movie theme to an anthem of resilience for the people of Ukraine at blinding speed. “The pop songs dominating today’s charts,” Wang wrote, “may not be as politically charged as the music of the Vietnam War or the Civil Rights Era, but the beauty of contemporary pop music is its wide reach––ubiquitous, international and infinitely remixable. “Happy” was a blank canvas, and the Internet turned it from Oscar nominee into the sound of rebellion and resilience, even in unrest.”4 Digital technology and the related social technologies afford people the opportunity to transmit and change ideas and art with incredible velocity. These practices also highlight the astonishing lack of control an artist or corporation has over what people decide to do with an artistic product. Many variables are at work, as the above quotation suggests, including choices in composition. “Ubiquitous, international, and infinitely remixable” composition frames a “blank canvas” upon which people can compose their own work. Christian liturgy, especially the musical aspects of liturgy, are no less subject to such appropriation. People import and export musical aspects of liturgy with great ease and have for some time. It is no secret that the recording industry (executives, producers, engineers, managers, and artists) have made a great deal of money presenting devotional and ritual music to a popular audience (see any Christmas album ever made). Similarly, congregations have utilized popular music in liturgy, as well. Even Williams’s “Happy” made it into several liturgies in the Bay Area where I live. Wang continues: “‘A lot of the differences between protest music in the ‘60s and today mostly have to do with differences in the music industry,’ said Jack Hamilton, Slate’s pop critic and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of ColoradoBoulder’s Laboratory for Race and Popular Culture. ‘It might well be more difficult to release a politically-charged album on a major label than it was in the 1960s, but it’s definitely a lot easier to make politically-charged music and have it reach a larger number of people than it’s ever been.’5 Industries are changing. How individuals and communities share, create, or otherwise transmit information, including music, is changing. This is no less true for the church than for the music industry. As the above quotation suggests, the process by which political music is disseminated has changed. In this sense, how we embody our denominational polity or ecclesiology (our theology of gathering and institutionalizing the church) is also changing. Music making can serve as a helpful bellwether for understanding what the trends are and what the future might hold for congregations and denominations. There may be, as the following suggests, a movement at work.

An Early Manifesto At the turn of the millennium, four business insiders published a book entitled The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual.6 In a rather humorous fashion, they attempted to explain how new technology (digital and social) was dramatically changing the business landscape. Markets (read: society) were organizing differently. Business institutions needed to adjust or disappear. Though a congregation or a denomination is not a business as their professed purpose is not to make a financial profit, it is also true to say that our 18

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ecclesial institutions function similarly to other social institutions, including businesses. Some, like pension funds or Christian record labels, behave in very businesslike ways where it might be easy to forget their ecclesial identity.7 Congregations and denominations serve large groups of people, disseminate information, make decisions, manage facilities, publish resources such as hymnals, and organize activities like mission. Thus, social technology is worthy of our consideration. The Cluetrain Manifesto is a helpful place to start. To summarize their work, with a generous nod to Martin Luther and the Reformation, the authors provided “95 Theses” that they nailed on the door of the Internet by posting a blog. See the .pdf on their website. They begin as follows: “Networked markets are beginning to self-organize faster than the companies that have traditionally served them. Thanks to the web, markets are becoming better informed, smarter, and more demanding of qualities missing from most business organizations.”8 For the purpose of this essay, it might be helpful to read “ecclesial institutions” into the rhetoric. “Networked communities are beginning to self-organize faster than the denominations that have traditionally served them.” Rather than waiting for long approval processes from committees on liturgy and music, or hymnal editorial boards, both faith communities and individual Christians are taking matters into their own hands, and making their own liturgies, music, and thus their own theology. To better understand what is at work, what follows is a sampling of the “95 Theses.” For the purposes of the essay, the sample is limited to what is the most obvious corollary to religious institutional life. As “95 Theses” was written more than a decade ago, much of this may now be obvious. Nonetheless, they serve as a primer of sorts. To begin: 1. Markets are conversations. 2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.9

Discourse is no longer the creation and property of officials or official bodies alone, but is now a larger conversation, often between geographically disparate people. People share stories about experiences, ideas, products, current events, the arts, and religion. They may also create together. Williams’s “Happy” is an example of how this can happen. Sampling, dubbing, mixing and remixing are common musical practices. So, too, is covering. More complex versions of this practice exist, as well. Musicians will swap tracks from across the planet to be engineered and mixed somewhere else into a coherent whole. The website Playing for Change is an excellent example of this phenomenon.10 Musicians working with Playing for Change find common ground and explore new expressions with one another thanks to what the new technologies afford them. No longer only targets for a product, people are making their own art in a way that was not possible when broadcast mass media, rather than social media, was the ubiquitous form of both communication and the distribution of such products as popular music. Through social media, artists can compete directly with mass media companies for greater shares of the marketplace: 6. The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media. 7. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.11 19

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A billboard or a television commercial is not a conversation; neither is a tract or a trifold leaflet. These are forms of mass media. The 700 Club is not a conversation. It, too, is an example of mass media. A blog or website chat room, however, is a space for conversation. Twitter, even with all of the apparent chaos, is a space conversation. Hyperlinks, the authors point out, are doorways to information. Both depth and breadth are possible when all one has to do is follow the links. People in conversations with one another can easily share information with hyperlinks. The best practices are changing. The authors of Cluetrain Manifesto also suggest a shift in our understanding of human community that must be engaged to get beyond thinking of institutions as de facto communities rather than tools that communities use to achieve certain goals (such as expressing shared religious beliefs). The technology resituates the sense of identity. Membership consists of those present at a certain moment in a specific conversation. Membership is no longer necessarily based on a lengthy duration of participation in the life of a specific group of people, but can instead be momentary or fleeting: 38. Human communities are based on discourse—on human speech about human concerns. 39. The community of discourse is the market. 40. Companies that do not belong to a community of discourse will die.12

Businesses are no longer the principal locus for discourse about their product. Coke, for example, no longer controls the public conversation about their new diet soda. Instead, the institutions are potential members of a larger conversation. This shift in authority and ownership is essential to understand if we are going to get a sense of how liturgical transmission happens within and across denominations as well as between individual worshipers. The Episcopal Church, for example, may no longer be the principal locus for conversation about its liturgies. Instead, it may be one of many partners in a larger conversation. Again, this assumes that members of the Episcopal Church understand this paradigm shift and choose to participate in that larger conversation. Otherwise, as the theses suggest, the institutional forms are at risk. This might present an incredible shift in ecclesiological understanding for any tradition. And according to the authors of Cluetrain Manifesto, people are making their preferences known and acting upon them: 72. We like this new marketplace much better. In fact, we are creating it. 73. You’re invited, but it’s our world. Take your shoes off at the door. If you want to barter with us, get down off that camel! 74. We are immune to advertising. Just forget it. 75. If you want us to talk to you, tell us something. Make it something interesting for a change.13

Billboards are not conversation partners. Thus, over the last decade or more, corporations have been hiring social media professionals to carry on the conversation. Delta Airlines, for example, has various Twitter feeds with actual people present to speak with customers and others who may have a question.14 It is not always so simple, however, for religious institutions. 20

Lastly, at the end of their “95 Theses,” Cluetrain Manifesto asserts what might be the most uncomfortable of all the theses:

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94. To traditional corporations, networked conversations may appear confused, may sound confusing. But we are organizing faster than they are. We have better tools, more new ideas, no rules to slow us down. 95. We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.15

Chaos is the new norm. This is why the conversation about ecclesiology is so essential. The kind of organization presented online and elsewhere in society appears confused. If ecclesial officials, for example, are not defining the boundaries of their ecclesial bodies, then who is? If an evangelical congregation uses the Book of Common Prayer in worship, are its members Anglican? Or are they Anglican when only formally received by the appropriate authorities? A more chaotic and ephemeral ecclesiology has emerged along with the confusing networks.

A Recent Manifesto “We are internet people,” states Mike McHargue, member of the group The Liturgists.16 On their website, The Liturgists describe themselves as “a collective of creators working together to make thoughtful liturgical work.” Defining liturgy as “the work of the people,” the collective consists of various individuals (some well-known, others lesser-known), groups, musicians, writers, poets, and pastors who can generally be considered progressive evangelicals or emergent Christians. Those who have participated in the creation of liturgies thus far include: Luke Askelson, Andrew Arndt, Rob Bell, Amena Brown, The Brilliance, Rachel Held Evans, Gungor, Mike McHargue, Nichole Nordeman, Aaron Purdy, and Sleeping At Last.17 The collective is very new, not yet a year old, so they have not yet had the same kind of numeric success as Williams (and may not ever). That said, what is most important is to note the assumptions made by the artists. The Liturgists assume that what happened to Williams’s “Happy,” both the rapid transmission and the widespread appropriation, is actually a normal, even desirable, occurrence in the present day. Other modes of transmission such as the creation and publication of print media (worship books, hymnals) are deemed too cumbersome for “an internet people.” In a recent interview, Mike was quick to correct my thinking about The Liturgists’ approach to digital and social technologies. “[This is] the sacred art we needed for worship…we are not chasing market trends…we are producing what we need.” This sentiment echoes thesis seventy-two above as well as thesis two from The Cluetrain Manifesto. They are people simply creating what they need. They are not a demographic group nor are they targeting one. The technology is not the focus nor are the opportunities that the technology affords. Rather than being a gimmick to attract a certain demographic, the technology is simply assumed. Consider this. How many of us think about the telephone with any great intention in our ministry? Do we strategize about it? Likely not very often. 21

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The ubiquity of the technology has rendered the telephone unremarkable. We simply use the telephone. We understand its limitations and its benefits. For an increasing number of people, this is also true for the Internet, social technologies, and digital media. The technology is not a strategy. It simply is. The Liturgists also have a manifesto, as the first quote in this essay explains (see the title page). Note the conflation between corporate greed and the separation of sacred and secular expressions of faithfulness. They write of “religious power systems” rather than “corporations,” per se, but the parallel with this manifesto and The Cluetrain Manifesto is no less obvious. It would be, one might assume, easier to sell your worship CDs or hymnals if you don’t have to compete on the open market. Instead, one might fashion a much smaller “sacred” marketplace where chances of developing a monopoly of sorts is stronger. In the separation of sacred from secular, an institution might indeed be exerting a kind of power. Liturgiologist and theologian Don Saliers writes about the challenge of the bifurcation between secular and sacred, as well, by noting that “the contrast between ‘secular’ and ‘sacred’ music shifts with ever-changing social and cultural contexts. We are again, in North American cultural contexts, in a time of debate and controversy over these terms.”18 The Liturgists are defining for themselves the specifics of the controversy. It is found in the nature of the power that “religious power systems,” whether they be denominational committees or, in the case of The Liturgists, the Christian Contemporary Music scene, hold in the lives of the faithful. The advent of digital and social technologies affords The Liturgists the opportunity to subvert these power systems and make their own way, even providing a foundational theology to their work. Likewise, subverting the present power structure affords The Liturgists the opportunity to demonstrate through spiritual practices like making music and the Eucharist that “a healthy practiced spiritual discipline leads one to seeing the spirituality and sacredness within the mundane. In spiritual disciplines or sacrament, mere silence becomes the voice of God, and a dry piece of bread becomes the very Body of Christ.”19 Spiritual disciplines eliminate the binary of sacred and secular. This leads the collective to articulate a certain aesthetic preference rooted in the theological assumption of “oneness and wonder.” This is specifically related to institutional structures and how human beings are compelled to live within them. The Liturgists perceive an aesthetic problem in the music produced for the limiting confines of the larger corporate structures such as publishing houses and music studios: Rather, like corporate jingles, hotel room paintings, Disney cartoon songs or any number of musical expressions designed primarily to carry a “message,” there is often a temptation to resort to what is safely vanilla and imitative of what has already been successful in popular culture. We, the Liturgists, seek to overcome this temptation and become a community of progressive musical composers, poets, preachers, filmmakers and other artists who work together to create “good” (thoughtful, creative, hopeful and evocative) liturgical work.20

Along with the “Manifesto” is a brief list of the values they hold that are intended to anchor their work: beauty, justice, unity, and Christian 22

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theology.21 Succinctly stated, each value is intended to frame their work. As they intend on having a variety of participants in the work of the collective, the framing is intentionally loose. Interestingly, “unity” is understood as stemming from diversity of opinion, perspective, philosophy, and theology. Though this is listed third, it seems most appropriate to framing their manifesto in The Cluetrain Manifesto. A wide-sweeping conversation assumes loosely held relationships. Unity is a value that reflects the nature of the kinds of communities that are being formed in the process of the work of the collective. Recall numbers 94 and 95 above. Mike McHargue states, “Instead of rebuking the disorganized church, we embrace them.” The phrase “disorganized church” is where we come upon the alternative ecclesiology possible with the new technology. There have always been disenfranchised or disaffected members of the body of Christ. The Liturgists understand this existence not to be a detriment, but simply to be a particular way of faithfully following Jesus in today’s social reality. McHargue continues, “Many still treat the Internet like Samaria. We walk right down Main Street in Samaria.” The Liturgists perform liturgies. These are both live Internet events and downloadable extended play recordings (EP’s). The liturgies have different ordos because of the media used––live performance or a downloadable EP. The ordo for the live event, according to Mike McHargue, is as follows: “vapor—lament—celebration/resurrection—eucharist (the finale of the resurrection act).” The beginning of the liturgy assumes a gathering of disparate individuals, people coming from all over to join in worship. These liturgies are singular events and not the practice of a regular worshiping community.22 Moving from vapor to lament, McHargue states, “We are tired of happy happy happy joy joy joy Christianity; all is not good. Resurrection isn’t done.” It is a powerful theological trajectory for a dispersed community. After the lament, they are called to praise God who is present in the resurrection of Christ Jesus. Lastly, they celebrate the Eucharist, the “finale of the resurrection act.” Though beyond the scope of this brief essay, the specifics of these liturgies deserve serious study. How does this liturgical shape compare with other liturgical shapes? “Vapor” is also the name of The Liturgists’ first EP.23 This particular EP has three tracks, “Vapor (A Meditation),” “Vapor,” and “Centering Prayer,” which is a fifteen-minute guided meditation facilitated by Mike McHargue. Guitar, cello, and a female voice are featured at the beginning of “Vapor.” As the piece progresses, more voices and instruments (strings, synthesizer, and percussion) are layered into the composition, adding drama to the simple, beautiful melody. Though people are free to do what they will with the EP, The Liturgists do offer recommendations. McHargue says, “‘Vapor’ is a liturgy based on the teachings of Kohelet (The Teacher) in Ecclesiastes about the vapor of all things. To fully experience the liturgy, we recommend making some space where you can devote your full attention to the experience. Both individual and communal engagement is encouraged. Feel free to use any of this material in your own liturgical contexts and let us know how it works for you!”24 Also, here is where we see the assumption of the normalcy of the transmission of information, specifically the appropriation of music, as we witnessed with Williams’s “Happy.” One can simply download the charts 23

and sheet music for “Vapor” as well as for other works. The Liturgists are assuming a conversation. They assume a kind of assembly. And they assume a great deal of liberty in the use of the media that reflects the nature of the assembly and the nature of liturgy itself. McHargue says:

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First, it’s liturgical art. It’s meant to be a resource for gatherings. So, sometimes those are gatherings in Churches. Other times they aren’t. And sometimes those gatherings are virtual, carried out on social media. We are trying to tear down boundaries and restrictions .…It’s in a specific place, but can drive people to a state or reverence who aren’t there because it’s also a demonstration. People take “Vapor” and execute it as a liturgy, they play it, they share, they search, they do the meditation.25

McHargue uses “liturgy” to mean both a practice and a specific resource. There is an intentional conflation of the concepts as well that reflects an ethos of “tearing down boundaries and restrictions.” A liturgy is intended to be transmitted easily, as freely as the assembly gathers and disperses. Liturgical theologian Stefan Böntert writes: The forms of sociality that arise online can be opened up for what assembly means in a theological sense, that is, as a relational encounter in the redemptive presence of Jesus Christ and of human beings with one another. The internet does not only offer information about ecclesial communion; rather, a community formed by coming together online, and grounded in the shared experience of having been claimed by God, contains the potential for community with God to come about online.26

An assembly is assumed in a conversation. Even if mediated by technology, there is a gathering of God’s faithful. As McHargue said, this is what it means to embrace the disorganized. Our long-held ecclesiologies will be stretched with the new sociality presented. I began this essay with a tale of a song: how it was transmitted, how it was appropriated by various communities, and how it became something beyond what the composer originally imagined it would be. It provided a helpful example of how the music industry is struggling to understand and navigate the new forms of social life made possible because of digital and social technologies. My hope is that we can come to understand that the music industry is analogous to the church, and that as new forms of institutional and individual expression emerge within musical practices, the same is true for liturgical practices. By tracing the creation of liturgies and the constituent music by The Liturgists, we begin to see a new set of ecclesiological assumptions come to the fore that include easy transmission, appropriation, open conversation, and impermanent gathering communities (assemblies). As McHargue said, this is liturgy for “an Internet people.” This is liturgy for the disorganized church. Tripp Hudgins is a doctoral student in liturgical studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, and is director of admissions at American Baptist Seminary of The West.

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Notes 1. “Why,” The Liturgists, http://www.theliturgists.com/manifesto/. The text is pulled directly from their website. All punctuation and spelling choices are theirs. 2. Pharrell Williams—Happy (Official Music Video), 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6SxvsUYtM&feature=youtube_gdata_player. 3. Shan Wang, “How This Became the Surprising Protest Song of Our Generation,” Mic, 201, http:// mic.com/articles/85423/how-this-became-the-surprising-protest-song-of-our-generation. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger, The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual (Cambridge: Basic Books, 2000). See www.cluetrain.com for a free downloadable copy of the book. 7. Monique Marie Ingalls, Carolyn Landau, and Thomas Wagner, eds., Christian Congregational Music: Performance, Identity and Experience (England: Ashgate, 2013), 117. See Anna Nekola’s essay in this collection, “‘I’ll Take you There’: The Promise of Transformation in the Marketing of Worship Media in US Christian Music Magazines.” 8. Levine, Locke, Searls, and Weinberger, Cluetrain Manifesto. 9. Ibid. 10. “Home,” http://playingforchange.com/. 11. Levine, Locke, Searls, and Weinberger, Cluetrain Manifesto. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. See: @DeltaAssist, https://twitter.com/DeltaAssist. “We’re listening around the clock, 7 days a week. We try to answer all tweets but if you require a response pls visit http://www.delta.com/ talktous or call 800-221-1212.” 15. Levine, Locke, Searls, and Weinberger, Cluetrain Manifesto. 16. Mike McHargue, interview by Tripp Hudgins, August 5, 2014. 17. See http://www.theliturgists.com/who/. 18. Don E. Saliers, Music and Theology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007), 56. 19. http://www.theliturgists.com/manifesto/. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. Many in the collective participate in regular worshiping communities. 23. Vapor, The Liturgists, http://www.theliturgists.com/vapor/. 24. Ibid. See additional EPs released for various seasons in the church year. 25. Mike McHargue, interview by Tripp Hudgins, August 5, 2014. 26. Stefan Böntert, “Liturgical Migrations into Cyberspace: Theological Reflections,” in Liturgy in Migration: From the Upper Room to Cyberspace, ed. Teresa Berger, trans. Stephen McCarthy (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 287.

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